From the Australian.

THE stars of Australia’s fine-dining firmament were out and shining on Tuesday night to hear Peter Gilmore’s Quay named Restaurant of the Year at the Australian Gourmet Traveller 2009 Restaurant Guide Awards.

Three-star chefs Neil Perry, Tetsuya Wakuda and Guillaume Brahimi - not to mention Sydneysider Gilmore himself - were among those who swapped aprons for finer threads and made their way to Sydney’s Wharf Restaurant for one of the hospitality industry’s biggest nights.

The awards are Australia’s only national competition, a fact reflected by the geographic spread of the winners.

The Royal Mail Hotel in Victoria’s Dunkeld was named Regional Restaurant of the Year. Executive chef Dan Hunter took over last year and has made the eatery a site of pilgrimage for gastronomes everywhere.

Also in Victoria, Brahimi’s Bistro Guillaume was named Best New Restaurant, marking the second time in as many years that a Sydneysider has won the award for a Melbourne restaurant.

The awards are likely to stoke the fierce rivalry between the Sydney and Melbourne restaurant scenes. While nine Sydney restaurants received a three-star rating in the guide - Rockpool, Tetsuya’s and last year’s winner, Pier, among them - Melbourne’s only three-star venue remains Shannon Bennett’s gastro-temple Vue de monde.

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