Sydney's Ten Best New Restaurants of 2017
The city's very best newcomers, opened over summer and autumn this year.
Sydney's Ten Best New Restaurants of 2017
The city's very best newcomers, opened over summer and autumn this year.
There's a moment when you're drinking mead from a polished, gilded cow horn in a Redfern basement that you become smugly aware that Sydney's restaurant scene had a strong start to 2017. It's not every year that begins with an underground contemporary Viking luxe bar. Or a 1920s-style city coffeehouse with tea trolleys and shoe shines while you wait. Or a George Orwell-inspired moody bar with 350-strong wine list.
With so many openings hitting the city in a six-month period, we whittled it down to our favourite newcomers raising the bar for Sydney's hospitality scene. Well, our favourites so far — and there's still another six months to go.
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Started by two French brothers, Luc and Loic, and inspired by family recipes, LoLuk offers an authentic taste of the fabled Provence region. Housed in a cosy space on Bourke Street, the menu includes the traditional likes of a Nicoise tart ($14) with anchovies, black olives and caramelised onions cooked to a tender sweetness sliding out of a perfectly crumbly base. A special of pork and calvados (that is, an apple brandy) pâté is also flavoursome bistro fare. Both come with crisp greens and plenty of balsamic vinegar and provide an excellent introduction to Provençal eating.
Located on the south coast of France, Provence has a strong Mediterranean influence. Perhaps the most universally recognised dish from the region is the ratatouille ($8), an apparently simple vegetable dish which inspires infinite arguments about the definitive version amongst French chefs. LoLuk’s version is colourful and makes use of some top-shelf produce, with the mushrooms, red peppers and zucchini really singing.
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Nahji Chu has had a tumultuous few years. In the last few years, we’ve seen her restaurant chain Misschu go into administration, get pulled out of administration and then, last year, it ceased to exist in New South Wales (still alive and kicking in Victoria) when it was last year taken over by restaurateur Aki Kotzamichalis to become Saigon Lane. But now Chu is back on the Sydney dining scene. And her first projecthttps://concreteplayground.com/melbourne/food-drink/food-2/misschu-is-about-to-be-reborn-as-saigon-lane/ for 2017 is a 285-seater yum cha restaurant in Bondi Junction. Now open above East Leagues, Cha Li Boi will be bringing you Pacman dumplings, Phoenix Claws, Man Buns and loads more new takes on traditional Chinese dishes.
Chu enlisted John Leong (ex-Billy Kwong) as head chef to develop the menu. You can also expect classic dumplings, such as steamed pork bao, and more creative ones — the Ling My Bell dumplings, for example, look like gold fish, complete with orange tails. The Pac-Man dumplings look like their namesake, but with a variety of ingredients inside, including scallop and scampi, tempura eggplant with avocado and duck a l’Orange. The Claw Feet and the Man Buns? Well, they translate to chicken feet and vegan tempura okra sliders, respectively.
Sommelier Paula Scholes (aka Miss Pearls) is in charge of the wine list. Her focus is boutique drops, created by small, independent producers. Examples include a Fritz Hasselback Reisling from Germany and Whispering Angel Rose from France, as well as William Downie Pinot and Prophet’s Rock Pinot Gris, both from Victoria. Teetotallers can get stuck into bubble tea cocktails, fruit cups and organic teas, served up by the Car Bar. Feeling frisky? Try the vodka jelly shots.
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A tiny, unassuming space in Sydney’s CBD, Sasaki champions home cooking and the nostalgia of parental-made comfort food. Owner and head chef, Yu Sasaki (Cre Asian) pays homage to his hometown of Shimane with his new laneway restaurant, with dishes reflecting his fragmented memories of the Japanese countryside. The pint-sized, minimalist restaurant boasts a daily changing menu using the freshest Australian produce. The menu is completely driven by season and Sasaki only uses ingredients that have been peak harvested by his local suppliers and farmers, with whom he maintains a close personal relationship.
Each dish is inspired by his mother’s home cooking — think simple dishes like whole prawn ceviche, red miso soup and thinly sliced whiting sashimi. The menu is split into meat, seafood, vegetable, side dishes and hitokuchi-gashi (bite-sized desserts), but is rather reserved with description and partially written in Japanese, so those with dietary requirements may struggle here. Since Sasaki only seats 25 people, it’s also best to book at least one-week in advance.
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Straight up: MOLO is turning out some of the best Italian fare we’ve had in Sydney. Located on the wharf at Woolloomooloo, the new aperitivo wine bar is part of fine diner Manta — it’s technically a pop-up, but one that’s meant to stick around long-term.
The small bar is set outdoors, but with heaters to keep guests cosy on the impending winter nights. The entire operation is gloriously simple, from the tables and chairs to the stemless wine glasses and the food on offer. The cicchetti are a great example of this — think next-level provolone and spicy pimento peppers with thin slices of Australian-produced prosciutto that bests any co-owner Riccardo Bernabei found in Italy. He’s looking to continue to source more and more produce from Australia; their bread is already specially made for the restaurant by Tramsheds‘ Dust Bakery. Though MOLO shares Manta’s executive chef Daniel Hughes and head chef Steve Hetherington, the menu is a distinct departure from the restaurant next door in that it is not only a seasonal one but is also very specifically dictated by available produce.
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The Kensington Street precinct, with the refurbished Old Clare Hotel as its anchor, is home to a variety of hospitality operators and cuisines. From the casual Asian ‘eat street’ Spice Alley to the suave Automata and the ever-evolving dining spaces upstairs, diners have no shortage of options in this area. So where to choose? Well, if you’re a reasonably well-heeled middle-aged couple, have been tasked with taking out the in-laws, or are just in search of some nice hand-made pasta, you might head to Olio.
It’s a generous space, located on the top of The Old Rum Store, it has really lovely heritage bones, big arched windows and bare brick walls. Nicely spaced tables and double linens give it a step up from street-level, although the interiors have been jazzed up with some blue and green touches and wrap-around lighting on the bar which both seem at odds with the rustic vibe of the building itself. From the large open kitchen, Sicilian-born chef Lino Sauro is serving food from his motherland with some contemporary flourishes.
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There’s a fair bit going on at Chippendale’s Sneaky Possum. Part cafe, part bar, part restaurant and part function space, with a multipurpose area upstairs, the Abercrombie Street venue defies easy categorisation — to the extent that even its owner isn’t entirely sure what to call it. “It’s a hybrid of a few different ideas,” Phil Anderson tells Concrete Playground. “To try and encapsulate it in one go we’re telling people it’s a ‘gastrobar’. That’s probably the best way to describe what we’re doing.”
Whatever Anderson wants to call it, the corner venue can be easily identified thanks to a pair of distinctive murals on its outside. One, by Fintan McGee, depicts Naomi Mayers, former lead singer of The Sapphires and founder of the Indigenous Health Service. The other, by Scott Marsh, is an ode to Sydney’s ibis population. Wander through the doors and you’ll find Sneaky Possum is split into a number of different sections. A large, brightly lit front bar leads through to a room full of pinball machines and retro arcade games, while out back you’ll find a casual dining area complete with custom built wooden booths. A large open space upstairs, meanwhile, can be everything from a band room to a communal dining area to a gallery.
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The team behind The Grounds of Alexandria has been teasing us with whispers of a new CBD outpost for a while now — the venue, their second, was announced almost two years ago. Since then it’s been in development, but the team behind the wildly popular Alexandria venue has finally opened The Grounds of the City inside The Galeries on George Street.
Design studio Acme & Co. have again worked with The Grounds, creating a truly ‘spare no details’ kind of space, from the antique theatre pendant lighting, up-cycled timber floors and marble details to the hand-crafted stained glass windows and custom-made enamel fridge doors. The Grounds of the City also aims to bring socialising back to the hustle and bustle of city life. Shoe shines for waiting customers, a cake and ‘Tea Lady’ tea trolley that circles the room and a top-of-the-line barista’s bar with ‘coffee sommeliers’ on-hand are a few services on offer at the new venue. The new venue draws inspiration from traditional coffeehouse culture, complete with The Barista’s Bar fitted with state-of-the-art espresso and filter technology highlighting The Grounds house-roasted coffee and Roastery.
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Since ’50s-inspired bar Hinky Dinks closed late last year, there’s been a gaping, cocktail-sized hole at 185 Darlinghurst Road. But, the good news is, it’s now been filled — and with some high-level Sydney hospitality personnel, no less. The team behind Darlinghurst favourite Buffalo Dining Club have well and truly taken over the space, launching a sleek new wine parlour Johnny Fishbone last night. The name embossed in shimmering gold lettering on the wooden door is sign enough that the new tenants have changed the whole vibe of the space — inside, the chequered floor has been replaced with understated tiling, the red features have been axed in favour of deep greens and timber, and a long marble-topped wooden bar is the main centrepiece. There’s a solid wine wall too, which should tell you a lot about their offering.
As its pedigree would suggest, Johnny is also turning out some top-notch bar food. Choose from seafood snacks like oysters, ceviche and sardines with tomato jam or bigger options such as the fish with cured fennel and saffron and the spatchcock with paprika brandy. Johnny Fishbone is open from 5pm Tuesday and Sunday, so you can head there and grab a seat at the bar tonight — although, if it’s anything like Buffalo Dining Club, it could be hard to get one.
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We were particularly saddened to see Potts Points’ Waterman’s Lobster Co. close last month, but its replacement Dear Sainte Éloise has admittedly brought a fresh new late-night option to Lankelly Place. Though most of the laneway is closed or empty on a Tuesday night, it’s another story altogether inside Dear Sainte Éloise. The warmly-lit wine bar is aglow with patrons and the staff bustle around precisely — it’s already a well-oiled machine. It’s clear the Love, Tilly Devine crew — namely owner Matt Swieboda, head sommelier Nate Hatwell (Mercado), manager Jasmin Natterer and head chef Ben Abiad (co-founder Brickfields Bakery, ex-Sean’s Panaroma and Mecca) — know what they’re doing.
The long, copper bar is the main feature, adorned with racks upon racks upon racks of wine that showcase the bar’s huge selection — all up, there’s 350 plus bottles, which have been plucked from all over the world, from Austria to Portugal, South Africa and Georgia, as well as the requisite Australian and New Zealand bottles. Hatwell somehow manages them all with ease and, unless you’re an expert, you’ll need him to help navigate their extensive wine bible. He pours us glass after delicious glass of some of the best wine we’ve ever had, including a funky white from the Canary Islands, an oak-aged Grenache from Catalonia and a Gamay from the southwest of France.
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In the proper vein of Diagon Alley, Mjølner is the kind of place you would never stumble upon. The discrete entrance, set on a quiet stretch of Cleveland Street, is easy to miss, but later you’ll wonder how you could possibly have missed it. Like a mirage, the oversized old-world wooden door suddenly appears and opens down into a deep labyrinth of underground, cave-like rooms.
The Speakeasy Group — which operates Eau De Vie and The Roosevelt as well as Boilermaker House in Melbourne — is no stranger to fancy digs. Named for Thor’s hammer, the self-described ‘Viking luxe’ space is part-drinking den, part-fine dining restaurant. It may sound gimmicky, but it works — rather than going too hard on the schtick, Mjølner uses the Viking theme as tasteful inspiration. This is consistent throughout the whole venue; the animal-clad waitstaff and impressive fit-out contrast well with the R&B soundtrack and a modern Nordic menu.
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