The Top 100 Places to Eat Near Sails on Lavender Bay

1. Australian Good Food Guide 12/20 · One Chef Hat

1. Australian Good Food Guide 12/20 · One Chef Hat

1. Australian Good Food Guide 18/20 · Four Chef Hats

1. Australian Good Food Guide 13/20 · One Chef Hat

1. Australian Good Food Guide 17/20 · Three Chef Hats

1. Australian Good Food Guide 12/20 · One Chef Hat

Marble counters meet raw hardwood on the fifth floor of a North Sydney hotel, setting the scene for a wine bar and all-day Italian restaurant that leans into Italo-Australian cooking: pasta with native Davidson plum, burrata alongside local persimmon. The room is polished without being stiff, and the menu moves comfortably from a working breakfast through to sharing plates over a bottle in the evening.

1. Australian Good Food Guide 12/20 · One Chef Hat

The open kitchen sends smoke and char into a sleek dining room of soft light and dark wood on Miller Street in North Sydney. Toki is a fusion bistro and bar where the menu leans toward big-format sharing, think tomahawk steaks and beef tartare dressed with tendon crisps and caviar. The cocktail bar pulls its own weight. The Australian Good Food Guide awarded it a Chef Hat.

1. Australian Good Food Guide 13/20 · One Chef Hat

Perched on the Western Broadwalk of the Sydney Opera House, this modern Australian restaurant draws on Indigenous food traditions that predate the building by a considerable stretch. Chef Mark Olive builds the menu around native ingredients, wattle seed, bush honey, pepperberries, saltbush, things most Sydney dining rooms treat as garnish rather than foundation. The Australian Good Food Guide awarded it a Chef Hat.

1. Australian Good Food Guide 12/20 · One Chef Hat

1. Australian Good Food Guide 12/20 · One Chef Hat

1. Australian Good Food Guide 16/20 · Three Chef Hats

1. Australian Good Food Guide 15/20 · Two Chef Hats

1. Australian Good Food Guide 14/20 · Two Chef Hats

Polished wood, statement pendants, and banquette seating set the tone at this CBD bistro, which sits somewhere between a long working lunch and a proper dinner out. The kitchen leans Modern Australian, wood-roasting and slow-braising its way through a menu that reads relaxed but cooks with more ambition than the room lets on. An Australian Good Food Guide Hat for the effort.

1. Australian Good Food Guide 12/20 · One Chef Hat

A European-Australian bistro a short walk from Circular Quay, Bistro George holds an Australian Good Food Guide Hat and pitches itself at the full range: solo bar snacks, work lunches, leisurely dinners. The menu leans on local produce and lands somewhere between Continental and modern Australian, with a wine list broad enough to keep both the table orderer and the sommelier-curious happy.

1. Australian Good Food Guide 12/20 · One Chef Hat

White tablecloths, chandelier lighting, and walls hung with artwork set the tone at this Italian restaurant in North Sydney, where the menu leans on tradition without pretending the last few decades of cooking didn't happen. The room is housed in a heritage building that gives it the kind of bones a fit-out budget alone can't buy. It holds an Australian Good Food Guide Chef Hat.

1. Australian Good Food Guide 12/20 · One Chef Hat

1. Australian Good Food Guide 14/20 · Two Chef Hats

1. Australian Good Food Guide 13/20 · One Chef Hat

A share-format Modern Australian restaurant near Circular Quay, Silvester's sits on a corner that's had butchers and serious produce on it for generations. The menu moves from smaller plates through to bigger dishes, building in a way that feels designed rather than accidental. The room leans convivial rather than hushed. An Australian Good Food Guide Chef Hat.

1. Australian Good Food Guide 12/20 · One Chef Hat

1. Australian Good Food Guide 13/20 · One Chef Hat

A beautifully restored heritage building in the CBD sets the stage: high ceilings, original detailing, and a terrace that opens toward the skyline. Shell House is a contemporary steakhouse where the kitchen dry-ages Australian beef before it meets an open fire grill, with the wider menu showing the same restraint. It landed at number 85 on the World's Best Steak Restaurants list, which should tell you roughly what the room expects of you, dress-wise.

1. World's 101 Best #85 · World's Best Steak Restaurants
2. Australian Good Food Guide 13/20 · One Chef Hat

1. Australian Good Food Guide 18/20 · Four Chef Hats

1. Australian Good Food Guide 13/20 · One Chef Hat

The Art Deco banking hall on Hunter Street sets the stage: marble columns, dark timber, and a warm golden light that makes a Wednesday feel like an occasion. This is a steakhouse, and the beef programme is the point, with dry-aged cuts cooked over a wood and charcoal grill. The wine list is one of the more serious in the country. Ranked 38th on the World's Best Steak Restaurants list, which seems about right for a room this sure of itself.

1. World's 101 Best #38 · World's Best Steak Restaurants
2. Australian Good Food Guide 13/20 · One Chef Hat

1. Australian Good Food Guide 12/20 · One Chef Hat

1. Australian Good Food Guide 13/20 · One Chef Hat

Open-fire Middle Eastern cooking in the Sydney CBD, where ironbark wood and charcoal from the Blue Mountains do the structural work rather than playing atmosphere. The kitchen pulls from Levantine and North African tradition, including medieval Arabic manuscripts, and the debt shows in the layering of spice rather than any museum-piece earnestness. It landed at number 14 on the World's Best Steak Restaurants list, though it behaves nothing like a steakhouse.

1. World's 101 Best #14 · World's Best Steak Restaurants
2. Australian Good Food Guide 15/20 · Two Chef Hats

1. Australian Good Food Guide 12/20 · One Chef Hat

1. Australian Good Food Guide 12/20 · One Chef Hat

Harbour views through floor-to-ceiling glass, leather banquettes, and Australian art on the walls set the tone at this upscale steak restaurant inside Sydney's International Hotel. The kitchen dry-ages Wagyu and pasture-raised beef in-house, then cooks over wood and charcoal with the confidence of people who don't need to explain themselves. It landed at number 33 on the World's Best Steak Restaurants list, which tracks.

1. World's 101 Best #33 · World's Best Steak Restaurants
2. Australian Good Food Guide 12/20 · One Chef Hat

1. Australian Good Food Guide 12/20 · One Chef Hat

1. Australian Good Food Guide 17/20 · Three Chef Hats

1. Australian Good Food Guide 12/20 · One Chef Hat

1. Australian Good Food Guide 13/20 · One Chef Hat

1. Australian Good Food Guide 13/20 · One Chef Hat

1. Australian Good Food Guide 12/20 · One Chef Hat

A neon-lit basement off York Street designed to feel like a gambling den, which sets the mood pretty squarely. Hustlers. Syd is a shared-plates Asian restaurant built for late nights, with a menu that roams across the continent and a cocktail list that keeps pace. The Australian Good Food Guide gave it a Chef Hat. Come with people you like sharing with, and don't schedule anything early the next morning.

1. Australian Good Food Guide 12/20 · One Chef Hat

1. Australian Good Food Guide 12/20 · One Chef Hat

1. Australian Good Food Guide 13/20 · One Chef Hat

1. Australian Good Food Guide 13/20 · One Chef Hat

1. Australian Good Food Guide 12/20 · One Chef Hat

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1. Australian Good Food Guide 12/20 · One Chef Hat

1. Australian Good Food Guide 12/20 · One Chef Hat

1. Australian Good Food Guide 12/20 · One Chef Hat

Sandstone walls from The Rocks surround this wood-fired steakhouse, which lands at number 93 on the World's Best Steak Restaurants list. Australian beef is aged wet and dry before meeting the grill, where the kitchen uses flame for depth rather than theatre. The room runs to timber, leather, and warm lighting, serious enough to feel like an occasion without making you straighten your back. The kind of place that suits regulars and visitors equally well.

1. World's 101 Best #93 · World's Best Steak Restaurants

1. Australian Good Food Guide 13/20 · One Chef Hat

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1. Australian Good Food Guide 15/20 · Two Chef Hats

1. Australian Good Food Guide 13/20 · One Chef Hat

1. 50 Best #66 · The World’s 50 Best Restaurants
2. Australian Good Food Guide 17/20 · Three Chef Hats

A share-plates restaurant on a quiet Neutral Bay street where the menu leans into modern fusion and the room splits the difference between date night and group dinner with equal comfort. The wine list is considered and cocktails get proper attention. It holds an Australian Good Food Guide Chef Hat, which tracks with the polish on the plate without tipping the mood into somewhere you'd feel underdressed in a nice jacket.

1. Australian Good Food Guide 13/20 · One Chef Hat

1. Australian Good Food Guide 13/20 · One Chef Hat

1. Australian Good Food Guide 12/20 · One Chef Hat

1. Australian Good Food Guide 14/20 · Two Chef Hats

1. Australian Good Food Guide 14/20 · Two Chef Hats

1. Australian Good Food Guide 12/20 · One Chef Hat

1. Australian Good Food Guide 13/20 · One Chef Hat

1. Australian Good Food Guide 13/20 · One Chef Hat

1. Australian Good Food Guide 13/20 · One Chef Hat

1. Australian Good Food Guide 12/20 · One Chef Hat

South of France cooking in a Darling Harbour hotel, with wine racks lining the walls and a menu that leans on local produce shaped into something unmistakably French. The kitchen uses coal and char alongside classical technique, so there's smoke and richness alongside the bright, coastal flavors you'd expect. A polished, unhurried kind of dinner, the sort where you dress up a little and nobody feels self-conscious about it. The Australian Good Food Guide awards it two Chef Hats.

1. Australian Good Food Guide 14/20 · Two Chef Hats

1. Australian Good Food Guide 16/20 · Three Chef Hats

Every morning the menu is written from scratch based on what came in and how the fire is burning, because Firedoor runs on Australian hardwoods alone, no gas, no electricity. Lennox Hastie's Surry Hills restaurant is a serious, sit-down affair where the open kitchen keeps the work visible and the point is restraint, not theatre. It sits at number eleven on the World's Best Steak Restaurants list, which tells you something about the aged ribeye.

1. World's 101 Best #11 · World's Best Steak Restaurants
2. Australian Good Food Guide 15/20 · Two Chef Hats

Bistecca alla Fiorentina, one cut, one fire, no negotiating the menu. This Tuscan steakhouse tucked along Dalley Street runs on dry-aged Australian beef over ironbark and charcoal, in a brick-ceilinged room lit mostly by the glow of the grill. It landed on the World's Best Steak Restaurants list, and the stripped-back conviction of the place makes that easy to believe. The pace slows the moment you sit down, which is either the point or the warning, depending on your evening.

1. World's 101 Best #97 · World's Best Steak Restaurants

1. Australian Good Food Guide 14/20 · Two Chef Hats

1. Australian Good Food Guide 13/20 · One Chef Hat

Darling Harbour views frame every table at this theatrical modern Australian share-plates restaurant inside W Sydney. The menu leans on local growers and coastal producers, with wild-caught seafood making a strong case for itself as the room fills and the energy climbs toward something noticeably louder than dinner. The Australian Good Food Guide awarded it a Chef Hat.

1. Australian Good Food Guide 12/20 · One Chef Hat

A specialty coffee shop sitting on George Street in the Sydney CBD, where the rotating single-origin lineup changes with the seasons and the baristas treat espresso as a verb, not a noun. The room is sleek without being fussy, which suits the lunchtime office crowd well enough, but it also has the quiet patience of a place where nobody will rush you.

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Neil Perry's wood-fired grill restaurant in Double Bay sits at number two on the World's Best Steak Restaurants list, which is about as specific an endorsement as the universe offers. The open kitchen keeps the focus on dry-aged beef and whatever came off a boat that morning, and the room follows the same logic: nothing is there to impress you, which is exactly why it does. Australian producers run the whole show, pasture to coast.

1. World's 101 Best #2 · World's Best Steak Restaurants
2. Australian Good Food Guide 14/20 · Two Chef Hats

1. Australian Good Food Guide 13/20 · One Chef Hat

1. Australian Good Food Guide 12/20 · One Chef Hat

1. Australian Good Food Guide 14/20 · Two Chef Hats

1. Australian Good Food Guide 12/20 · One Chef Hat

Neil Perry's Italian restaurant in Double Bay is built around the aperitivo rhythm: Martinis and spritzes arrive first, then antipasti, housemade pasta, seafood, and steak. The beef program leans into rare Australian breeds, including grass-fed Chianina, cooked simply enough that the sourcing does the talking. Ranked 27th on the World's Best Steak Restaurants list, though the room reads more like a generous Italian trattoria than a temple to beef.

1. World's 101 Best #27 · World's Best Steak Restaurants
2. Australian Good Food Guide 12/20 · One Chef Hat

The open grill is the room's focal point, its smoke threading through exposed brick and vintage clutter to announce that this is an Argentine asado restaurant, not a steakhouse cosplaying as one. Surry Hills regulars fill the long tables for dry-aged beef cooked over fire with patience rather than theatre, and a wine list that runs Buenos Aires and Barossa in easy company. It placed 36th on the World's Best Steak Restaurants list.

1. World's 101 Best #36 · World's Best Steak Restaurants
2. Australian Good Food Guide 13/20 · One Chef Hat

The wine list runs to over 200 bottles, with forty-odd available by the glass, which tells you what Annata is really about before you've even looked at the food menu. It's a modern European bistro on the Lower North Shore, the kind of neighbourhood place where the kitchen sends out precise seasonal cooking and the room genuinely expects you to linger. The alfresco garden is dog-friendly, the set menu comes with wine pairings built in, and locals treat it like a second living room.

1. Australian Good Food Guide 13/20 · One Chef Hat

Fine dining that occasionally serves fried chicken and doughnuts without any apparent shame. Nel runs a rotating 11-course degustation in a moody CBD room of exposed brick and open kitchen, where the theme changes entirely and regulars come back to see what the kitchen has cooked up next. The format is unmistakably tasting-menu serious; the attitude is something else. Three Chef Hats from the Australian Good Food Guide.

1. Australian Good Food Guide 16/20 · Three Chef Hats

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1. Australian Good Food Guide 13/20 · One Chef Hat

A corner pizza restaurant in a Victorian terrace in Balmain, with sidewalk tables when the weather cooperates and a line out the door when it doesn't. The chef obsesses over fermentation and dough in a way that reads less like trend-chasing and more like a genuine fixation, and the extra virgin olive oil gets its own casting credit across the menu. 50 Top Pizza Asia-Pacific has it at number three.

1. 50 Top Pizza #3 · 50 Top Pizza Asia-Pacific
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Charcoal grilling and tempura in the same omakase menu sounds like a contradiction until you sit at the counter and watch the chef make it feel inevitable. Haco is a compact Japanese fine dining room in the Sydney CBD, built around a single tasting progression you watch unfold in front of you. The name means theatre in Japanese, which the room leans into without apology. It holds two Chef Hats from the Australian Good Food Guide.

1. Australian Good Food Guide 15/20 · Two Chef Hats

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A specialty coffee shop tucked into King Street in the CBD, Skittle Lane keeps things spare and deliberate, the kind of minimalist fit-out that makes you notice the coffee instead of the furniture. The focus is on single-origin brews alongside pastries for when a flat white alone feels insufficient. Office workers on a tight clock and laptop regulars settling in for the afternoon tend to coexist without much friction.

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1. Australian Good Food Guide 13/20 · One Chef Hat

1. Australian Good Food Guide 15/20 · Two Chef Hats

1. Australian Good Food Guide 14/20 · Two Chef Hats

1. Australian Good Food Guide 14/20 · Two Chef Hats

1. Australian Good Food Guide 13/20 · One Chef Hat

1. Australian Good Food Guide 14/20 · Two Chef Hats

1. Australian Good Food Guide 12/20 · One Chef Hat

1. Australian Good Food Guide 12/20 · One Chef Hat

1. Australian Good Food Guide 13/20 · One Chef Hat

1. Australian Good Food Guide 13/20 · One Chef Hat

1. Australian Good Food Guide 12/20 · One Chef Hat

Velvet booths, wine racks floor to ceiling, and exposed concrete that somehow pulls it all together: Figo is an Italian restaurant and cocktail bar in Rushcutters Bay doing the kind of old-school Roman trattoria thing Sydney never tires of. Pappardelle with osso buco ragu is the move, and the tiramisu arrives exactly as it should. A One Chef Hat from the Australian Good Food Guide keeps the regulars feeling quietly smug about their standing reservation.

1. Australian Good Food Guide 13/20 · One Chef Hat

1. Australian Good Food Guide 12/20 · One Chef Hat

1. Australian Good Food Guide 14/20 · Two Chef Hats

1. Australian Good Food Guide 12/20 · One Chef Hat

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