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Harada is an Omakase-style Japanese restaurant in Glebe with a big focus on seafood. Headed up by chef Yoshinobu Harada who has a knack for creating umami flavours with the freshest, seasonal produce, you can expect a modern twist on traditional Japanese eats at Harada.

Cute and compact, Tobikiri in Neutral Bay dishes up all your Japanese faves in a relaxed setting. Think fresher than fresh salmon and tuna sashimi, loaded tempura prawn and soft shell crab sushi rolls, baby avocado rolls, sashimi salad and wagyu tataki. Add to that hot dishes like teriyaki salmon, chicken kara-age, veggie tempura with noodles and fried scallop skewers and you have yourself a feast.

Sushi Oe is a bite-sized Japanese restaurant in Cammeray with an offering that’s anything but small. Chef Toshihiko Oe welcomes six guests each night for his abundant omakase menu. Always booked out a month in advance, the experience sees you relinquishing all decisions to chef Oe, but you can be assured a delicious, fish-heavy experience. To secure a booking you’ll want to watch the Sushi Oe Instagram page to find out when the next month’s slots become available and text your preferred dates, name and the number of people in your party to 0451 970 984, then cross everything. If you’re lucky enough to score a spot (they’ve been known to have over 840 applications for one month) the experience will set you back $230 per person.

The Verdict

Housed within Kyah, a boutique hotel in the Blue Mountains, Blaq is a destination in its own right.

From former Rockpool and Eleven Bridge chef Phil Wood, Ursula's was one of 2021's many new restaurants—and easily one of the best too. Here, Wood has created a storybook of Australian cuisine, drawing on ideas and influences old and new, retro, modern, native, and nostalgic.

Chef Chase Kojima is one force to be reckoned with. The Japanese culinary firecracker carved out a solid reputation as an award-winning chef at Sydney’s fine dining restaurant Sokyo, but most recently, he’s raked in even more accolades with his very own luxury sushi and sashimi joint dubbed Simulation Senpai in Haymarket—a humble idea that stemmed from wanting to provide work for his Sokyo team when Covid hit, jobs were cut and takeaway reigned supreme.

If you're a big-time banh mi fiend—you need to make tracks for Alex 'N' Rolls. It's where you'll find some of Sydney's tastiest Vietnamese rolls. 

Step inside Kuon Omakase and you’ll quickly forget you’re in the heart of Sydney’s Haymarket. A luxury 11-seater fine dining Japanese restaurant that transports guests directly to the charming backstreets of Osaka, Kuon Omakase is where culinary heavyweights and hard-core Japanese cuisine fans choose to dine.

Down the bottom end of Crown Street, amidst endless restaurants and takeaway shops, you’ll find a lit-up yellow sign hanging over a couple of small outdoor tables, chalked-up specials boards, and eye-catching dark blue doors.

Sydney’s inner city is home to some revered fried chicken joints (think the likes of Butter and Thirsty Bird). But you’ll find that the city’s outer suburbs in the West and far North are blessed with heavyweights and hidden gems known dearly to lucky locals.

Led by Grant Hilliard, Feather and Bone takes sustainable practice very seriously. That means only selling pasture-raised meat from regenerative farms—each personally visited by the Marrickville butchers with information passed onto you.

The freshest addition to Sydney's steak scene and the crowning jewel of Martin Place's insane $170 million transformation is Botswana Butchery.

Just steps from Sydney’s most famous beach is Chuck Trailer’s, a grungy dive bar complete with a whole lot of debauchery.

Vic’s Meat is a name that needs no introduction across the Sydney food landscape as one of the best-known wholesalers in town and provider of meats to big names like Quay, Bennelong, Woodcut, Sixpenny, Aria, and more.

Shaking up The Rocks' bar scene in a big way, Hickson House Distilling Co. is the brainchild of Mikey Enright and Julian Train (of The Duke of Clarence and The Barber Shop fame) plus Tim Stones (distilling whiz formerly of Manly Spirits). 

Tucked into a courtyard on Bourke Street in the former Maybe Frank spot, Cicerone Cucina Romana is the little slice of Roman culture Sydney has been missing.

The name Victor Churchill carries some real weight in Australia’s butcher game.

It goes without saying that Sydney has a major obsession with doughnuts of all shapes, sizes, and flavours, which is why it's always good news that a new doughnut joint has opened. Don't Doughnuts is the newest kid on the block, setting up shop on Victoria Street in Darlinghurst.

Gone are the days when “bottomless feeds” were somewhat of a rare novelty in Sydney. You can pretty much score “bottomless” anything right now but the newest venue on our radar just happens to sport two of the greatest all-you-can-eat feasts—wings and beer. Say no more.

The Alexandria Hotel, affectionately known as "The Alex" and loved for its big, leafy beer garden, has now reopened in part. 

Manly’s famed Wharf Bar has just reopened after an extensive renovation—and this time around, it sports a brand new Mediterranean-inspired restaurant filled with high terrazzo tables, prawn cocktails on ice, wood-fired bread, and a spiced pineapple margarita worthy of your summer sipping.

Woolloomooloo's famous wharf has a new addition. Say ciao to IL PONTILE—a sleek Italian restaurant that feels very at home at this sparkly harbourside spot. 

It might seem unlikely that you could find a mega beer garden, a glass atrium, a public bar and a bistro all in one place but Richmond Inn’s brand new multi-million dollar transformation has made the impossible well, possible. 

Perched on top of the stunning heritage building at Wynyard, Sky Bar is one part of the three-part dining experience on the top floor at Shell House. 

Just opened at the bottom of Foveaux Street is the newest member of Sydney’s booming sandwich scene—Theo’s Deli.

You’ve no doubt knocked back a margarita (or three) and consumed more crispy prawn tacos than you’d like to admit at Fonda’s Bondi Beach establishment. Now, the Fonda crew are taking a step back from the sandy shores of the Eastern Suburbs and a step into the inner-city, opening their ninth venue in the leafy streets of Surry Hills.

Duo Duo Ice Cream is the highest calibre of the icy stuff here in Sydney, as far as we’re concerned. Having started as a food truck some three years ago, the concept was a win from the get-go. A mobile dessert truck that churned out the likes of sea salt caramel popcorn balls with butterscotch sauce, or pandan and coconut ice-cream scoops topped with a salted coconut glaze and toasted coconut.

After a 13-month restoration, Sydney's most iconic floating villa is finally back. When the villa launched in December 2018, it was an ultra-exclusive member's only type affair, with a hefty monthly fee, a 12-month contract and a limited number of memberships available. However, September 2020 saw the luxury villa go up in flames which destroyed majority of its structure and now, just over a year later, Lilypad is on the return and ready to take new bookings for 2022.

From the Milpa Collective crew, Casa Merida is a cocktail bar inspired by the opulent Belle Epoque-style Coqui Coqui hotel in Merida, on Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula.

From the Milpa Collective, Santa Catarina is an all-in mezcal bar where you can go deep on the smokey sibling to tequila. 

Taking up space in the former MV Bistro & Wine Bar, Mille Vini has been a Crown Street staple for quite some time. Now, the neighbourhood joint has undergone a reimagining from the same hospitality juggernauts that brought you Rosie Campbell’s and Mama Saan.

Turkish bagels, simit sandwiches, and handmade gozleme. Such is the food offering at Botany’s newest joint, a food venture from the team behind the CBD’s Middle Eastern eatery Above Par.

From the crew behind Sydney's opium den-inspired whisky bar, The Doss House comes a new gin bar for The Rocks. Frank Mac's ain't your average gin bar either—with 100+ gins sourced from all around the world, it has one of the biggest botanical collections in Sydney.

Aria Restaurant's award-winning menu and breathtaking Circular Quay location have long been an attraction for discerning diners.

This award-winning restaurant, situated on the stunning harbour at Rose Bay, has been a Sydney icon for over two decades. Boasting an exceptional wine list, specialty seafood and contemporary Australian dishes with Mediterranean influences, Catalina is a harbour city dining experience matched by few.

From the crew behind The Glenmore, The Australian Heritage Hotel in the Rocks, and The Royal Leichhardt—The Redfern is the local pub restoration we've been hanging out for. 

It's not often that Surry Hills comes second to the Gold Coast, but we're absolutely willing to make an exception in this case. Award-winning chef Dylan Cashman has officially created a Sydney outpost of his standout GC restaurant The Blue Door down South.

Sydney’s delicatessen matrix is a hard one to break into but anyone who’s been to Bronte Road’s newest kid on the block knows that Frank’s Deli has cracked the code.

If there's one drink that really symbolises the last two years of our lives—it has to be the tiny bottled cocktail, right?

The crew behind The Dolphin, Harpoon Harry’s, The Bucket List, and Bondi Beach Public Bar have taken on historic Shell House at Wynyard in the CBD. The restoration of the multi-storey venue leans into the stunning building's Interwar commercial palazzo-style architecture with indoor and outdoor settings over 1,600 sqm of space (yes, a rooftop bar too)—a design collaboration between interior stylist Anna Hewett and Woods Bagot Architects. 

Before the lockout laws, so much of Sydney's nightlife revolved around Oxford Street. Now, the City of Sydney is working hard to bring it all back to life and we reckon a brand new bar called Hank's is the first sign of life.

We've seen a couple of modern reinventions of the iconic Aussie fish and chip shop in recent years, like FICH in Petersham and more recently Josh Niland's Charcoal Fish (see below) and FISH SHOP in Bondi. Well, FSH MKT is the newest in this sub-genre of beachside takeaway, and it's actually an extension of FISH SHOP, filling up the spot next door on Glenayr Ave. 

Sichuan pepper and lemon meringue pie are no usual gelato flavours however they are prime real estate for your taste buds, so to speak, at Tasty Towns.

Sydney's expanding omakase scene will score a new player in November: Bay Nine Omakase. Taking up a spot within the Campbells Cove waterfront dining precinct in The Rocks, Bay Nine will feature an ultra-intimate 10-seater dining experience at the bar, led by one of Sydney's youngest omakase head chefs, Tomohiro Marshall Oguro.

If there’s one thing Sydney has taught us, it’s that a city can never have too many rooftop bars and let’s just say, come sunset, Lady Banks Rooftop Bar is the place you want to be.

It’s another notch in the belt for husband and wife duo Mike and Mia Russell—a third outpost for Baker Bleu and the bakery’s very first interstate opening. Like most things in Melbourne that have made the great border jump into Sydney’s great hospitality scene, you’re in for a major treat.

Australia's first Five Guys location is in Penrith, next door to the Panthers Leagues Club. If you’re not yet acquainted with this U.S-based burger chain, Five Guys is known for two things: burgers and fries. But these burgers are unlike anything you’ll find at a typical fast-food joint. Five Guys operate on a “no freezer” promise—their brioche buns are freshly grilled, the ground beef patties are shaped by hand and their hand-cut chips are fried on demand, skin-on and straight to your table.

Award-winning chef and pioneer of sustainable seafood, Josh Niland has a totally new idea for Sydney: a fish and chip shop concept that pairs the nostalgia and simplicity of a charcoal chicken shop with his new school approach to seafood.

My Mother's Cousin is Sydney’s newest (lockdown) opening paying homage to a very real but very secret, immaculately dressed relative with a receding hairline. This new Bexley pizza and wings parlour is inspired by New York’s pizza culture, which means you will absolutely find a pepperoni spread made with their very own pepperoni (made by an artisan butcher). 

It’s not every day you come past a coffee shop that quite literally lights up your life. By George Coffee is a brand-new Croydon Park cafe filled with great coffee, great bagels, and so many sweet treats you’ll think you’ve walked into Willy Wonka’s chocolate room. So let’s get into the good stuff.

After a stunning multi-million dollar glow-up, Greek fine diner Alpha is back in our lives again.

Another entry on the sandwich front for Sydney is Kosta's, Rockdale's newest hole-in-the-wall sandwich joint with stacks of attitude.

After a four-year hiatus, Pub Life Kitchen has returned to the Lord Wolseley Hotel in Ultimo. 

Gnocchi Gnocchi Brothers is Australia's first-ever dedicated gnoccheria. If you're not familiar, the beloved Brisbane market-stall-turned-gnocchi-sensation has been turning heads for the past few years with its fluffy house-made gnocchi and pasta sauces, peddling tasty plates across six vibing restaurants in Queensland. 

Northern Rivers crew, rejoice: acclaimed chef-owner Jessi Singh just opened his “unauthentic Indian” restaurant Daughter in Law on Fletcher Street in Byron this June and it’s about to take you on a very flavourful ride.

From the Ho Jiak team, Amah is a fresh Malaysian eatery serving cuisine inspired by head chef Hun Loong's amah (the word for "grandmother" in Teochew and Hokkien). 

Rice Pantry is a part of Marrickville Metro's amazing new glow-up. On the new Smidmore Street dining precinct, the all-day diner is a follow-up to St Peters' super popular Rice Pantry outpost, only this time, former Masterchef contestant Bryan Zhu has joined the kitchen as head chef, whipping up even more friendly Aussie-inspired Vietnamese treats.

Picking up where Freda's left off in Chippendale is The Barrie, a no-fuss cocktail lounge and live music spot from Chris Garner, Chris Turvey, and Liam Stanwell. While the trio counts Employees Only, Rockpool, and Restaurant Hubert in their bar experience, the vibe at The Barrie is much more low-key.

Headed up by Mike Bennie and Lou Dowling, P&V Wine + Liquor Merchants' Newtown outpost is our forever go-to for delicious chilled reds, pet nats, orange wines, funky wines, and hard-to-find Aussie spirits that'll seriously level up your home-made Negroni game.