The Best Italian Food in Sydney

A wood-fired kitchen with a short menu and no apologies for either, Ester is a casual Italian-leaning restaurant in Chippendale where the off-duty chef crowd fills the room most nights. The fit-out is minimal and the mood deliberately unhurried, which gives the cooking space to make its point. Locally sourced ingredients carry most of the weight, and the team lets them.

1. Australian Good Food Guide 14/20 · Two Chef Hats
2. The Infatuation The 31 Best Places To Eat & Stay In Sydney
3. The 50 The 50 Discovery

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

1. Australian Good Food Guide 17/20 · Three Chef Hats
2. The 50 The 50 Discovery

1. Australian Good Food Guide 16/20 · Three 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
2. The 50 The 50 Discovery

1. Australian Good Food Guide 13/20 · 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 12/20 · One Chef Hat

1. Australian Good Food Guide 13/20 · 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

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

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

An Italian restaurant set inside a converted house on the edge of Sydney's Hills District, with bushland visible from the dining room and a sommelier who takes the wine list seriously. The kitchen turns out modern Italian cooking that keeps one foot in tradition, and the room is warm enough that a long dinner here feels like a reasonable way to spend an evening. The Australian Good Food Guide awarded it a 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

The corner spot in Redfern that Brooklyn keeps trying to be, Fontana is a good-times Italian diner from a trio who cut their teeth at Don Peppino's before landing here. The room runs warm and loose, the kind of place where the pasta arrives without much ceremony and nobody seems to be in a hurry to leave. It holds an Australian Good Food Guide Hat, which the neighbourhood treats as a fun fact rather than a dress code.

1. Australian Good Food Guide 13/20 · One Chef Hat
2. The 50 The 50 Discovery

The glass cube perched above Bondi's famous sea pool could probably serve airline food and still fill every table. It doesn't: the kitchen runs a modern Italian menu where urchin bruschetta and hand-cut pasta with clams earn their place alongside the Pacific view. Turquoise and white inside, ocean in every window, the room is almost aggressively beautiful. A One Chef Hat restaurant with genuinely good reasons to look away from the water.

1. Australian Good Food Guide 13/20 · One Chef Hat
2. The 50 The 50 Discovery

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

A neighbourhood Italian osteria a short walk from Coogee Beach, where house-made pasta and focaccia share the menu with fire-grilled octopus and the kind of seasonal specials that give regulars an excuse to come back. The room leans into trailing ferns and cane pendants, which sounds like a lot but somehow settles into somewhere easy to stay for a long lunch. It holds an Australian Good Food Guide 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. 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 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. Australian Good Food Guide 12/20 · One Chef Hat

Roman-style pizza by the slice in a small, pretty room on one of Surry Hills' better streets, with a courtyard that fills up when the weather cooperates. The dough gets a long ferment, which gives it the structure to carry serious toppings drawn from Italian regional traditions without going soggy. Appetizers, salads, a pasta or two, and desserts round things out. The cocktail list gets more attention than you'd expect from a slice shop.

1. 50 Top Pizza #16 · 50 Top Pizza Asia-Pacific

A wood-fired Neapolitan pizza shop in Cronulla, right where the Sydney suburbs give way to beach town. The family runs the floor with the kind of unhurried attention you can't hire in, and the dough, soft and properly charred from the oven, does the heavy lifting. Red pies and white pies share the menu alongside salads and a tiramisu that no one is skipping. It ranked 25th on the 50 Top Pizza Asia-Pacific list, which checks out.

1. 50 Top Pizza #25 · 50 Top Pizza Asia-Pacific

Buffalo mozzarella flown in from Battipaglia sits on the menu at this casual pizzeria off the Princess Highway in Tempe, a detail that tells you exactly how seriously the team takes sourcing. The dough skips the classic Neapolitan puff in favor of something from the Cilento coast, a little crisper and more compact. Fresh pasta and a short cheese selection round things out, and the room runs warm in the way that makes you linger longer than planned.

1. 50 Top Pizza #28 · 50 Top Pizza Asia-Pacific

1. The Infatuation The 31 Best Places To Eat & Stay In Sydney
2. The 50 The 50 Discovery