The Best Places in Newtown

Finnish chef Pasi Petänen runs this modern bistro and wine bar on King Street, where the cooking roams freely across borders without making a fuss about it. The long moody bar is well-stocked, the wooden tables fill with a mixed local crowd, and the menu moves between fermented things, excellent pasta, and good bread in a way that feels loose but considered. A Discovery pick from The 50.

1. Australian Good Food Guide 13/20 · One Chef Hat
2. Eater The 38 Best Restaurants in Sydney, Australia
3. The 50 The 50 Discovery

Cumin-spiced lamb skewers on a barbecue stove at Chinatown Night Markets were the whole operation once. Now Firepop is a permanent Modern Australian restaurant on Enmore Road, where those same skewers sit alongside dishes that treat waste-minimizing as a creative constraint rather than a virtue to announce. The buttermilk panna cotta with pickled strawberries and South Australian olive oil has become a reason people come back. One Chef Hat from the Australian Good Food Guide.

1. Australian Good Food Guide 13/20 · One Chef Hat
2. Eater The 38 Best Restaurants in Sydney, Australia

Corn isn't a side note here; it's the whole argument. Maiz is a casual Mexican restaurant on Enmore Road where the chef has built the menu around masa in earnest, from esquites broth sharp with lime and seven-chile mayonnaise to tetelas, corn pockets that happen to work for gluten-free and vegan diners without advertising the fact. Sydney's Mexican scene is not exactly crowded with this level of conviction.

1. Australian Good Food Guide 12/20 · One Chef Hat
2. Eater The 38 Best Restaurants in Sydney, Australia

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

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

1. The Infatuation The 31 Best Places To Eat & Stay In Sydney

1. Eater The 38 Best Restaurants in Sydney, Australia

The Soulmate Bae roll comes stuffed with house-made sambal, herb mayo, and Red Leicester because one co-owner's grandmother kept it in the fridge, and that's the kind of detail that tells you everything. This Newtown brunch spot runs on toasties and morning rolls with just enough left-field thinking to keep the menu interesting. Staff move at a clip, and the takeaway line stays honest.

1. Eater The 38 Best Restaurants in Sydney, Australia

The lamington, Australia's beloved chocolate-coconut sponge, gets a full reimagining at this specialty cake shop in Newtown. The original comes with raspberry jam and carries a quietly personal backstory, but the fairy bread version, popcorn buttercream and all, is the one that stops people mid-sentence. Yuzu meringue and black sesame round out a menu that treats a childhood staple with enough seriousness to make that feel completely reasonable.

1. Eater The 38 Best Restaurants in Sydney, Australia

The dough here starts with single-heritage emmer wheat grown up north and ferments for three days before it sees fire, which is a longer backstory than most pizzas get. Westwood is a pizza shop in Newtown where the team sources everything, salami, vegetables, cheese, honey, and the timber in the oven, from within New South Wales. It reads like a provenance exercise but eats like a neighbourhood pizza night.

1. Eater The 38 Best Restaurants in Sydney, Australia