Top Tables Sydney

Indagare’s favorite hot spot restaurants change all the time, but there are also some staples in each of the cities we love that never go out of style. Here is our current short list for Sydney.

Lunch

• Near Art Gallery of New South Wales & Royal Botanic Gardens: The Apollo, a modern Greek restaurant known for bites like saganaki cheese with honey and BBQ octopus with potato.
• Near Sydney Opera House: Quay, an upscale waterfront restaurant, or the more casual Opera Bar, an alfresco restaurant and bar with beautiful water views.
• In Bondi: Icebergs, an iconic restaurant with panoramic views of Bondi Beach and excellent Mediterranean food, or Sean’s Panorama, a beach-shack-cum-restaurant that is a Sunday brunch institution.

• In Paddington: Fred’s, a buzzing restaurant that incorporates fresh produce in dishes like polenta with seasonal vegetables and pesto, or Orchard St., a grab-and-go, plant-based café that sells casual fare like avocado toast and delicious vegan desserts.
• In Surry Hills: Bills, a convivial café is popular with locals who are drawn by the delicious comfort food such as the avocado toast and ricotta hotcakes, or Nour, a Lebanese restaurant with street-side seating and dishes like spiced cauliflower, hummus and wood-fired duck.

Dinner

• Foodie Favorite: Ester, a chic wine bar and restaurant in Darlington (some say it’s the best restaurant in Sydney), or Saint Peter, a hot spot seafood restaurant that offers oysters and bites including snapper sausage and egg English muffins.
• Local: NOMAD, a spacious eatery located in a former warehouse and known for Middle Eastern–inspired cuisine like grilled halloumi and wood-fired flatbread with za’atar.

• Big Night Out: Bennelong, the stunning restaurant at the Sydney Opera House that showcases the best of Australian produce 
• Hot Spot: Mr. Wong, a seriously stylish French Colonial–inspired Cantonese restaurant, or Alberto’s Lounge, a hot new Italian restaurant serving cacio e pepe gnocchi and burrata caprese.

– Emma Pierce