Long renowned for its beaches and theme parks, there’s a new sophistication to the Gold Coast. Some of Australia’s best-known chefs are moving there, and 2023 will see more new restaurants opening and some of Australia’s most anticipated hotel openings. The Langham Gold Coast opened in June – the region’s first new beachfront luxury property in 30 years. Its Michelin-starred, Cantonese-themed signature restaurant, T’Ang Court, just opened (in December), the first in Australia. Australia’s first Mondrian hotel will open in Burleigh Heads in mid-2023, the southern Gold Coast’s first luxury hotel. Expect to see hip new things in 2023; from FinePrint Co Art Bar, an up-market art gallery mixed with a cocktail bar that epitomises the region’s new cultural consciousness, to Australia’s first floating luxury beach club, La Luna. There’s also a host of new restaurant openings in a refashioned version of old tourist trap, Surfers Paradise.

It is set to be a huge 2023 for Sydney, with the largest number of hotel and restaurant openings since the Covid pandemic. Sydney’s the only Australian city to appear on American Express’s 2023 Trending Destinations List (destinations customers most want to travel to world-wide). W Sydney is set to open at Darling Harbour in October with a two-storey roof-top bar and 585 rooms, making it the largest of the 60-plus hotels the company own world-wide. Capella Sydney will take over an entire block in the CBD from March, spanning eight levels, including three new dining venues. Over the past 12 months restaurant openings have sky-rocketed, with most new hatted restaurants on the Good Food Guide being new Sydney eateries. Look out for exciting new openings next year from NOMAD, chef Josh Niland and the Fink Restaurant Group.

After a quiet three years in the wake of the Covid pandemic and the December 2019 bushfires (where nearly half the island burnt to the ground), 2023 is set to re-establish Kangaroo Island as one of Australia’s top tourist icons. While the island remained a popular destination for the domestic drive market, it lost some of its best luxury accommodation and experiences. But Australia’s most lauded luxury accommodation, Southern Ocean Lodge, will reopen in October after a $50 million rebuild. And Wander opened four luxury eco-pods on December 1, which look out across the island’s less visited north-west coast. You’ll also get to experience two of Australia’s newest and most unique restaurant experiences, five minutes drive from Wander On Kangaroo Island. Gastronomy Dining offer an eight-course degustation meal in a 19th Century shearing shed, and fine dining within a 130-year-old fig tree.

Queensland’s Scenic Rim had been flying completely under the radar till Lonely Planet named it one of the world’s top regions to visit in 2022 (the only Australian destination to make the list). Located along the rim of an ancient volcano an hour’s drive from Brisbane and the Gold Coast, more and more luxury attractions are now opening up. In 2022, regional Queensland’s best new regional restaurant, Blume, opened in sleepy Boonah, while luxurious eco-pods, Wander At The Overflow, 1895 and Beechmont Estate (with a restaurant overseen by one of Queensland’s most awarded chefs, Cameron Matthews) opened months before. There’s now wineries, paddock-to-plate gourmet restaurants and high-end lodges, but you’ll find as many honesty farm stalls by the side of the road sprinkled amongst World Heritage-listed national parks.

Long overlooked in favour of that ‘other’ Tasmanian city, Hobart, Launceston is coming into its own. Named Tasmania’s Top Tourism Town for 2022, it recently achieving status as one of only two Australian cities to be named a UESCO City Of Gastronomy, 2023 may be the year Launceston becomes that Tasmanian city you can’t miss.