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In a landscape as gloriously diverse as Sydney — shaped by the hands of myriad migrant communities, brilliant produce, and access to some of the world’s finest seafood — cobbling together the Harbour City’s “best” restaurants is a Sisyphean task. Serving up meals like silky, steamed, and pork-filled bánh cuốn, knockout Mexican tamales, and legendary Lebanese charcoal chicken, these outstanding Sydney restaurants all deliver — each one a reminder of just how good this city has it when it comes to eating well.
XOPP
The wok-fried pippies in kaleidoscopically complex XO sauce at the now-closed Golden Century defined Cantonese dining in Sydney for more than 30 years. Thankfully, the dish lives on at GC’s spunkier nearby spinoff in Haymarket, along with benchmarks like unrivalled salt-and-pepper squid, crisp-skinned chicken with ginger and spring onions, and the Platonic ideal of Peking duck (meat from the whole bird split into two courses: tissue-tin pancakes and juicy san choy bow).
Banh Cuon Ba Oanh
If the name didn’t quite give it away, the focus at this humble neighbourhood gem is bánh cuốn — northern Vietnam’s uncompromisingly silky steamed rice noodle rolls filled with grilled pork and joined by fresh herbs and a piquant dipping sauce. The free-range chicken congee, meanwhile, is the distillation of pure and fortifying comfort in a bowl. That these hits should always be accompanied by a traditionally brewed Vietnamese coffee — hot or iced — goes without saying.
Queen Margherita of Savoy
This Cronulla pizzeria takes Neapolitan tradition so seriously that it gets a coveted tick of approval from Naples’ very own Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana (or, true Neapolitan pizza association). What that means for you is a killer Margherita with San Marzano tomatoes and fior di latte cheese, which rocks a puffy and pliant crust that’s speckled with char in all the right places. Pro-tip: don’t sleep on the ’nduja arancini or the crisp-fried calamari.
Tamaleria & Mexican Deli
In recent years, Mexican food has made huge strides in the Harbour City and much of the credit belongs to Tamaleria’s owner and chef, Rosa Cienfuegos. The namesake tamales at this Dulwich Hill spot are excellent, but you’ll also find lots of other dishes here you don’t see around very often: proper chilaquiles, say, or the thick and stuffed oval-shaped tortillas known as tlacoyos. While you’re at it, load up on top-tier salsas and frozen meats like chicken tinga and pulled pork.
Spice I Am
Some Thai restaurants dial down the pyrotechnics for Western palates. Not Spice I Am, which has been turning up the heat in its Surry Hills kitchen for more than 20 years. Though these dishes aren’t for the faint of heart and may well have you seeing stars, both the pad kee mao and the fire-breathing jungle curry with pumpkin are personal favourites. This is easily my pick for the most deftly executed Massaman curry in the city, too, if you’re after something milder. If you’re looking for some of the best food in Sydney, you’ve found it.
Abhi’s Indian Restaurant
Refinement is the watchword at Abhi’s in North Strathfield, one of Australia’s earliest proponents of India’s vast and varied culinary canon, which is wholly deserving of its legend status. Nearly everything on the menu is a paragon of its genre, but especially the tender meats and fluffy flatbreads that come out of the charcoal-powered tandoor oven. For best results, round your order out with lime pickle, mango chutney, and Kashmiri pilau — basmati rice made crunchy and sweet with nuts and dried fruits.
Island Dreams Cafe
There are many reasons to visit this character-filled Lakemba gem, Sydney’s only restaurant devoted to the food of the Christmas and Coco Islands. If I had to pick just one, it’d be the chicken satay, which is powered by a thick and chunky sauce of such developed peanut flavour it’ll make your head spin. And if I had to pick another, it’d be the nasi lemak, a virtuous rendition of Malaysia’s beloved coconutty rice served with a knockout beef rendang.
Little L
As far as Portuguese chicken burgers go, nobody does it better than Little L, which opened in North Bondi in 2007 and now has branches in Coogee and Manly. The Classic Chilli Burger is the one to beat here, with tender grilled chicken smothered in a citrus-bright house chilli sauce with the right degree of heat. Bacon and pineapple both make for dynamite all-Aussie additions, but if you’re after something lighter, the chicken wrap is just as strong a choice. Either way, the emphatically seasoned fries are non-negotiable at this top Sydney restaurant.
Happy Chef Noodle House
Happy Chef’s prawn and chicken laksa is a gauntlet thrown to almost every other laksa out there. Most importantly, the coconut-fragrant broth at this treasured Haymarket food court stall doesn’t hit you over the head with sweetness, and the well-balanced house curry paste has the spice and funk levels down to a science. Even so, it’s always smart to ask for extra chilli oil and sambal — and if you’re especially hungry, adding some wontons to the mix pays dividends.
Jugemu & Shimbashi
This Neutral Bay spot isn’t one restaurant, but two. On one side, you’ve got Jugemu, which concentrates on teppanyaki cooking; on the other, you’ve got Shimbashi, the first and only place in Sydney to make soba noodles from scratch. The best approach? Take a bit from column A and column B — the savoury pancake dubbed okonomiyaki laden with pork belly, prawns, calamari, and scallops, plus a tangle of nutty buckwheat noodles and a side of assorted tempura.
Gyradiko Kitchen
Given the popularity of Greek food in the Emerald City, real-deal gyros is surprisingly hard to come by. Then again, maybe Gyradiko Kitchen in Earlwood does such a bang-up job of it that few others bother trying. While pork is the obvious pick of the bunch if you’re going down the stuffed pita route, it’s just as tempting to get stuck into the pastitsio, moussaka, loukaniko sausage, tomatoey roasted butter beans, and other Hellenic hits.
Spicy Joint
This Shanghainese joint in Chatswood — with additional locations in Haymarket, Burwood, and Rhodes — has a seemingly never-ending menu that’s exactly the sort of vortex you want to be sucked into. Kick things off with the cold stuff: smashed cucumbers slicked in pungent garlic dressing or slices of poached chicken and peanuts in a lake of chilli oil. Then, give yourself over completely to the heady, numbing haze brought on by the Fish Fillet in Hot Chilli Oil with Sichuan peppercorns, with some deep-fried steamed buns for sweet relief.
Tuga Pastries
Few pastries accrue the level of fandom that Tuga’s pastéis de nata have, which are now found in coffee shops all over town. Of course, the teensy Clovelly bakery where the mania began is the optimal place to grab a boxful of the palm-sized Portuguese tarts, ideally fresh from the oven when the puff pastry is extra flaky and the wobbly egg custard is still warm. Be warned: the almond croissants are habit-forming.
Jasmin1 Lebanese Restaurant
The Mixed Plate is a blessing for the choice-phobic solo diner keen to sample everything on Jasmin1’s sprawling menu. It's a tour de force, loaded with hummus, baba ghanoush, tabbouleh, falafel, fried kibbeh, and garlic dip, alongside three skewers of char-grilled chicken, lamb, and beef. The veggie version at this Auburn joint, meanwhile, delivers just as many thrills, swapping the meats for fried eggplant and fried cauliflower, plus a cheesy sambousek pastry and a fattoush salad. No two ways about it, this is home-style Lebanese at its peak.
RaRa Ramen
RaRa takes the essentials in its beloved signature tonkotsu ramen to another level at its Randwick and Redfern shops. The tensile noodles are made in-house and have a pronounced firmness, and the thick-cut chashu pork is finished over coals for an extra hit of smokiness. There’s much more in the arsenal here as well, including lesser-known styles such as tori paitan, tonkotsu’s creamy chicken-based counterpart, and a cracking vegan soy miso ramen that puts other meat-free iterations to shame.
Little Lagos
As Nigerian and other West African cuisines make inroads into the inner city, Enmore’s Little Lagos continues to lead the charge. If each intricately spiced grain of the ridiculously good jollof rice doesn’t give you some idea why, it’ll be the stews — chunks of goat in a thickened slurry of tomatoes, capsicums, and habanero, or the long-simmered okra and beef number called ila alasepo — best scooped up with iyan, the stretchy balls of pounded yam.
21 Espresso
The schnitzel might be the single most-ordered pub food in all of Australia, but not many restaurants across the country specialise in the old Central European school of crumbed cutlets quite like 21 Espresso, which has held court in Double Bay since 1958. Neither the chicken nor the veal will lead you astray, but both are made better by Gypsy sauce, a side of creamed spinach, and matzo dumplings in a broth that’ll cure whatever ails you.
Valentinas
One way to stand out in a hyper-competitive and overcrowded café landscape is to do what Valentinas has, by flipping the script on the stereotypical Aussie breakfast. This proudly açai-bowl-free Marrickville hotspot is a love letter to nostalgic American diners, drive-ins, and dives, where sausage breakfast sandwiches on English muffins, cheesy breakfast burritos, and short stacks of pancakes reign supreme. To really start your day on the right foot, top it off with a maple iced coffee.
Capriccio Osteria
Everyone has a favourite restaurant in Leichhardt, often referred to as Sydney’s “Little Italy,” and for many that restaurant is Capriccio Osteria. There’s no sense in choosing between the wood-fired pizzas or house-made pastas, so order both — perhaps a leopard-spotted pie with crumbled sausage, radicchio, and fermented chilli alongside squid ink spaghetti with blue swimmer crab or foolproof pumpkin and ricotta ravioli with brown butter and sage. Keep your eyes out for specials like porchetta or truffle arancini, too.
The Sambal On Kent
Think of The Sambal as a one-way ticket to the streets of Indonesia in the heart of the CBD. The aromatic and turmeric-stained chicken soup known as soto ayam will dampen your brows, but if you really want to break a sweat, order the rubble of tempeh tossed through an extra-fiery sambal with makrut lime leaves. Be sure to add a jar of the house-made green chilli sambal, or sambal hijau, to your cart, too.
Mary’s
While the almighty Mary’s Burger has become something of a gold standard for Sydneysiders, I’m a sucker for the equally squishy bacon cheeseburger and its humble supporting players: pickles, onions, ketchup, and mustard. If there’s an ultimate power move at this Newtown institution (with offshoots in the CBD, Castle Hill, and Moore Park), though, it’s to go halves on that bacon cheeseburger and split the craggy-crusted buttermilk fried chicken. Send it straight over the edge with sides of shoestring fries plus mash and gravy.
Golden Lotus Vegan
Situated at the top of Newtown’s so-called “Vegan Mile,” Golden Lotus has long been a flag-bearer for plant-based cooking and plays to a packed house every night of the week. While the kitchen covers a lot of ground, soups like laksa and pho are often cited as best-in-class, but so, too, are the peerless roasted mock duck, the Salt and Chilli Crispy Vegan Chicken, the vermicelli noodle salad, and the peppery eggplant clay pot with tofu and abalone mushrooms.
El Jannah
Since it first opened in Granville back in 1998, no other name in Sydney has been quite as synonymous with charcoal chicken excellence as El Jannah. A quarter of the smoky, blistered, and bronze-skinned bird is never enough — go a half or whole to make the most of it, along with tart pickled cucumbers, hot-pink turnips, and floppy Lebanese bread. And don’t skimp on the ruthlessly addictive garlic sauce, a scene-stealer if there was ever one.
South Dowling Sandwiches
In a world where sandwiches only ever seem to get fancier, skimpier, and more expensive, this perennially busy Darlinghurst lunchtime institution is a no-frills breath of fresh air. The Hugo — crammed with chicken schnitzel, tasty cheese, lettuce, tomato, cucumbers, and herby house-made mayo — is pretty much everyone’s go-to, but the Vegi gives it a run for its money, stuffed to the high heavens with hummus, potato salad, and just about every vegetable you can imagine.
Hansang
You’d be hard-pressed to find more Korean soups and hotpots on a menu than you do at Hansang, which makes decisions at this venerable Strathfield mainstay particularly challenging. The murky, milky ox bone soup is almost everyone’s starting point, a collagen bomb that’s boiled in a seething cauldron for 72 hours. If you’re chasing the hair of the dog, the one-two punch of ox blood hangover soup with an obligatory kimchi pancake will instantly revive you.
Chat Thai
It’s impossible to imagine Sydney without Chat Thai, the vastly influential restaurant empire (with outposts in Neutral Bay, Circular Quay, Chatswood, and the CBD) founded by the late Amy Chanta in 1989. Palisa Anderson, Chanta’s daughter, now runs the show, and the food remains as good as ever, built on produce from her organic farm in the Northern Rivers. All the classics are squarely covered, but the sour and spicy som dtum salads are all standouts, as are the chicken larb and the curry-scented khao soi.
Brothers Kebabs
The people of Banksia are lucky to call Brothers their local kebab shop, which stands tall in a city that’s practically built on local kebab shops. To experience it at its best, get a note-perfect lamb kebab or call for the Mixed Watsup Box — a Halal Snack Pack to be reckoned with, wherein a pile of golden chips and crisp-edged griddled meats gets hosed down with sweet barbecue, creamy garlic, and zesty chilli sauces.
Fich At Petersham
Ask any big-name chef in town where they like to go for fish and chips, and Petersham’s Fich will probably top the list. Simply put, these guys sweat the fine details, from the juicy freshness of the ling and its uniformly crisp coat of batter to the audible crunch of the thick-cut spuds. The house-made tartare sauce is every bit as triumphant as you’d hope, too, blasted with pickles, capers, and a boatload of fresh herbs.
Pho Tau Bay
After more than 40 years, Pho Tau Bay in Cabramatta still draws lengthy queues for its noodle soups, so it’s safe to say the chefs have a pretty firm handle on things. The phở bò dặc biệt is the star without a doubt, the beef broth cooked overnight and crowded with slices of rare beef, meatballs, brisket, and bible tripe. Delivery begins at 7:30am — and if you haven’t had pho first thing in the morning, then you haven’t lived.
Golden Unicorn Chinese Restaurant
You certainly can’t replicate the frenzy of Sunday morning yum cha. But you can come close by ordering from this always-bustling Maroubra fixture. Sure, there won’t be shouting aunties and circling trolleys stacked with bamboo steamers, but there will be skilfully pleated prawn dumplings, spongy BBQ pork buns, slippery cheung fun, chewy turnip cakes, and steamed pork ribs glistening with black bean sauce. Do you dare finish with egg custard tarts? Obviously.
Now consider your search for the top places to eat in Sydney officially over. You’re welcome.
