Try a bakery meat pie, a flat white from a local café and a classic lamington. Australian food also draws on Indigenous traditions, regional seafood and café dishes shaped by migration, reflecting many histories and influences.
Everyday Australian favourites
A traditional meat pie is a common choice: flaky pastry surrounds minced or diced meat and gravy, commonly beef. Look for one at a bakery, or try a sausage sizzle, where a sausage is served in bread at a barbecue or community fundraiser.
Vegemite is a distinctive savoury spread invented in Melbourne in 1923. Its strong, salty taste is closely associated with Australian food; spread a small amount on toast to start. Pick up a Tim Tam for a quick packaged snack. It is a chocolate biscuit with chocolate cream filling and a chocolate coating.
Bakery sweets and desserts
A lamington is sponge cake coated in chocolate and desiccated coconut. Some versions include jam and cream. It is often regarded as Australia’s national cake, though its exact origins are less clear-cut than the cake’s strong association with Australia.
Pavlova, topped with cream and fruit, is a popular choice for celebrations. Australia and New Zealand both claim a place in its history, so its national origins remain disputed. Anzac biscuits are another familiar sweet, made with ingredients such as oats and golden syrup. They should not be confused with the very hard army ration biscuit, known as an Anzac wafer or tile.
Indigenous ingredients and foodways
Indigenous food traditions are central to Australia’s food history and vary across Country. Native ingredients such as wattleseed, lemon myrtle and macadamia appear in some contemporary dishes and baked goods. Wattleseed, for example, has been used in damper and is also used in modern baking.
The cultural and regional context of these foods varies across Country. Where possible, choose an Indigenous-led food business or experience, which can connect ingredients to the people and knowledge behind them. A short list of ingredients cannot represent the diversity of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander foodways.
What to order at a café
Order a flat white to try a familiar Australian café coffee: espresso with textured milk and a thin layer of microfoam. Recipes and cup sizes vary between cafés. The drink’s exact origin is also disputed, although the phrase appeared on a Sydney café menu in 1985.
For breakfast or brunch, try smashed avocado on toast, sometimes served with extras such as halloumi, or a bacon-and-egg roll for a more portable meal. Australia’s café traditions have been shaped by migration: postwar Italian migration helped establish espresso bars, while Greek-owned cafés formed another strand of the country’s dining history. Regional coffee orders add a local twist, including Melbourne’s “magic” and Perth’s “long mac topped up”.