Sydney's best dining neighbourhoods: where to eat right now

Sydney's dining scene is one of the most sophisticated in the Southern Hemisphere — the harbour-view fine dining of the CBD, the immigrant food cultures of Cabramatta, Chinatown, and Auburn, the trendy neighbourhood restaurants of Surry Hills and Newtown, and the weekend brunch culture of the Eastern Suburbs create a food city of extraordinary range and consistent quality.

Surry Hills — Sydney's dining heartland — the Crown Street and Bourke Street restaurant and bar strips of Surry Hills provide the highest concentration of quality restaurants in Australia. The neighbourhood's history as the working-class immigrant suburb that gentrified into creative professionals has left a food culture of genuine diversity — from the Lebanese takeaways of Crown Street to the hatted tasting menu restaurants on Bourke Street.

Chinatown and the Dixon Street precinct — the Haymarket Chinatown and the Dixon Street mall remain the most accessible entry point to Sydney's vast Chinese food culture, with the yum cha restaurants, the Sichuan specialists, the Hong Kong BBQ shops, and the late-night bubble tea culture creating a dining geography that 150 years of Chinese migration has built and continues to evolve.

Newtown — the alternative dining strip — King Street Newtown provides the vegan, the fusion, the experimental, and the cheap and reliable casual dining that the inner-west's student, artist, and young professional population has sustained at consistently remarkable value. Newtown has more restaurant density per block than any comparable street in Australia.

Barangaroo and the harbour precincts — the Barangaroo waterfront, Circular Quay, and the Walsh Bay precinct provide the premium view dining (Nour, Bea, Barangaroo House) that Sydney's harbour setting makes uniquely spectacular at the city's highest price tier.

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