Three Ballarat restaurants awarded hats by Australian Good Food Guide

Mair Street Italian restaurant Ragazzone was awarded its first chef hats in the guide, while Ballarat stalwart Mr Jones Dining received hats for the eighth year in a row and regular winner Underbar was also awarded.

Underbar led the city with 16 hats out of a possible 20, while Ragazzone and Mr Jones were awarded 12 each. No restaurant has been awarded a score of 20.

The Australian Good Food Guide, which is a separate entity from The Age and Sydney Morning Herald's Good Food Guide, assesses restaurants based on only these six attributes: ingredients, taste, presentation, technique, value and consistency.

Mr Jones Dining owner and chef Damien Jones said consistency was key to the restaurants eight-year run, both as Catfish and its current incarnation.

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"I guess at the start, you need to be innovative to get recognised, which is where I think Ragazzone's done really well to be recognised," he said.

"Initially, it takes some to stand out, to be recognised for the first one or two and after that, it's just probably being consistent with what you're doing, which is also just as tricky as getting recognised, it's not an easy thing to achieve."

Ragazzone celebrated the award on social media, posting the restaurant's score on Instagram.

"We are incredibly grateful to receive this award and want to thank each and every guest who has supported us," the post said. "Grazie mille."

The awards are yet another milestone for Ballarat's booming food scene, with restaurants recognised in the other Good Food Guide and OpenTable's Top 50 restaurants of 2021.

Mr Jones said it was a great thing for Ballarat to have three hatted restaurants, not just for the individual restaurants, but for the city as a whole.

"When you're looking at these awards and you see there are three restaurants this year from Ballarat, it gives credibility to the dining scene, which is what Ballarat's always needed, a body of restaurants for people that come to town," he said.

"There are now three restaurants, if not more, that people can come to that have been recognised so it makes the trip worthwhile. It's about building a depth to the dining scene, which is fantastic.

"I think initially there was this big wow factor that there were so many restaurants after a long time that just turned up. This was probably a few years ago now where everyone was going on food scene's arrived, it hadn't really, but it feels like it has now with these three restaurants that have been recognised."

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Mr Jones said while he was one of the chefs leading the charge in making Ballarat a dining destination, there were plenty more to come.

"You've got to start somewhere and we started it, so it's great and there's plenty more to come, I'm sure," he said.

"Derek from Underbar is someone that serves a special mention... What he's doing is really incredible. He's taking it's the next level and pushing harder than anyone has before.

"It's great there are people like Derek that are pushing really hard and trying to be really consistent, pushing along there are new people as well, like Ragazzone, that are also trying to set a standard."

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