Prince Harry’s choice of an Elouera restaurant for his farewell dinner in Sydney last May was well vindicated by its recent selection as 47th of the top 100 Australian restaurants.
The Dimmi People’s Choice awards, where diners vote on restaurants, saw Summer Salt located in the Elouera Surf Club, being named as the 14th for the best views, 18th for best service and 6th for the best fine dining in NSW.
Past diners, apart from Prince Harry, have included tennis ‘‘royalty’’ Lleyton Hewitt and his wife Bec and from the world of cricket, Glenn McGrath, and his wife, Sara. The restaurant re-opened on February 29 after a five day closure for refurbishing and to give staff a break after the busy Christmas-New Year season. General manager Brooke O’Hehir said the Dimmi wins were a surprise.
‘‘The great thing is that the awards are a result of (independent) diners’ votes and they are the votes we particularly value,’’ she said.
There were more than 700,000 diners voting on the latest restaurant reservations website. Three other shire restaurants also won acclaim including Serendip at Tradies, Gymea, whose owners are Chrisse Quan and Tony Leung. They earned kudos as tops for the restaurant’s Asian food. Serendip serves Asian fusion style food, with a second shire restaurant also being acclaimed for its Asian food.
Seven Taverns, Sylvania, serves Japanese and Korean food. Menai’s Rocksalt took out 88th place as the best NSW restaurant for romance, parties and groups.
Last year Rocksalt’s husband and wife team Aron and Vanessa Filetti were runners-up in the Australia-wide Channel 9 show, The Hot Plate.
In that contest the winner, a Brisbane Japanese restaurant, received the winning $100,000 prize with 26 points to Rocksalt’s 24 points.
The Dimmi People’s Choice awards are given to restaurants based on diner reviews and ratings. Of all the states NSW scored the highest number in the top 100 with 45 venues, and Victoria scoring 24 restaurants.
This year Western Australia had 13 restaurants in the top 100, seven more more than last year. Dimmi founder Stevan Premutico said the company offered a democratic ‘‘best restaurant’’ list that differed from other surveys.
