Things to do in the Gold Coast, Queensland: The new spots to eat, drink and visit in the Gold Coast

If you're dining at Mitch McCluskey's Japanese restaurant, Iku Yakatori, don't try to get in its front door. There isn't one. Take a left turn instead through a badly lit laneway, when you reach a car park out back walk past the bar you didn't realise was a bar, and the speak-easy you didn't realise was a speak-easy, till you find an old wooden door you didn't realise was a restaurant. Push on the door, it's worth the strain… it's like Japan in there (Japanese chefs cook over smoking charcoal, diners sit at an open-plan bar racked with Japanese whiskey).

Just up the street from Iku Yakatori, celebrated Sydney chef Alex Munoz (former head chef of Sydney institutions, Cirrus Dining and Monopole) has a new place off the main drag (James Street). You'll have to know where to find him too, Restaurant Labart has a subtle European-style fit-out which barely allows for signage, it's just the food that screams at you. Lately there's been quite a few of Melbourne and Sydney's top chefs making the same trip Munoz took north.

Those things we associate with the Gold Coast: sun, sand, theme parks, high-rises… they're all still here; but dig a little deeper and you'll see there's a whole new side to the place. There's a cultural revolution going on; and it's been led by our stomachs.

"If you draw up a list, I think there's more high level culinary dining experiences to be had on the Gold Coast than Byron Bay and Noosa combined," Munoz says. "We've had lots of Melbourne and Sydney diners tell us they used to fly to Noosa or Byron Bay for 'foodie holidays' but now that they've experienced the 'new Gold Coast' they'll be coming here from now on."

Burleigh Heads is at the epicentre of the transformation. Rick Shores, rated number one restaurant in Queensland by Delicious magazine, led the way. It's so close to the breaking waves the floor's concrete so waves on unusually high tides wash right on through. But there's an effortless style about the place that's replaced the famed ostentation of the old Gold Coast – here, waiters wear shorts and the décor's a mix of boho and colonial British. Next door, the owners of Manly Wharf have invested $10 million on the region's first beach club, Burleigh Pavilion, with cuisine created by one of Sydney's finest chefs, Guillaume Zika. "People are welcome to stroll off the beach," co-owner Ben May says. "I want people to feel like it's incredible and accessible."

Though the cuisine revolution hardly begins and ends in Burleigh Heads, there's new restaurants opening all along the coast, even in Surfers Paradise (long chastised for its procession of night clubs and fast food joints). Now the best restaurant here, Clifford's Grill & Lounge, offers a menu whose ingredients come from within the greater Gold Coast region, and who keep 300,000 bees on their rooftop to produce their own honey for cocktails and desserts. "The Gold Coast is definitely changing in a culinary sense," executive chef Daniel Smith says. "I consider the Gold Coast to be one of Australia's top foodie destinations now. The meals might be lighter in style than Melbourne or Sydney because of our climate, but the skill sets of the chefs and quality of meals is as good."

But the cultural revolution isn't just about food; there's arts precincts setting up all across the Gold Coast too – you just have to know where to look. You can walk from Surfers Paradise to the region's biggest, brightest new cultural precinct. Home Of The Arts (HOTA, see hota.com.au) is part of a $365 million investment into art and music on the Coast: there's a $37 million outdoor stage (opened in 2018), and next year a six-level art gallery will open, with over 2000 square metres of exhibition space making it the country's largest regional gallery.