Sydney's Saint Peter Lands at No. 50 on The 50, First Australian Entry in Eight Years

Saint Peter, the Sydney seafood restaurant run by Julie and Josh Niland, has placed 50th in The 50 — making it the first Australian restaurant to crack the global top 50 in nearly a decade. The last was Melbourne's Attica, led by chef Ben Shewry, which peaked at number 20 in 2018.

The ranking, announced at Wednesday night's ceremony in Lima, Peru, marks a steep climb for a restaurant that only debuted on the longlist at number 98 in 2024, then jumped to 66th last year. Chef Josh Niland also collected the award for best restaurant in Oceania at the same event.

Saint Peter opened in 2016. Its economic and culinary signature is a head-to-tail approach to fish — a sourcing and menu-engineering strategy that monetizes parts most kitchens pay to discard. Past menus have included pasta made from fish bones, fish-eye ice-cream and tuna aged for 20 days, wringing yield from raw material that conventional fine dining throws away.

What changed in the last 12 months?

Service, not just sourcing. Speaking in Lima before the ceremony, Niland said his team spent the past year scrutinizing every guest interaction.

"Saint Peter turned 10 this year, and in the last 12 months we've really tried to analyse every service touch," he said. "The food, our point of view and the way we work with fish is very unique and quite special, but only in the last 12 months have we really been able to put a bow on it."

The rest of the podium

Spain's Asador Etxebarri took the top award, moving up from second place in 2025. Bangkok's Gaggan finished second and Copenhagen's Alchemist third.

Australia picked up a second accolade: chef Hugh Allen won the one-to-watch award for his Melbourne fine-dining restaurant Yiaga.

Why one ranking matters for a whole market

Niland framed the result as bigger than his own dining room. "We don't need Michelin and 50 best to tell us what's wonderful, because we all know we're spoiled. But we do need a bit of global awareness … This is less about Saint Peter and more about Australia," he said.

Allen made the industry case plainly. "The more Aussie restaurants that do well, it helps everyone, because it gets more people wanting to hopefully come out and see what we do," he said. "It's one of those tyranny of distance things."

The list, first published in 2002, is voted by an academy of more than 1,000 chefs, restaurateurs, food writers and well-travelled diners. It rebranded this year from "World's 50 Best Restaurants" to simply The 50.

For a restaurant that climbed 48 places in three years, the question is how much higher the trajectory runs — and whether other Australian operators follow Saint Peter onto the longlist next year.