The 100 Best Places in Sydney

Jacketed bartenders with accents spanning small Slovakian towns to big Italian cities set the tone at this cocktail bar in The Rocks. The hospitality runs flamboyant, the kind where staff practically compete for your affection and the host seats everyone like a penthouse guest. Named one of the World's 50 Best Bars, Maybe Sammy drinks from a European hotel-bar playbook that Sydney had no idea it was missing.

1. Difford's Guide 5 stars · Difford's Guide
2. The 50 #42 · The World's 50 Best Bars
3. The Pinnacle Guide 1 Pin

Josh Niland built a reputation on treating fish the way other chefs treat beef, using every part of it, which at Saint Peter means ice cream made with fish eyes instead of eggs. It's a modern Australian restaurant inside a handsome old pub in Paddington, and it ranked 66th on the World's 50 Best Restaurants list in 2025. The cooking is committed enough that Niland's books on the subject won James Beard Awards, which tells you this is not a fish-and-chips situation.

1. The 50 #66 · The World’s 50 Best Restaurants
2. Australian Good Food Guide 17/20 · Three Chef Hats
3. The Infatuation The 31 Best Places To Eat & Stay In Sydney

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
3. Eater The 38 Best Restaurants in Sydney, Australia

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

The sourdough starter here has been alive longer than the restaurant, which tells you something about the kitchen's relationship with patience. Sixpenny is a fine dining destination in a quiet inner-west suburb, where the menu leans on fermentation the way other places lean on butter. The mead vinegar custard with strawberry has been on since 2016 and shows no signs of leaving. Four chef hats from the Australian Good Food Guide, and bookings to match.

1. Australian Good Food Guide 19/20 · Four Chef Hats
2. Eater The 38 Best Restaurants in Sydney, Australia
3. The 50 The 50 Discovery

The sails of the Opera House aren't just backdrop here, they're roof. Bennelong is a multi-level modern Australian restaurant with a casual bar on one end and a formal dining room with harbor views on the other, so you can calibrate your ambition and your wallet accordingly. The kitchen runs seasonal Australian produce through deconstructed comfort classics, and the wine cellar is stocked to match the occasion. The setting does a lot of the heavy lifting, but the food keeps pace.

1. Australian Good Food Guide 17/20 · Three Chef Hats
2. Eater The 38 Best Restaurants in Sydney, Australia
3. The 50 The 50 Discovery

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

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
3. The 50 The 50 Discovery

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
3. The 50 The 50 Discovery

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Four Star

Potts Point's fully vegan fine dining room went plant-only before the rest of the industry caught up, which is either admirable timing or a very long bet that paid off. The chef behind it has spent years making vegetables do things vegetables don't usually do at this price point, and the kitchen earns its three chef hats from the Australian Good Food Guide without leaning on novelty. Book ahead; the room is small and the cooking has a following.

1. Australian Good Food Guide 16/20 · Three Chef Hats
2. Eater The 38 Best Restaurants in Sydney, Australia

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

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 12/20 · 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

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

1. Australian Good Food Guide 13/20 · One Chef Hat
2. The Infatuation The 31 Best Places To Eat & Stay In Sydney

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
3. The 50 The 50 Discovery

1. Australian Good Food Guide 13/20 · One Chef Hat
2. The Infatuation The 31 Best Places To Eat & Stay In Sydney

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 13/20 · One Chef Hat
2. The Infatuation The 31 Best Places To Eat & Stay In Sydney

An in-house dry-ageing room in an old industrial space in Marrickville sets the tone for what this open-fire steakhouse is about: Australian beef handled with patience, then finished over live flame with more discipline than drama. The room keeps the building's bones exposed, the service keeps the formality in its pocket, and the whole place carries the quiet confidence of somewhere that doesn't need to explain itself. It landed at number 59 on the World's Best Steak Restaurants list.

1. World's 101 Best #59 · World's Best Steak Restaurants
2. Australian Good Food Guide 12/20 · One Chef Hat

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

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

1. The 50 Best Bar Design Award 2025 · The World's 50 Best Bars

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. The 50 Best Bar Design Award 2025 · The World's 50 Best Bars

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

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

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

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

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

Native Australian ingredients anchor the menu at this fine dining room in Springwood, where the Blue Mountains are less a backdrop than an active ingredient. The kitchen leans into the landscape, pulling flavors from country the Gundungurra and Darug peoples have known far longer than any restaurant critic. The room is intimate and unhurried, the kind of place where the service notices things. Two Chef Hats from the Australian Good Food Guide.

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

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

Floor-to-ceiling windows frame Balmoral Beach from every seat, which makes the nautical theme feel earned rather than decorative. This is a fine-dining restaurant on the Sydney Harbour foreshore, all French blue linen and an open kitchen that spills into a lounge furnished with Moroccan rugs. The chef came up through Sixpenny, and the seasonal menu leans into the harbour setting without hammering the point. A 350-bottle wine list and two Good Food Guide Chef Hats.

1. Australian Good Food Guide 15/20 · Two Chef Hats
2. The 50 The 50 Discovery

A mezcal cocktail bar wedged into a Council Place garage so small it might have previously housed a single hatchback. Cantina OK is the opposite of Sydney's big-shoulder waterfront bars, the ones that eye your footwear suspiciously. Sandals, cowboy hats, and ball gowns all get waved through here, and the agave list runs deep enough that you'll stop pretending you know what you want and just ask.

1. Difford's Guide 5 stars · Difford's Guide
2. The 50 The 50 Discovery

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 14/20 · Two Chef Hats

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

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 15/20 · Two Chef Hats

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

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

A bar built around a bottling operation is an unusual anchor, but PS40 commits: the house sodas, made from local ingredients with no preservatives, drive the whole menu. The bush tonic alone runs through Peruvian cinchona bark, lemon myrtle, and native lemongrass. Cocktails pair those sodas with equally niche spirits, and the list reads like a festival lineup. Find the entrance down Skittle Lane, which feels about right.

1. Difford's Guide 4.5 stars · Difford's Guide
2. Eater The 38 Best Restaurants in Sydney, Australia
3. The 50 The 50 Discovery

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 14/20 · Two Chef Hats

Single O has coffee on self-serve tap, which sounds gimmicky until you're pulling a single origin at the brew bar and reconsidering everything. This Surry Hills cafe supplies beans to a significant slice of Sydney's restaurant scene, so there's a decent chance you've already had their coffee without knowing it. The banana bread comes with espresso butter, which is either the logical conclusion of brunch culture or its apotheosis, depending on your mood.

1. World Coffee Map Your Guide to Coffee in Sydney
2. World Coffee Map Where to Drink Coffee in Sydney
3. World Coffee Map Essential Coffee Shops in Sydney

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

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

1. Australian Good Food Guide 12/20 · 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

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 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 13/20 · One Chef Hat
2. The 50 The 50 Discovery

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

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 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

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

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

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

Softly lit and tucked into Chippendale's Kensington Street, Chez Beckett's is a modern French bistro where the industrial bones of the building meet white-tablecloth formality without feeling stuffy. The menu leans into the classics, escargots, tartare, duck, done with Australian seasonal produce threaded through. The wine list is curated and the cocktails are genuinely considered, which the after-work crowd in the corner seems to have figured out already.

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 13/20 · One Chef Hat

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

1. The Pinnacle Guide 1 Pin
2. The 50 The 50 Discovery
3. Spirited Awards 2026 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best International Hotel Bar – APAC

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

1. Australian Good Food Guide 12/20 · 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 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

An enormous open hearth anchors this relaxed Paddington dining room, where flagstone floors and pastel-clad staff give it the feel of a farmhouse that wandered in from rural Provence and decided to stay. The kitchen leans on fire and the season, turning out produce-driven, Mediterranean-leaning Modern Australian plates. It holds an Australian Good Food Guide Chef Hat, and the kind of crowd that comes early and lingers.

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

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

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

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

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

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