Destination
Type of Restaurant
Type of Meal
Editors Pick
Courtesy Ben SullivanRead More10 William Street
This sophisticated, tiny trattoria offers a well-curated menu that puts creative twists on classic Italian cuisine. Begin with tapas like capers focaccia or marinated olives before entrées like quail Milanese, grilled prawns Siciliana with daikon or pappardelle with ragu bianco...
Alberto Lounge, Sydney, Photo by Daniel BoudRead MoreAlberto’s Lounge
From the team behind one of Sydney’s best French restaurants, Hubert, Alberto’s Lounge serves such Italian favorites as cacio e pepe gnocchi and burrata caprese. The always-buzzing neighborhood spot is a great spot for high-quality wines and cozy but creative...
Read MoreAqua Dining
This modern Aussie restaurant boasts one of the most memorable settings in Sydney. Its indoor and outdoor tables hang suspended in a glass cube-like structure over the North Sydney Olympic Pool right between Luna Park (the city’s vintage amusement park)...
Read MoreAria
Aria Restaurant has a central location on Circular Quay and a view to match its award-winning menu. French-trained chef-owner Matt Morant contributes to Sydney’s fine dining scene with an elegant culinary experience based on seasonal produce. The dining room is...
Courtesy Brett StevensRead MoreBennelong Restaurant
Housed in the iconic Sydney Opera House and overlooking the bustling Circular Quay, Bennelong Restaurant is a delightful spot for innovative cocktails and modern Australian cuisine. Despite its touristy location, Bennelong feels refined and intimate, serving fresh takes on seafood dishes.
Read Morebills Surry Hills
The three bills cafés are the places to brunch in Sydney. Bill Granger—another of the city’s perpetually sunny-natured celebrity chefs—has perfected the art of delicious yet basic food in convivial (if noisy) surroundings. His cookbooks have become international best-sellers because...
Read MoreBulletin Place
This tiny, convivial inner-city bar exudes a kind of artfully undone glamour, thanks to a subway-tiled bar, scuffed white painted walls and industrial-chic furnishings, with an unfurled roll of butcher’s paper scrawled with the day’s drinks menu. The cocktails are...
Read MoreCafé Sydney
With an enviable location on the rooftop of Customs House, this upscale venue offers fabulous harbor views from its dining room, which boasts floor-to-ceiling windows, an outdoor terrace and a buzzy cocktail lounge. While the sweeping vistas over the harbor...
Read MoreCatalina Rose Bay
This award-winning restaurant, one of the grande dames of the Sydney restaurant world, is for those who prefer more serene water views than are on offer at such trendy seafront spots as Otto’s or Icebergs. Few experiences match watching the...
Read MoreChina Lane
Executive chef Ben Haywood, whose CV includes a stint at Heston Blumenthal’s Fat Duck, brings a playful sensibility to the Chinese-Cantonese menu at this delightfully kitschy, old Shanghai-themed restaurant tucked in a small cobblestone inner-city laneway. Order a cheekily named...
Courtesy Rachel KaraRead MoreChiswick Woollahra
Located 15 minutes from downtown Sydney and in a greenhouse, the beautiful farm-to-table Chiswick Woollahra serves seasonal fare like house made focaccia, wood-fired eggplant with chickpea miso and flank steak with heirloom carrots.
Read MoreDoyles on the Beach
Opened in 1885, the original Doyles restaurant (there are now three), sits in the same spot on Watsons Bay overlooking Sydney Harbour as it has for five generations. Serving specialty seafood dishes in their wood-paneled dining room or beachside outdoor...
Read MoreEau de Vie
The genesis of Sydney’s cocktail bar revolution could be traced back to this speakeasy-style player that set the standard for high-minded mixology when it opened in 2010. Expect romantic mood lighting, a playful but grown-up ambience, skilled bartenders using vintage...
Courtesy Ester RestaurantRead MoreEster
With an industrial-chic interior, Ester is a trendy spot serving eclectic dishes that feature unusual ingredients. Begin with the roasted rock oysters with horseradish emulsion before the cauliflower with almond sauce and mint or whiting filet with smoked whey and...
Read MoreFelix
This elegant brasserie in the heart of Sydney’s Central Business District is cozy, intimate and decorated with Parisian tiles and imported French chandeliers. (The French theme continues to uniforms, waiters are dressed in black bowties and long aprons). The menu...
Read MoreFiredoor
Chef Lennox Hastie spent his career in the kitchens of Michelin-starred restaurants in Europe before opening this rustic eatery in Sydney’s Surry Hills. With a kitchen fueled entirely by wood fire, the restaurant prides itself on utilizing only the freshest...
Courtesy MerivaleRead MoreFred’s
Located in Paddington, Fred's (from an ex-chef of California’s iconic Chez Panisse) is focused on sustainability and serves dishes such as blood orange salad and pappardelle with braised goat.
Read MoreGelato Messina
With several locations throughout Sydney, Messina Gelato is revered for its 40 ice cream flavors (think pistachio praline and panna cotta with fig jam and amaretti biscuit) and milkshakes. The Surry Hills location is a great stop when shopping in...
Hubert SydneyRead MoreHubert
Hubert is a buzzy French eatery helmed by the owners of several of Sydney’s most popular eateries. While the menu consists of sophisticated French classics, the overall atmosphere of the restaurant is casual and convivial, with a rustic-chic dining room...
Read MoreHugo’s
Right on Manly Wharf where the ferries arrive from Sydney, Hugo’s is a fabulous waterside spot for a casual lunch or dinner. Its owners are a pair of Aussie celebrity chefs, Pete Evans and Massimo Mele, and their pizzas are...
Read MoreIcebergs Dining Room and Bar
When Sydney’s beautiful people want to see and be seen, they head here. The famed Bondi restaurant is hyperbole-inducing—wraparound floor-to-ceiling windows with panoramic views of Bondi Beach, and the artful Mediterranean dishes are simply but expertly executed. Fashion editors, models...
Read MoreMr. Wong
The latest venture from the Hemmes family, whose empire includes hotspots like Est and The Ivy, this on-point modern Cantonese den pays homage to yum cha (dim sum). The 240-seater, two-level, French Colonial-inspired restaurant has group tables, private dining rooms...
Courtesy NomadRead MoreNOMAD
Located in a renovated warehouse in the hip Surry Hills, NOMAD serves Middle Eastern–inspired cuisine like grilled haloumi and wood-fired flatbread with za’atar.
Photo by Jude Cohen, Copywrite Callay Kitchen LTDRead MoreNour
The Lebanese Nour restaurant in Surry Hills has street-side seating and dishes like spiced cauliflower, hummus and wood-fired duck.
Read MoreOpera Bar
An important distinction in the restaurant search is deciphering between those places that are touristy and those that draw in tourists because they offer something special – and Opera Bar is the latter. Set on the lower concourse of the...
Read MoreOtto Ristorante
Bigwigs power-lunch here on oysters and sinfully rich dishes like hand-rolled porcini pasta with wild boar ragu from head chef Richard Ptacnik. It doesn’t hurt that Otto’s location on Woollomooloo wharf has turned into a people-watching promenade, complete with lurking...
Read MorePalmer & Co
The Merivale Group – behind hits like Ivy and Hemmesphere – strikes again, this time with a speakeasy-style bar located behind Establishment Hotel. The raw brick walls, vaulted ceilings and black and white mug shots on the walls add to...
Read MorePapi Chulo
Propped up on Manly Wharf, Papi Chulo sits on the water’s edge and offers a tasteful but relaxed ambiance ideal for an easy lunch or dinner. With checkered tile floors, copper fixtures and wicker-style benches, the space feels at once...
Read MorePilu at Freshwater
Pilu at Freshwater offers the best of Australian dining with a gorgeous seaside location, open-air dining room and elegant, beach-inspired décor. The award-winning chef, Giovanni Pilu, is Sardinian and takes pride in the menu’s authentic regional dishes, including saffron spaghetti,...
Read MorePublic Dining Room
Set in an off-the-beaten-path location in the suburb of Mosman, Public Dining Room is an elegant local eatery with its own swimmable beach and pier with boat access. The dining space is bright, airy and flooded with natural light thanks...
Read MoreQuay
One of Sydney’s most lauded and awarded restaurants, Quay features a dramatic dress-circle position on the harbor and near-faultless food. (This is definitely a big-night-out style restaurant, with prices to match, so don’t be surprised to get a case of...
Read MoreRed Lantern
This is the kind of spot that locals desperately try to keep secret (I know, I used to live around the corner), but this modern Vietnamese restaurant -- founded by brother-and-sister team Luke and Pauline Nguyen in a converted fire-engine...
Photo by Nikki ToRead MoreSaint Peter
In the stylish Sydney suburb of Paddington, whose culinary scene matches its incredible shopping, foodies are flocking to the seafood restaurant Saint Peter, which serves oysters along with such bites as snapper sausage and egg on an English muffin.
Read MoreSake Restaurant & Bar
Located in the Rocks district, Sake Restaurant & Bar is a Japanese restaurant with a fun atmosphere, craft cocktails and tasty cuisine, including popcorn shrimp with yuzu chili mayo and nori crisps with tuna and sesame dressing.
Read MoreSean’s Panorama
There are two legendary restaurants on Bondi Beach, Icebergs and Sean’s Panorama. Whichever one you choose to dine at, you will not be disappointed. In fact, you may just feel that you are eating with the coolest crowd around yet...
Read MoreSefa
A welcome addition to the Bondi dining scene, this Middle Eastern restaurant breathes new life into traditional Levantine meze dishes like humus, haloumi cheese and roasted eggplant. Try fragrant, spice-laced dishes like pumpkin fatteh with chickpeas and sour yogurt or...
Read MoreSpice Temple
Spice Temple’s adventurous take on modern Chinese cuisine is rich, colorful and especially spicy—with chili serving as the central ingredient in most dishes. The restaurant’s dark, sleek and sexy atmosphere makes Spice Temple ideal for a fun night out with...
Read MoreTetsuya’s Restaurant
Widely considered the finest restaurant in Australia, Tetsuya’s takes Japanese-French fusion to new culinary heights. The eponymous Tetsuya Wakuda—who emigrated from Japan in 1982 with little more than a dream of opening his own restaurant—is probably the most humble celeb...
Photo by Nikki ToRead MoreThe Apollo
A modern Greek restaurant with an industrial-chic dining room and street-side seating, the Apollo is a stylish spot to enjoy bites like saganaki cheese with honey, BBQ octopus with potato and oven-baked lamb shoulder with lemon yogurt.
Read MoreThe Centennial
This Woollahra hotspot has the feel of a casual brasserie with an open plan wood-paneled dining room, skylights and a cozy garden. The Italian menu boasts inventive pizza and pasta dishes, serious entrées and light Tuscan salads.
Read MoreThe Fine Food Store
While exploring The Rocks neighborhood, enjoy freshly brewed coffee and tasty avocado toast at the Fine Food Store. A local favorite, the Fine Food Store’s appeal resides in its rustic simplicity. Pairing fresh ingredients with steaming cups of coffee that...
Read MoreThe Malaya
Serving upscale Southeast Asian food, the Malaya is the perfect restaurant for a fun night out in Sydney’s buzzy Darling Harbor. The Malaya instantly ranked among Sydney’s top Asian restaurants upon opening in 1963, and it has remained a distinctly modern,...
