Sydney’s Best New Restaurants of 2024 (2025)

When looking back on the best restaurant openings of the year, it’s always fun to try and tease out a unifying theme. Yes, it’s been a turbulent year for Sydney’s hospitality industry – but we still saw an incredible showing from both tiny operators and major groups.

So, if we had to say there was a throughline that tied the year’s best openings together, it would be this: 2024 was all about the capital-R restaurant. In the last three months alone, Josh Niland, Neil Perry, Alessandro Pavoni and the Pellegrino 2000 team all came out swinging. (In the first half, we saw Tetsuya Wakada and Kylie Kwong both bow out gracefully.)

But our hospo titans are only as good as the front-of-house staff, the kitchen crews and teams behind the scenes that bring these restaurants to life. So here’s to them, and here’s what grabbed our attention this year, in alphabetical order.

Despite its name and its owners’ backgrounds working in pasta faves Ragazzi and Fabbrica, Redfern’s hottest diner is not Italian. It’s more like an Australian who can do a shockingly convincing Italian accent from time to time. Yes, pasta and other classics from The Boot are excellent here, when present. But chef and co-owner Toby Stansfield is much more concerned with plating up whatever takes his fancy in any given moment, regardless of its cultural provenance. Zucchini flowers with hot honey. Calamari with napa cabbage and curry butter. Crisp chicken skin with trout pate. If you squint hard enough, you can see the outline of a theme. But also, does a theme even matter when it’s this good? A similar vibe is applied to the wine list, which balances esoteric drops with some surprisingly affordable bottles. – Callum McDermott, contributor

The team at Odd Culture Newtown was using the attic above the bar as all attics are used: for storage chaos. But then someone in the team thought of a better idea: a restaurant. And why not make it a French bistro? Bistro Grenier (attic bistro, en français) was born. Sydney has plenty in the way of nouvelle French gastronomy and more than enough brasseries, but fewer true bistros like this. Grenier's menu is small and changes often; the dining room is simple but warm; and the wine is good and plentiful. There are amuse-bouches, hors d’oeuvres, a handful of mains (bonjour, steak frites) and little else. It’s all delivered by a team with a clear respect for the genre. – Callum McDermott, contributor

Opening a big Italian restaurant in Gymea felt like a big zag from restaurateurs Tristan Rosier and Rebecca Fanning. The pair’s hospitality cred has long been tied to Surry Hills with Jane and Arthur; small, Aussie-inflected restaurants that feel unapologetically “inner city”. But Rosier grew up in the Shire – the pair moved back there to start a family – so Southern Sydney is the lucky recipient of Sydney’s best new trattoria. We loved the curly mafaldine tossed with cavolo nero pesto and the roving gelato cart. Locals will especially love the daily aperitivo hour. – Grace MacKenzie, Sydney food & drink editor

The unwavering hospitality at Firepop comes, seemingly, as easily as breathing to husband-wife team Raymond Hou and Alina Van. They inhale a welcoming warmth and exhale some of the most creative dishes Sydney’s seen this year. The bulk of the menu echoes the meat-on-a-stick that Firepop loyalists know from the food truck pop-up days: marble score 9+ Wagyu beef; lamb seasoned with cumin, dukkah, chilli and Davidson’s plum; chicken hearts; chicken tail with sesame; and Sichuan-seasoned tofu. And though meat does star, blistered Padron peppers (served with grey sea salt and a chaser of frozen pickled grapes to curb the searing heat) and a corn rib heaped with caciocavallo, garlic and house-made yoghurt butter both serve vegos well. – Grace MacKenzie, Sydney food & drink editor

The wonder of Redfern’s Wunderlich Lane precinct (so far) is this fun, fast and loud diner by the team who brought us Hinchcliff House. Split into two sections (a relaxed noodle bar up front, a rowdier “eating house” out the back), Island Radio radio takes cues from the tropical islands of Southeast Asia. For executive chef Andrianto “Andy” Wirya’s menu, that means Filipino satay skewers threaded with LP’s smoked ox tongue, plates of Malaysian char kway teow and the iconic Balinese suckling pig dish Babi Guling. On the cocktail side, the velvety Singapore Sling will take you to that country’s iconic Raffles Hotel without leaving Sydney. – Dan Cunningham, acting features editor (food & drink)

According to our server, a dry ceviche is “no good”. A good one should be swimming – perhaps in a pool of citrusy leche di tigre, like the one he’s prepping tableside at 1 Martin Place. The Latin American dining room is grand, and it marks Alejandro Saravia’s (of Melbourne’s Farmer’s Daughters) return to Sydney. At least one ceviche is essential, along with the perfected eggplant arepa and the melty ox tongue anticuchos; a mighty swordfish Milanesa is a knockout main. The takeover of the heritage GPO building is special, with an open kitchen, gold-framed paintings from Saravia’s grandmother’s collection in Peru and postcards to send in the classic bright-red box outside. – Grace MacKenzie, Sydney food & drink editor

This year’s most hyped restaurant opening? It had to be Neptune’s Grotto, the fourth restaurant in as many years by Dan Pepperell, Mikey Clift and Andy Tyson. Together, they formed the trident that nailed the French bistro genre at 916, the garage trattoria at Pellegrino 2000 and the New York Grill at Clam Bar. Here, they’ve doubled down on Italian dining with freshly extruded pastas and a wine list stacked with iconic Piedmontese producers. The New Yorkian cool at Clam Bar upstairs trickles down to the Grotto, where it’s all too easy to lose track of time over a bottle of Barolo and a plate of tagliatelle swimming in pork and veal ragu. If you need to impress someone, impress them under the statue of the Roman sea god himself. His Grotto awaits. – Dan Cunningham, acting features editor (food & drink)

The residents of Summer Hill collectively went through the five stages of grief when Broadsheet broke the news that beloved neighbourhood diner One Penny Red was closing forever. Denial that it was even happening. Anger at the thought of a new operator wrecking the heritage site. We bargained that a top chef might snap it up, but felt depression creeping in as the old post office sat idle for months. Then the Ormeggio team delivered a two-storey palace of pasta and regional Italian delights that effortlessly filled the void. At last, we’ve accepted that OPR is gone – and pray Postino Osteria never leaves. – Dan Cunningham, acting features editor (food & drink)

It took eight years for Josh and Julie Niland's tiny fish eatery in Paddington to become one of Australia’s most important restaurants. Why risk it all by completely changing things up as soon as they hit the top? Why not sit back and enjoy the view for a moment? In hindsight, of course, we had nothing to worry about. The relocated, expanded and reimagined Saint Peter at the Grand National Hotel is triumphant, self-assured, and as fundamentally special as the Oxford Street original. Whether it’s a yellowfin tuna cheeseburger and a Martini at the bar or the thrilling set menu experience in the restaurant proper, Saint Peter continues to be an essential Sydney dining experience. Some things never change. – Callum McDermott, contributor

Sometimes, it takes going to a place like Songbird to realise how loud Sydney restaurants have become. Neil Perry’s latest, a multi-level Cantonese restaurant in Double Bay’s historic Gaden House, already has the serenity and atmosphere of a restaurant that’s been in the neighbourhood for ages – but you’d never know it was the most stressful opening of the veteran restaurateur’s 42-year career. Come with a large group so you can tackle as many dishes from the menu as possible, from prawn wontons and big bowls of pipis swimming in XO, to Mongolian lamb and lobsters from the tank. It also makes ordering a few bottles from the muscular wine list a much more enjoyable (and affordable) experience. – Callum McDermott, contributor

This trip into Aussie nostalgia is the bittersweet remedy to the closure of the (excellent) Indian diner Raja earlier this year (both by Nick and Kirk Mattews, also behind Ezra), and we’re pleased to say the team bounced back and landed on a bed of warm dinner rolls slicked with garlic butter. Ezra OG head chef Ben Sears (who’s now at the helm of Melbourne’s Public Wine Shop) has pitched in with a menu of king prawn cocktails, surf’n’turf and cacio e pepe pasta bake to match the disco bangers playing overhead. It turns out Teddy’s “Triple A” ethos (approachable, accessible, affordable) and the Dirty Dancing soundtrack is just what we need right now. – Dan Cunningham, acting features editor food & drink

The Grill at The International, CBD

You wouldn’t think we had room for another grill in “steakville” – that sliver of the CBD where hospitality venue company Liquid & Larder’s fiery stable and the iconic Rockpool, among others, live. But The Shell House team’s takeover of the old Botswana Butchery site is further proof that Sydney wants, no, needs its steak. It needs whopping bisteccas with bearnaise and rump caps with cafe de Paris. Equally, it needs seafood platters and elegant snacks to ballast against all that beef. The statement piece at The International serves it all, in a breezy terrace dining room high above the bustle of Martin Place. Who knew Sydney needed a grill with a view? – Dan Cunningham, acting features editor (food & drink)

Honourable Mentions

This year was all about the rebooted restaurant, with old favourites like Monopole, Takam, Yurripi, The Cut and Maiz rocking bold new menus and locations.

It was also the year of the Japanese megavenue – the aforementioned Yurripi formed Hatena Group’s new Crows Nest trio, and the splashy Prefecture 48 saw Azabu Group squeeze six dining experiences into a heritage CBD building. (One of them is especially thrilling.)

We’re also still thinking about Tacos Tacos Tacos, a tiny Potts window devoted to (you guessed it) tacos, and the katsu pop-up from the Bones Ramen team around the corner.

Additional reporting by Lucy Bell Bird, Pilar Mitchell and Monique Foy.