In 2025, SBS celebrates 50 years of connecting communities across Australia through storytelling. In the spirit of sharing, we highlight some restaurants across Australia of a similar age that have stood the test of time. Here are the venues you can visit to taste 50 (give or take!) years worth of history, from icons like Bennelong to family-run gems.
Flower Drum, Melbourne
This high-end Cantonese restaurant, situated in Melbourne’s Chinatown, is a famed destination that blends old world traditions with modern creativity, fine food, great wine and refined service. Flower Drum's plush red-carpet and Chinese wall art provides warming notes of grand romance while the restaurant’s food and drink offerings celebrate fresh, seasonal Asian dining.
The restaurant, named after an elegant traditional dance, was first opened in 1975 by Gilbert Lau on Little Bourke Street. Now located in Market Street, Melbourne, the restaurant is led by executive chef Anthony Lui and operations manager, Jason Lui.
Expect dishes like spring rolls filled with a braised brisket of saltbush lamb, a Scotch century egg encased in quail meat, aromatic baked crab shell, braised lamb claypot, Peking duck or roast suckling pig – all delicacies that have led to the restaurant's now legendary status.
Bennelong, Sydney
Housed inside the Sydney Opera House is a restaurant as old and symbolic as the sails of the iconic Australian landmark itself. While not strictly a 50-year-old – Bennelong has been around for 52 years, opening when the Opera House was inaugurated – we couldn't look past this icon for this list.
The restaurant was officially opened Queen Elizabeth II in1973, and has gone through a few different owners and chefs over the years, starting with German-born restaurateur Oliver Shaul. It has since been run by Amanda Bilson and Janni Kyritsis and our own Guillaume Brahimi, who elevated it into a three-hatted fine dining establishment in 2001.
From the archives: Bennelong Restaurant, circa 1985. Photo supplied by Sydney Opera House.
Over the past decade, Bennelong has built up a reputation as one of Sydney's, if not Australia's finest restaurants, with a focus on a seasonal, produce-led menu celebrating Indigenous Australian ingredients.
The restaurant pays homage to the locale as well – Bennelong point having always had a rich history of eating and communing for the Gadigal people – with subtle nods to First Nations culture through art and installations accenting the elegant harbour-front glass-walled interiors.
Dishes like a delicate Western Australian marron served with finger lime, cultured cream and buckwheat pikelet; roasted Murray cod with kai lan, whole lemon puree and oyster jus; or the legendary Bennelong pavlova – where the meringue represents the sails of the Opera House – truly taste like Australia on a plate.
La Trattoria, Adelaide
This 50-year-old Italian restaurant has iconic status throughout the SA capital. La Trattoria was first established in 1975 by a pair of brothers, Andy and Natale (Chris) Parisi who were taught how to cook Italian cuisine by their mother and learned the business of running a restaurant from their father.
The original restaurant, a former butcher shop, started out with small pizza oven out the front and an eating area in the back. With time, the business picked up and the restaurant expanded, and over the years, it became a local institution, known for Italian hospitality and its epic pizza menu.
There’s Messina pizza (anchovies, capsicum and ham), Sardinia (tomato, char-grilled eggplant, sundried tomato, artichoke, feta cheese, Spanish onion and fresh basil) and the award-winning Andy’s Marinara (king prawns, scallops, calamari, cheese and fresh basil). The restaurant also offers traditional Italian antipasti, salads and pastas.
With a lively, vibrant atmosphere, La Tratt has attracted television celebrities, sportspeople and politicians alike through its doors.
Il Gambero, Melbourne
Family recipes that descend from Italy have filled the hearts and delighted the taste buds for the past 50 years at this casual restaurant, located in the heart of Little Italy on Melbourne’s famous Lygon Street.
As the name suggests, Il Gambero (meaning 'the shrimp') is famous for its prawn dishes that range from garlic prawns to prawn pizza and prawn pasta. The menu of home-style Italian dishes, cooked and served by three generations of family hailing from the Italian island of Stromboli, also includes Italian classics like eggplant and leek lasagna, lamb ragu and risotto marinara with clams, mussels, prawns, calamari and scallops.
The restaurant’s long-standing matriarch is Angela DiMattina, the 83-year-old co-founder who is still involved in business operations. “I am semi-retired but still like to come down here and talk to people,” DiMattina tells SBS. “There are a number of people who come to eat here today, who used to dine with us many years ago. That’s very special."
The Greek Club, Brisbane
Nostimo (νόστιμο), meaning ‘tasty’, is the restaurant at The Greek Club, which was established in 1975 to support the local community of Greek migrants and people with Greek ancestry to remain connected to their culture.
Fifty years later, the club, located in Brisbane's South, is still going strong, strengthening cultural connections within the local Greek community through food while also promoting Greek culture throughout Queensland.
Chef-in-residence David Tsirekas serves up traditional Greek dishes with a modern twist – think dishes like pork belly baklava, a savoury and sweet layering of meat and fat, with pastry and nuts in traditional baklava-style. Also on the menu are traditional favourites like chargrilled octopus, souvlaki, mixed grill platter, moussaka and loukoumades. Diners can wash all of that down with a shot of ouzo, a Greek wine or beer and know they’re helping to continue a legacy of Greek dining culture in Brisbane.
Roma Bar, Darwin
If want to live like a local in Darwin, there’s one place to go for coffee, breakfast or lunch. That’s Roma Bar, a café with a 53-year history.
This casual cafe offers diversity on a plate. It serves Italian-style coffee and an all-day breakfast menu with alternating lunch specials spanning Australian, Thai and Indian breakfast options. Of note on the menu is the Indian breakfast (dahl served with yoghurt, house-made roti and lime pickle). This item has been available for over 25 years – that’s older than some of its diners.
Ever since 1989, the CBD café, a popular haunt of journalists and judicial officials alike, has been owned and operated by the same family – Phoebe Breyer-Menke and her parents.
At the time of writing, Roma Bar was up for sale. Here’s to another 53 years of diverse dining as the establishment opens a new chapter.
Zia Pina Pizzeria, Sydney
This famous pizza restaurant is located in the Rocks area in Sydney, and has been providing diners with slices of Italian tradition topped with Aussie history since 1976.
The heritage-listed property that houses the pizzeria business was once the site of Australia’s first assistant surgeon's house, constructed shortly after the arrival of the First Fleet.
The restaurant changed hands 32 years ago and since then, it’s become local institution run by one Italian family.
At the two-storey trattoria today, you’ll find rustic Italian décor – wooden tables spread over two stories dressed in red and white chequered tablecloths and exposed brick walls.
The owners estimate that they’ve made over a million pizzas to-date. The pizza menu includes familiar styles like quattro formaggi and capricciosa, and traditional pizzas like tonno with tuna and Spanish onions and bufala with buffalo milk mozzarella, besides other Italian classics like antipasti, soups and pastas.
