The Best Places to Eat and Drink in Newtown

An extensive vinyl collection spins through a high-end sound system, and the whole bar is arranged around taking that seriously, kissa-style, the way listening bars in Japan are. ANTE is a drinks-forward spot in Newtown where the sake list runs deep, with producer notes detailed enough to actually teach you something. It rewards a slow, curious approach to the menu rather than a quick round, which is either a warning or a recommendation depending on your Thursday night.

1. Australian Good Food Guide 12/20 · One Chef Hat
2. Spirited Awards 2026 · Top 10 Nominee · Best International Restaurant Bar
3. The 50 The 50 Discovery

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. Spirited Awards 2026 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best New International Cocktail Bar – APAC

Psychedelic decor, dripping candles, and exposed brick on Enmore Road, all in service of a single obsession: the martini. Bar Planet is a cocktail bar that has essentially written a constitution around one drink, using its own house spirit and offering it neat, miniature, long with soda, or dirty with seaweed and brine. Newtown approves, predictably. The 50 gave it a Discovery listing, which tracks for a bar this committed to doing one thing its own way.

1. The 50 The 50 Discovery

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

1. Difford's Guide Difford's Guide