The Best Places in Sydney

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

Floor-to-ceiling glass frames an unbroken view over Whale Beach, and every table in the dining room faces it, which sounds like a marketing promise until you're actually sitting there. Jonah's is a European-leaning coastal restaurant with a seasonal menu built around local produce, the kind of place where the ocean does a lot of the heavy lifting and the kitchen is polite enough to keep up. Smart enough for a long lunch, a little dressed-up for dinner.

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 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

A converted Navy drill hall on a Mosman wharf, with national park on one side and harbour on the other, is doing a lot of the heavy lifting before the food even arrives. L'Heritage is a French bistro and brasserie that leans into the classics, escargot, beef tartare, duck à l'orange, dry-aged steak, cooked with Australian produce and served without the stiffness those dishes sometimes attract. The setting alone tends to silence the table.

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

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

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

A two-floor Cantonese restaurant that seats 240 people without feeling like an airport terminal, which is some feat. Raw brick walls hung with portraits of 1930s Shanghai women set the mood, and the menu runs to 80-odd dishes roaming across Southern China. It's loud, it's handsome, and the kitchen genuinely manages sour, sweet, umami, and spice all at once rather than just promising to.

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

The dining room at this Warwick Farm restaurant sits inside the Inglis bloodstock complex, and the horse-world setting is not subtle. It's a Modern Australian restaurant where the alfresco terrace looks out over riverside stables, which makes for a more distinctive backdrop than most. The menu runs to butter-poached lobster and pressed lamb shoulder, and the cocktail list takes itself seriously enough to earn its own paragraph in the menu.

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

A Victorian terrace on Glebe Point Road that was once a private investigator's office, which may explain why the atmosphere feels like it has something to hide. It's a wine bar and restaurant loosely inspired by Mexican flavours, though the menu roams freely: dry-aged sirloin, barramundi, tres leches cake. Whitewashed walls and open fireplaces keep things easy, and the Australian Good Food Guide gave it a 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 13/20 · One Chef Hat

A live olive tree strung with fairy lights sits at the center of the room, which tells you immediately that Oribu is playing a longer game than your average Japanese restaurant. This is fine dining, rooftop, Parramatta's first of its kind, built around omakase platters and wagyu with choppped wasabi and sansho salt. The Australian Good Food Guide gave it a Chef Hat. Theatrics are part of the deal, and the bar is a reasonable place to start.

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

Behind a Beaujolais-red door on Commonwealth Street, Poly reads as a wine bar until the food arrives and quietly takes over. The coal-fire grill drives everything, lending smoke and umami to small, shareable plates that have built a devoted following across Sydney. The wine list is genuine and well-chosen, but it knows its supporting role. Book a nook, order more than you think you need, and let the kitchen settle the debate.

1. Australian Good Food Guide 12/20 · One Chef Hat
2. The 50 The 50 Discovery

Red and white plates, chalkboard menus on burgundy walls, tables worn to a comfortable shine: this Paddington bistro is doing its level best to make Oxford Street feel like the Marais. The menu takes the same unapologetic stance, running pâté en croûte and vol-au-vent alongside veal Rossini with foie gras and truffle. No reinvention, no apology. It holds an Australian Good Food Guide Chef Hat.

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

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

Floor-to-ceiling windows look straight out over Balmoral Beach toward Manly and North Head, which makes the room feel less like a restaurant and more like a very well-catered boat. This is a relaxed fine dining spot on The Esplanade, serving a modern Australian à la carte menu with Mediterranean leanings and local produce. The Australian Good Food Guide awarded it a Chef Hat. Getting there by water taxi from Circular Quay is, apparently, a genuine option.

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

A lakeside dining room tucked beside Norwest Lake in the Hills District, Quoi Dining runs a modern French menu with Australian produce woven through it. The setting is quiet enough that conversation doesn't compete with anything, which suits the careful, technique-forward cooking. It's a fine-dining room that draws the special-occasion crowd, and the Australian Good Food Guide has given it a Chef Hat.

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

An open kitchen doubles as a stage at this omakase and theater dining restaurant in Redfern, where two chefs work in near-silence while guests sit close enough to hear the knife. The rain-inspired interior tilts quiet and contemplative, which sets the right mood for a meal built around precision and patience. Chef Raita Noda has been running omakase in Sydney for years, and this is his latest, most considered room.

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

A tandoor and a dosa menu in the same room as chilli saffron foam tells you everything about where Seven Spices is headed. It's a modern Indian restaurant in Lane Cove that pulls from street food, slow curries, and flame-cooked classics without treating any of them as lesser than the others. The room skews toward families and celebrations, and the Australian Good Food Guide awarded it a Chef Hat.

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

Sandwiched between two heritage sandstone buildings down a Surry Hills laneway, Shaffa is a Middle Eastern restaurant and bar built around shared plates and a deliberately festive mood. The space pulls from the energy of a bazaar, all bold spices and low lighting, and it suits a long table of friends more than a quiet Tuesday. The Australian Good Food Guide awarded it a Chef Hat.

1. Australian Good Food Guide 12/20 · 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

The menu at this fine-dining room in Penrith is built around a loose rule: nothing on the plate has traveled more than 50 kilometres to get there. That radius pulls in the Hawkesbury, the Blue Mountains foothills, and the Nepean Valley, and the kitchen leans into it rather than hiding it behind French technique. Modern Australian cooking with a genuine sense of where it is, and a One Chef Hat from the Australian Good Food Guide to back the ambition.

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 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 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

Two heritage buildings, an Art Deco pub and a Victorian-era brewery HQ, joined by enclosing the alleyway between them: that's the physical logic of this boutique hotel in Chippendale, just south of the CBD. The architects kept the industrial patina and layered in genuinely considered luxury. The Clare Bar runs a high-design pub vibe downstairs, and the rooftop handles cocktails and the kind of al fresco evening that makes Sydney feel like it's showing off.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels
2. The 50 The 50 Discovery

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

A Surry Hills spot where Australian and Asian cooking get folded into each other in ways that feel less like fusion and more like a genuine point of view. The menu shifts familiar territory into something harder to categorize, which is either exciting or unsettling depending on your mood. The room is small enough that the kitchen's curiosity feels personal. It holds a Chef Hat from the Australian Good Food Guide.

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

A contemporary Indian restaurant tucked into a resort-like setting on the edge of the Northern Beaches, Urban Tadka moves through regional Indian cooking with a modern hand. The room runs from casual dinners to full celebration mode, with lounge areas and a proper bar alongside the dining spaces. It holds a One Chef Hat from the Australian Good Food Guide, and the menu leans into sharing, which suits the warm, unhurried pace of the place.

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

The restaurant takes its name from the Japanese word for a Western chef's knife, which tells you something about where this place sits, one foot in Japanese tradition, the other in the cooking-obsessed Sydney dining scene. It's a considered, sit-down Japanese restaurant in sleepy Clovelly, and the kitchen leans hard on local produce while keeping the cooking precise and unfussy. The kind of room where people are there to eat, not to be seen.

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

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

Tucked into a laneway between downtown Sydney and Surry Hills, Alberto's Lounge is a late-night wine bar that has made a home in a stretch of city the city forgot, all carparks and gloomy office blocks. The room fills fast, queues forming by six on Fridays, so a booking is less optional than it sounds. Walk-ins aren't turned away, but patience helps. The kind of place you stay longer than planned.

1. Difford's Guide 4.5 stars · Difford's Guide
2. The Infatuation The 31 Best Places To Eat & Stay In Sydney

1. The 50 The 50 Discovery
2. Spirited Awards 2026 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best International Restaurant Bar – APAC

The kangaroos that hop past your window aren't a marketing promise; they're just Tuesday. This eco-lodge sits inside Taronga Zoo Sydney, so the native animal sanctuary outside is literally part of the grounds, and every stay includes two days of zoo admission and a guided tour. Floor-to-ceiling windows frame either the wildlife habitat or a postcard shot of the Opera House and Harbour Bridge. The Michelin Guide awarded it one Key.

1. Michelin Guide 1 Key

A 31-room boutique hotel tucked into the city center, where the rooms split into two distinct moods: dark Japanese-inflected spaces with black floorboards and loft ceilings, or pale blonde-wood calm for the anxious traveler. Bulgari in the stone bathrooms, Bose systems as standard, and hotel guests quietly bypass the queue for the Establishment bar below, reportedly the longest in Sydney. Not a pool in sight, but the beds are generous enough to make you forget.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

A CBD hotel that quietly borrows from both Japan and Scandinavia, with pale timber, matte-black trim, and rooms kept refreshingly uncluttered. Corner "Big Rooms" wrap floor-to-ceiling glass around the city skyline. The rooftop splits between an indoor lounge centered on a custom fireplace and a planted timber deck above the street. Downstairs the bar pours Australian wines and makes a committed orange espresso martini, which is a sentence you'll either love or scroll past.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

The lobby's floral installations take their cue from Versailles, which sets the tone for this grand CBD hotel near Martin Place and Hyde Park. All 436 rooms across 17 floors have been refreshed in warm neutrals and charcoal paneling, with mid-century lighting and timber accents keeping things from tipping into stuffy. A private Club lounge handles the wood-paneled, moody-sophistication brief for those who want it.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

The sandstone bones of a former General Post Office, complete with grand columns and arched windows, now frame one of Sydney's more atmospheric hotels. Rooms split between the Italian Renaissance-style heritage wing and a modern tower, where the decor stays deliberately understated so the skyline can do the talking. The Bar handles afternoon tea and evening cocktails; The Place serves modern Australian and Southeast Asian food amid the original stonework.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

Locals call it the Lizzy, which tells you something about how the neighborhood has taken to it. This boutique hotel on the Surry Hills edge was built from cross-laminated timber and decorated by a Sydney artist with floral wallpaper, vintage mirrors, and Australian art. Rooms are compact but considered, and the rooftop lounge looks out over the low-rise streets. The ground-floor courtyard fills with the kind of people who blur the line between a laptop and a long lunch.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

A heritage-listed theatre on Oxford Street, converted into a hotel without quite forgetting what it was. Rooms split into two design personalities, Dreamers and Renegades, both leaning into the building's cinematic bones. Ground level gets genuinely busy: The Palomar's first outpost outside London, a croissant counter, a velvet cocktail bar, and a rooftop with DJs and skyline views. It sits at the hinge between Paddington, Surry Hills, and Darlinghurst, which is either convenient or dangerous.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

Full-kitchen, open-plan apartments in a Surry Hills terrace, selected by the Michelin Guide, aimed squarely at the visitor who'd rather cook a late dinner than flag down a bellhop. The neighborhood does a lot of the heavy lifting: some of Sydney's sharpest restaurants and bars are within a short walk, the city center is close enough, and the Harbour Bridge photo-op crowd is largely pointed elsewhere.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

The Coca-Cola sign still glows outside, which tells you this is Kings Cross even if the all-night bars have mostly given way to Japanese-French restaurants and independent galleries. Hotel Indigo's 105 rooms lean into art deco bones, with wall-to-wall windows framing either Rushcutters Bay or the skyline, plus curated vinyl and books for the insomniacs. The neighborhood's edge hasn't quite been gentrified away, and the walk to the museum strip is short.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

A digital mural in the lobby rotates through past guests' filtered phone pics, which tells you exactly the kind of hotel this is: a converted 1800s wool factory in Pyrmont where the lobby, bar, kitchen, and restaurant blur into one open, buzzy common room. Rooms range from the self-deprecatingly named Shoebox up to multi-level suites, all with high ceilings and salvaged-timber desks. The neighborhood, just past Darling Harbour, has a genuinely local feel.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

The 1930s Art Deco bones are the whole point here, and the Kimpton Margot leans into them without apology, filling the ornate interiors with enough art to make the corridors worth wandering. It sits on the southern edge of the CBD, just far enough from the main tourist drag to feel like a neighborhood hotel rather than a holding pen. Luke Mangan's modern Australian restaurant and a classic Sydney café keep it lively well past checkout time.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

Each room is decorated to its own individual scheme, with marble bathrooms and no two feeling alike. Medusa is a boutique hotel in a converted Victorian townhouse on Darlinghurst Road, designed by Scott Werner with interiors that lean aggressively away from their origins. There's no bar or restaurant, which is the point: the neighborhood handles all of that. Courtyard rooms welcome dogs, making it a rare find for travelers who pack a plus-one with four legs.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

A converted finger wharf stretching over the water, with moored boats on one side and Sydney Harbour landmarks on the other, this hotel makes location do most of the heavy lifting. Loft-style rooms, many split-level, lean into the industrial bones while the décor goes full maximalist in chocolate faux-suede, which sounds wrong and looks memorable. The minibar and wi-fi are complimentary, and the 24-hour pool means there's no particular reason to leave.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

Twelve square meters of glass floor in the lobby look straight down into Walsh Bay, and that's before you've checked in. Pier One is a heritage hotel built on an actual pier alongside the Harbour Bridge, with rooms that look out over open water, not parking lots with a sliver of blue if you lean. The Rocks neighborhood, Sydney's oldest colonial quarter, is steps away when you need an excuse to go ashore.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

A Victorian pub in Paddington converted into a 14-room hotel by Josh Niland, the scale-to-tail seafood chef. Rooms run to claw-foot tubs, marble fireplaces, and hand-painted wallpaper, all in the kind of grey-and-brown palette that signals someone took interiors seriously. Breakfast is guests-only and involves marron on scrambled eggs. The fish-fat soap in the bathroom is, somehow, a reasonable thing to find here.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

A heritage tobacco warehouse turned 122-room hotel in the CBD, with the original brick archways still doing their thing on the lower floors while a 36-storey tower rises above. Leather detailing on the armchairs and wardrobes nods to the building's mercantile past, and curved windows echo the old arches. Dining and drinking spread across five levels, and there's a heated outdoor pool when Sydney decides to cooperate.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

The fin-shaped tower above Darling Harbour is hard to miss, which is rather the point. W Sydney is a hotel that leans into its own spectacle: vivid interiors, curved rooms shaped by the building's unusual geometry, and a top-floor infinity pool with views over the harbor. The restaurant takes its name from the elevated motorways on either side. If you've ever thought a W felt more like a mood board than a hotel, this one might change your mind.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

1. The 50 The 50 Discovery

1. The New York Times 2018 · Critic's Pick · Restaurant Review
2. The Infatuation The 31 Best Places To Eat & Stay In Sydney

Rooms named Economy through First Class, though even the entry level beats any actual economy cabin by a wide margin. This airport hotel leans hard into mid-century modernist style, with bold colors and clean-lined furniture that make a pointed argument against beige carpet. A rooftop cinema and a proper cocktail bar feel almost excessive for the neighborhood, which is, inescapably, next to the runway. The Michelin Guide has it in their selected hotels.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

A silver-and-glass tower corkscrewing into the Barangaroo skyline, Crown Sydney is a luxury hotel where the harbour, the Opera House, and the bridge are simply what you see from your room. Fourteen restaurants and bars keep guests from ever needing to leave, among them Clare Smyth's fine-dining room on the 26th floor. The crowd skews firmly toward people who expense things without looking at the total.

1. The 50 The 50 Discovery

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
2. 50 Top Pizza 2026 · Pizza Maker of the Year · 50 Top Pizza Asia-Pacific Special Awards