Flower Drum Chinese restaurant wins Good Food Guide Restaurant of the Year in 2025

In the office of Flower Drum’s general manager Jason Lui, there’s a cache of old menus covered in scribbled signatures. Next to listings for $5.50 sweet corn chicken soup and $4 dim sum (“4 different varieties in a steaming hot bamboo basket”) are doodles of diners like Lenny Kravitz, Nicolas Cage, Mick Jagger, Bob Dylan, Hugh Grant, Jackie Collins, Tom Jones, David Bowie.

The roll call of celebrity guests is just one sign of the 50-year-old restaurant’s influence on the public. Regulars include politicians, underworld figures and industry leaders, as well as foodie luminaries who all come for their own reasons. But most would agree that his consistency and standards are second to none.

Star chef Neil Perry says of the venue he has frequented for 40 years: “It has always offered the best ingredients you can find in Australia and the most intuitive service you will ever find; I don’t know how you could go about that even if you wanted to.”

Flower Drum’s impressive performance was recognized this week when it was named Restaurant of the Year. Age Good Food Guide 2026The Chinatown restaurant won the top gong for the fifth time.

In a food world fueled by the artsy and progressive, it is revolutionary for a restaurant dating back to the 1970s to win the award. Directory‘s biggest prize, especially since it has barely evolved since it opened.

Perry’s connection to the place runs so deep that an off-menu dish is named after him: “Neil Perry’s Noodles,” aka egg noodles tossed with carefully selected mud crab, ginger and shallots.

These secret dishes and whether they are accessible to those in the know have been discussed a lot over the years, and this has increased the appeal of the place.

Lui confirms that there are indeed many off-menu items, including chicken wings marinated in shrimp paste; delicious steamed pudding with crab or lobster; and a whole fish with the flesh removed and made into a fish cake-like paste with pork sausage and tangerine, then stuffed back into the fish.

The restaurant has hosted underworld figures Mick Gatto and Graham Kinniburgh and has been voted the favorite restaurant of former prime minister Jeff Kennett and billionaire Lindsay Fox. Racehorse trainer Bart Cummings and Mushroom Records founder Michael Gudinski were also fans.

When asked why Flower Drum is such an important place for the powerful, famous and influential, Lui says: “The problem is the spacing of the tables and the privacy we offer – you can chat without being overheard.

“People tell me over and over how much they appreciate the tables being well spaced. That and the plush carpet that muffles the sound.”

Lui says that for many of his regular celebrity customers, the restaurant has a comforting familiarity, like “coming home” to them.

“Actually more than a restaurant” Directory says co-editor Emma Breheny. “A living, breathing organism that never breaks away from the national dinner conversation, while preserving the Cantonese classicism and blue-ribbon service it inaugurated.”

‘People tell me over and over how much they appreciate the tables being well spaced. That and the plush carpet that muffles the sound.’

Jason Lui, general manager

It was an inauspicious start for the Cantonese fine dining restaurant, which opened in 1975 in a converted car park on Little Bourke Street. Original owner Gilbert Lau said the restaurant had not become popular for at least three years. Lau said he didn’t have to take on more debt, but survival was no guarantee.

In 1980, he won two chef’s hats at the inaugural Flower Drum ceremony. Age Appropriate Food Guide. In 1985, it moved to its current, much larger premises on Market Lane, and by the late 1980s international celebrities had joined the teeming ranks of diners jostling for seats in the red-carpeted, pristine tablecloth dining hall.

Chef, author and educator Tony Tan considers Flower Drum to be one of the best, arguably the greatest, Cantonese restaurants in the world.

“This is not patriotic or narrow-minded,” Tan says. “I’ve been to the best Cantonese restaurant in Hong Kong, the three-Michelin-starred Lung King Heen, and Flower Drum is even better. Everything from the food to the service to the 35-page wine list is uncompromisingly excellent.”

Breheny says it’s rare for fine dining to maintain such high standards over decades. “This is a huge accomplishment, especially considering we have been through one of the most turbulent times for restaurants in recent memory.”

Flower Drum changed Australia’s understanding of Chinese cuisine. When it opened, Chinese food to many people meant minced meat suey, sweet and sour pork, and deep-fried ice cream.

“What he’s done since then is piggyback on Melbourne’s reputation for Chinese food and take it around the world,” he said. Directoryhe says. “It celebrates Victoria’s Chinese history and connects us to Chinese culture.”

Jason Lui is the son of chef Anthony Pui Lui, who bought the restaurant from Lau in 2002 along with two other staff members, Patricia Fung and William Shek. Chef Lui, 78, still oversees the Cantonese-speaking kitchen.

“He’s here about four nights a week,” says his son Jason. “He oversees everything, but most of the time he’s walking around at 9pm with a glass of wine in his hand.

“After running this kitchen since 1981, he can now do whatever he wants.”

About half of the 100 staff in the kitchen and dining room have been with the restaurant for more than 20 years. Jason Lui says about eight of them serve a menu adjusted to modern standards, but “many items are very similar to those from more than 40 years ago.”

‘Always offering the best materials available in Australia and the most intuitive service you’ll ever find.’

Chef Neil Perry

The first edition of the magazine featured only three other restaurants. Directory They’re around today in the 1980s: Abla’s, Jimmy Watson’s and Vlado’s Charcoal Grill. However, it is the Flower Drum that has managed to survive at the top of the food tree, the proof of which is the winning of the prize. DirectoryIt was awarded the Restaurant of the Year award four times between 1999 and 2004 and is considered one of the 50 best restaurants in the world. Restaurant Magazine In the UK for four consecutive years since 2002.

“In an age of decreasing attention spans and disposable trends, solid leadership is as vital as ever,” says Sweet. “A table at the Drum is more coveted than at any point in its 50-year history.”

His 50th birthday in May was celebrated with a staff party with “lots of food and drink” for current and former staff, according to Lui.

“I left at 3 o’clock and my father [chef Anthony Lui] and Gilbert [Lau, former owner] The old warhorses were still there, telling stories about the good old days.”

The Good Food app is the home of the 2026 edition. Age Good Food GuideMore than 500 reviews, including 123 Critics’ Picks. The app is free for premium subscribers Age and is also available as a standalone subscription. You can download the Good Food app Here.