Sri Lankan Bites is a casual eatery in Oxford Village Surry Hills serving Sri Lankan street food. It’s a great place to head if you’re looking for something cheap and cheerful.
For some reason, it doesn’t seem to have generated the same level of press as Hopper Kade down the road on Crown Street. I can’t really understand this as the food is just as good if not better.
Having been there a few times, my go to dish is now the chicken biriyani. It comes with 1/4 chicken (usually a maryland), seasoned rice, a boiled egg, mint sambol and raita. It’s a good sized meal for one and at $20 really good value the amount of food you get.
The service is great, the staff are always smiling and incredibly welcoming.
They are open for lunch and dinner and usually have specials at lunchtime. They also do takeaway and delivery via Uber eats.
Bar 83 has recently opened on the top floor of Sydney Tower, making it Australia’s highest bar. As you’d expect, 83 floors up and with floor to ceiling glass, it has sweeping views of the city and harbour.
The decor is definitely something out of the Jetsons, channeling a 1970’s view of the future vibe.
The food menu is very limited and fairly expensive (found I couldn’t quite bring myself to spend $26 on a sausage roll). With a 2 hour maximum seating at the moment, it’s somewhere you’d for a pre or post dinner drink rather than spending an evening.
There is a good size wine list, with 5 sparkling, white, rose and reds available by the glass and twice that many by the bottle. It’s a little hard to work out what price point they are trying to hit with the drinks, a glass of chardonnay is $18 and a roussane $21 but there is a sauvignon blanc for $13.
The website indicates there’s a minimum spend of $30 per person, but on the night we went we only had one drink each and this didn’t seem to be problem.
The wait staff are all very friendly, but it seems as if none of them have ever worked in hospitality before (or given any training), which is very strange given the number of hospitality staff currently out of work.
There were a multitude of staff walking the floor, but none of them were interested in serving us. We waited more than 20 minutes to order a drink. During that time we watched staff clear and clean at least 10 empty tables. Once we finally go to to order, there was a fair wait before the drinks arrived and another wait while they brought back the right wine.
My verdict, worth a visit for the great views and funky decor, but be prepared to be patient. To make the most of it, book in advance and request a table at the window.
Tucked away in Oxford Village shopping centre in Surry Hills, Ovo Cafe was once a well kept secret amongst local Brazilians. Word has definitely now got out and it’s hugely popular.
Pre-virus, it served an all you can eat Brazilian breakfast on Sundays and lines of people waiting to get in would snake along the wall opposite the cafe. The lines aren’t quite as long now the buffet is on hold, but still expect a wait if you don’t arrive pretty close to their opening time (9am on the weekends) so it pays to get in early.
It’s pretty casual, if dining in you order at the counter, although they bring the food to you.
As you’d expect from a Brazilian restaurant, the coffee is seriously good. At the moment they are operating on a reduced menu. At breakfast the best choices is definitely the breakfast burger – scrambled egg, bacon, avocado and haloumi served on a brioche bun.
The eggs are creamy and perfectly cooked. The serving is huge and at around $12 seriously good value. After eating one of these at 9.30 I wasn’t hungry again until dinner.
Service can be a bit slow, but it’s always with a huge smile and the food is worth waiting for.
Nel restaurant is tucked away in the basement of an unassuming building on Wentworth Avenue in Surry Hills, not the most likely of places for a fine dining restaurant. But don’t let the location fool you.
This is seriously good food. Nelly Robinson will change the way you think about British food.
It’s a degustation only menu, which means you can settle in and enjoy the ride without agonising over what to choose. Dietary requirements are catered for as long as you let them know in advance.
At $110 for 9 courses, it’s great value.
The food is creative and fun and presented beautifully. Reading the menu, you form an idea in your mind of what each dish will look like. It’s never even close. There is a back story to every dish and if you’re lucky Nel himself will bring your food to the table and explain it to you.
Take charcoal pork for example, which pays homage to the first dinner Nel’s now wife cooked for him. Apparently her barbecuing skills leave something to be desired. Can you spot the pork ?
Despite appearances, the pork was succulent and tender.
Pea and ham is a tribute to Nel’s grandad as he used to always serve pea and ham soup when Nel came to visit. I’m pretty sure that grandad’s version looked and tasted nothing like this. It’s vibrant and full of punchy flavour.
Similarly, Lanchashire hotpot is nothing like what you’ve been served in an English pub.
Fish out of water is the only one we came even close to guessing. The fish is cooked perfectly and the “water” elevates the dish from good to great.
At the end of the 9 courses, we find we’ve still got room for dessert (just) and leave the restaurant comfortably full, vowing to come back.
Zephyr Bar is an upmarket bar on the 12th floor of the Hyatt Regency in Sussex Street. Open and airy, it has great views over Darling Harbour.
On a Friday night it’s a mix of people in their suits who’ve come for an after work drink and those that have dressed up to come into the city for a big night out.
You can book a table in advance and if you are planning on heading there on a Friday or Saturday night, it’s definitely advisable.
The emphasis is on cocktails, with the cocktail menu running to 6 pages. It includes some imaginative twists on classics, such as Salted Coconut Espresso, Passionfruit Mojito, Blood Orange Margarita and Pink Grapefruit Martini.
There is a page of the bar’s own signature creations, as well as a page dedicated to Soft Serve Icecream cocktails. These are definitely cocktails which can’t quite make up their mind whether they are desserts or drinks.
My friend orders the Berry Mix (pictured above) which consists of raspberry gin, raspberry liqueur, strawberry puree, blueberry, lime juice, served over vanilla soft serve ice cream in a martini chiller glass with fresh raspberry and popping candy.
Even though she has a very sweet tooth she’s not quite sure she is a fan. So definitely not one to order if your usual cocktail is a margarita or something else sour. Apart from that the other cocktails we tried were all pretty good.
There’s a reasonable wine list, with 5 whites and 5 reds by the glass plus some bubbles and a rose. Prices aren’t cheap, most of the glasses are $17-20 and the bottles $75 and upwards, but that’s expected given it’s in a 5 star hotel and there’s table service. You are actively discouraged from heading to the bar yourself, but expect a long wait to attract a waitress’ attention and an even longer wait for your drinks.
If you find yourself staying longer than you intended, there is a selection of bar snacks available, which run the gauntlet from healthy (fresh oysters and sashimi) to something to soak up the alcohol (chicken karaage, soft shell crab tacos and tempura prawns).
Overall verdict, if you want somewhere upmarket with a view where you can easily while away a few hours, here is the place to be. If what you’re after is a seriously good cocktails with great service and don’t plan to linger (as it’s standing room only, no seating), head instead a block or so up the road to Cantina OK!:
Cantina OK! would have to be one of the most unlikely bars in Sydney, but somehow it just seems to work.
It’s tiny. There are no stools or chairs, as there simply isn’t room. Some of the reviews say it has a capacity of 20 but on the day we were there, they were only letting in around 12 people, with 3 of those standing on the pavement outside and it’s difficult to see how any more people could be squeezed in.
Then there’s the location, it’s literally in a garage down a nondescript laneway off Clarence Street between Market and King. So the only way to find your way there is if you’ve gone looking for it.
But the fact that on a Saturday afternoon at 4.30pm which isn’t exactly cocktail hour we had to queue for 20 minutes is a testament to the fact it is does work.
What makes it work? I’ts a combination of things. The barman all genuinely seem to love their jobs. It has quirky touches; the walls are bright pink and purple and the ice in the cocktails is carved in front of you from a giant block using a vintage Nepalese ice carving machine. And definitely not least, the cocktails are seriously good.
It has credibility as a Mexican Bar, as it’s run by my the same people as another well known and very popular Mexican Bar, Tio’s in Surry Hills: https://tios.com.au/
Broadsheet recently voted it (after 2 years of research) as having the best margaritas in Sydney:
I’ll agree the margaritas are damned good. I probably wouldn’t vote it the best margarita I’ve had in Sydney, but that’s only because I am totally biased toward margaritas with a chilli kick.
It’s definitely good quality drinks and service with a smile.
Ripples Milsons Point is situated just over the Harbour Bridge right near Luna Park or as they put it “in an iconic waterfront location” and has awe inspiring views of the harbour and bridge .
It’s accessible via train (one stop from the city) or better yet, a ferry ride from Circular Quay.
The views might not be the only reason people choose to eat there but it’s definitely one of the main ones.
Antipasto Board
One of the other main draw cards is that while they are fully licenced they will let you BYO which is a bit of a rarity in Sydney restaurants these days. Corkage is $12 a bottle but when you compare it to the average wine mark up in restaurants of 300% or more, it represents pretty good value, especially if you are cracking open the cellar to bring a good bottle along.
The food is Italian inspired. For lunch and dinner there are 13 smaller plates to select from which include some classics such as stuffed zucchini flowers and an antipasto plate as well as plenty of seafood options including, Sydney rock oysters, grilled prawns, an octopus salad and a salmon ceviche.
There are 9 mains to choose from, with one vegetarian (pasta) option, 4 seafood, a chicken, beef, pork and a lamb dish (which is meant to be shared among 2 people). At 400g the rib eye is probably also enough for two people. The mains prices range from $29 for the vegetarian pasta through to $52 for the rib eye and $84 for the lamb shoulder, with the remainder sitting at around $40.
While most of the dishes come with some accompaniments, you do need to order a side (or two) to make them into complete meals. The selections are pretty standard, a salad, 2 potato dishes, sauteed kale and green beans.
Whole baked snapper
The food doesn’t really push the envelope in terms of creativity, but it’s cooked well and has plenty of flavour. And after all, it really is about the views.
My verdict, it’s the place you go to if you want to impress an overseas guest with the views or want to spend a sunny afternoon overlooking the harbour with a group of friends enjoying some of your favourite wine.
Kuro Bar & Dining has opened in Kent Street just off Market Street in what was the former Canvas Bar premises.
The venue includes 4 different areas, 3 of which were open when I visited in mid November – Brew Bar, Kuro Dining and Kuro Bar. The 10 seater chefs table is slated to open before the end of the year.
Brew Bar, which is not actually a bar, is open during the day and sells tea and coffee to a primarily take away crowd as well as a very small number of snacks. It’s an interesting choice to include as there is a very popular coffee shop next door which has more food offerings.
Kuro Bar & Dining is currently only open for dinner but is planned to start opening for lunch around the same time as the chefs table opens.
It comes with some very solid credentials – the Executive Chef has worked in Michellin Star restaurants in Tokyo and Paris and the Head Chef came from Bar H, a restaurant which sadly joined the growing list of recent Surry Hills restaurant closures.
Caesar Salad
The food tends toward Japanese fusion rather than strictly Japanese and includes for example a Japanese take on a Caeser salad as well as a duck confit dish. Mains are around the $40 market although there is a black market sirloin which is $150.
I’d describe the dishes I had as solid rather than outstanding but given they had only opened the day before my visit this is probably understandable. I suspect the food will get better over time as they find their feet more.
The wine list is fairly long and includes a few by the glass. There is also a signature drinks list which are prepared by “mixologists” which consists mainly of cocktails which are described as having Japanese and European influences as well as sakes and whiskies.
Services is professional and polite. The maitre d gives the impression he is very passionate about his job and genuinely wants to ensure everyone enjoys their visit.
Overall a welcome addition to an area of the city in which good food options are pretty sparse.
Finally someone has realised what we absolutely need in Sydney is a bar which is a cross between Indiana Jones and a Thai Island. Saga is that bar. Hidden behind two carved wooden doors in a back alley near Kensington Street in Chippendale, Saga is another world oasis.
It’s exposed beams, lanterns and vines across the walls and a water feature with a giant Buddha head. Definitely not your every day Sydney bar.
There is a cocktail list which changes from week to week, an extensive spirits list and a good selection of wines by the glass and bottle. Prices are on par with other Sydney bars, with cocktails around $20 and glasses of wine around $15.
The food menu is fairly limited as it’s probably more the kind of place where you’d go for a drink (or three) before heading to one of the multitude of restaurants around the corner in Kensington Street. Having said that, the food we did try (chicken riblets with szechuan and Kingfish ceviche) was very good.
The bar is relatively small and I’m sure I’m not the only one thinking this is going to be my new favourite bar so book in advance if you want to be sure of getting a table.
I’ve been visiting the Essential Ingredient since it opened in Crows Nest back in 2005. It’s my favourite place in Sydney to buy gourmet spices, ingredients you struggle to find elsewhere in Sydney (achiote paste you know I mean you), cooking equipment I never knew I needed and a great range of cookbooks.
I was pretty delighted when they moved from Rozelle to Surry Hills early 2019, but also a little nervous about the impact on my credit card of being able to pop in anytime I wanted.
I love experimenting with food. I’ll happily spend hours combing through recipe books and my friends are always making fun of the number I own. I always try to fit in a cooking class whenever I travel but for some reason it’s something I’ve rarely done in Sydney.
The new premises includes a cooking school where they hold regular weeknight and weekend classes and every time I get the Essential Ingredient newsletter I always think the classes look so interesting, so recently I decided to treat myself to a couple of cooking classes for my birthday.
The first class was Mexican food, one of my favourite cuisines and one which is sadly very underrepresented in the Sydney dining scene.
Pico de Gallo and Guacamole
The class ran for around 3 1/2 hours starting at 6pm. During the class we cooked 6 dishes: vegetable quesadilla with tortillas we made; tequila prawn tapas with guacamole and pico de gallo; achiote barbecued chicken; barbecued corn with chipotle mayonnaise; rocket, radish and orange salad and Oaxacan mangoes.
Despite a bit of a hitch where someone mistook a bowl of salt for sugar, all of the dishes turned out great. They were all full of flavour but still very light and fresh.
The presenter Wanitha Tanasigam was very bubbly and clearly had a wealth of cooking experience. There were only 8 of us in the class so there was plenty of time for one on one instruction. As well as showing us how to cook the dishes, she helped everyone improve their knife skills and showed us plenty of little tips that will make things easier in the kitchen.
Achiote Barbecued Chicken
While at $170 it may not be the cheapest cooking class in Sydney, given it included the cooking instruction, wine and beer to have with the meal, take home recipes, a 10% off shopping voucher and a tortilla warmer, I think it was pretty good value especially considering the quality of the instruction and the produce we cooked with.
And perhaps the best recommendation I can give – rather than filing away the recipes as I usually do thinking I’ll get around to trying them again some day, I made most of them the following Saturday. They may not have been quite as picture perfect as the ones we produced at the class but my partner declared all of them a great success and wants to know when I’ll be cooking them again.
I’m looking forward to next Saturday’s canape class. Stay tuned for an update.
Oaxacan Mangoes
Update
I’ve now been to the second cooking class which was creating a Christmas menu. Again, the teacher was great, it was a very friendly group of people in the class, it was loads of fun and I learned a lot, including how to roll out, stuff and truss a loin of pork.
I’m looking forward to the next class list coming out in the new year and signing up for some more.
At $185 for a fixed price 10 course menu with no a la carte option, Momofuku Seiobo is special occasion dining.
The food is described as inspired by the flavours of the Caribbean and celebrating the best Australian produce. They don’t include even a sample menu on the website so you are taking the food somewhat on trust, although they do ask you to specify any dietary requirements and are happy to make menu modifications to suit.
On the night we dined the restaurant was fairly full even though it was a Monday, the dead zone of Sydney dining and even more surprising given there is no signage at the front of the restaurant, making it very difficult to find. The majority of the diners appeared to be tourists where either staying at the Star or had been visiting the casino.
The website indicates you need to allow 2 1/2 hours for the meal, although on the night we were there the courses arrived with little or no break in between and so it was much closer to 1 1/2 hours.
The menu leans very heavily to vegetarian and seafood, with only one of the courses out of the 10 containing meat. A lot of the dishes incorporated quite strong seafood flavours such as mullet roe, xo sauce and caviar so you really need to be a big seafood fan to enjoy it.
The food is best described as experimental. And as is the case with experiments, some work and some don’t. The first course was plantain with garlic and chicharrones (fried pork rinds) which was served in a mortar and pestle with instructions that we needed to crush the ingredients ourselves. A bit too gimmicky for me for a fine dining restaurant and even my friend who is a huge fan of garlic found the garlic overwhelming.
In some cases the flavour of the sauces completely overwhelmed the main ingredient. This was particularly the case with the scallop with coconut and allspice. If the waitress hadn’t told us there was scallop in the dish we would never have guessed as it was finely chopped and completely overwhelmed by the coconut. Both my friend and I felt the dish would have actually been better if it was a plain grilled scallop without the sauce.
The star of the night was the one beef dish so it was a shame there weren’t more meat based dishes. The marron and coconut bakes was a close second, although I wasn’t a huge fan of the chef bringing the live marron to our table to ïntroduce” us to what we’d be eating later. I’m happy to accept the seafood is fresh, you don’t need to prove it to me.
Because there wasn’t a menu when each dish was served we received a very detailed explanation of all the ingredients in the dish. Ten points for the enthusiasm with which the explanations were given, but the process felt a little too contrived, especially as almost every dish was served by a different person.
They seemed so focused on describing the food they forgot the basics of service which meant we were regularly left with empty wine or water glasses.
The menu concludes with 3 decadent dessert courses so make sure you save some room. Credit goes to the chef making pumpkin seem at home in a dessert.
Overall it’s the kind of restaurant that you visit once for the experience, but there other restaurants in Sydney such as Nel restaurant ( https://nelrestaurant.com.au/ ) which do a better degustation menu.
Felix is a French restaurant which is part of the Merivale stable, situated in the laneway at the back of Ivy.
This was my first visit to Felix for a couple of years and I made the rookie mistake of not checking their website in advance.
My prior experience was that it was decent food but certainly not one of Sydney’s best restaurants so I was pretty shocked when I opened the menu to find that the mains were hovering around the $50 mark.
The website describes it as “honest, simple food”, a description which I’d say is accurate. But at these prices I expect something much more than that.
For the entree I ordered balmain bugs with marie rose sauce. The one bug arrived on a bed of ice with some cocktail sauce. The fact the plate was covered in ice meant there was nowhere to cut the bug meat which made it quite difficult to eat.
The bug itself was bordering on frozen. The cynic in me wondered whether they hadn’t actually properly thawed what was obviously frozen seafood properly and hoped diners would assume it was so cold from sitting on ice. Overall very bland and disappointing.
My friend rated his pea and crab salad much higher. Not the most obvious combination but it seemed to work.
My friend gave his duck cassoulet main the thumbs up but the serving size was pretty small and hard to see how it justified the $46 price.
My go to dish at French restaurants is steak frites, but at $67 it was way more than I wanted to pay for a mid week dinner so I went for the spatchcock which at $38 was the cheapest non vegetarian main on the menu. The spatchcock was a whole grilled bird with a cabbage and walnut salad. I’d describe it as inoffensive, cooked well but not a lot of flavour.
At these prices I’d expect the food to blow me away and that was definitely not the case.
Similarly the wine was OK but at $60 for a 400 ml carafe (which was one of the cheapest wines on the menu) I would have expected better.
As a lot of reviewers on Trip Advisor have noted the restaurant is very noisy which makes conversation difficult. I would also agree with a lot of reviewers that the bathrooms which are situated in a corridor outside the restaurant are something like what you’d expect to find in a (not well maintained) shopping centre rather than a fine dining restaurant.
Overall a pretty disappointing experience, I expected much better from an outfit as experienced as Merivale. There are plenty of restaurants in Sydney serving this quality of food at much better prices, so I won’t be back.
I normally stay away from hotel restaurants as I think they are strictly for people staying there who don’t have the time or inclination to venture outside. So how did I end up at Silverster’s? By accident.
I received an email from Good Living about an upcoming wine dinner which included a great sounding menu and so I signed up for it without really focusing on where the restaurant was. Although in my defence, they only showed a street address for the restaurant and studiously avoided mentioning it was in the Marriott. I suspect this means I’m not the only person who avoids hotel restaurants.
After eating at Silvester’s I may have to rethink my attitude to hotel food as the food was wonderful. So much effort was put into the presentation of the food and it was so colourful you couldn’t help but want to eat it.
The first dish was the Yellow Fin Tuna you see at the start of this post. The Yuzu Kosho dressing gave the tuna a great chilli citrus kick and the rice paper crisp added some nice crunch.
Next course was Spanner Crab. Cudos to the chef who had the skill and patience to cut enough wafer thin slices of avocado to make more than 100 serves off this dish. The avocado and the grapefruit perfectly paired with the Spanner crab filling.
Following the seafood theme, our next course was Glacier 51 Toothfish. I will admit not only had I never tried this fish before but I had to google it to work out where it came from (if you’re also curious it’s the sub-Antartic, about 4,000 kms from mainland Australia).
When I read this fish lives 2,000 kms below sea level I was expecting flesh somewhat like swordfish or tuna (perhaps not logical since these don’t live in the depths but my thinking was surely it would have to have hardy flesh to survive that low). Again, I was very pleasantly surprised.
The company who farms the fish has done a better job than I ever could of describing it so I’m going to borrow their words: “projecting waygu-like characteristics with a complex yet delicate mouth feel that coats the palate appealingly, making it a pleasure to eat. Its snow-white flesh and broad scalloping flakes display a clean and sweet flavour and the elegant balance of flavour and texture in Glacier 51 Toothfish provides a culinary versatility rarely found in fish fillets.”
Just when I thought I couldn’t fit in any more food they brought out the Pinnacle Beef Short Rib with smoked miso glaze. While the beef was melting in your mouth tender it was also very rich and after all the food that we’d already eaten, even my partner who wasn’t met a protein yet he doesn’t love was struggling. We were too full to really do this course justice.
Our last course was a refreshingly light Blood Orange Sorbet. Unfortunately I don’t have a photo of it, because somehow despite being so hideously full we both found the room to eat all of it before I remembered to take one.
Overall a great experience. Loads of very good food, probably more than we needed and at $129 each including matching wines incredibly good value.
This may well be the hotel restaurant that changes your mind about hotel restaurants.
Babylon Rooftop Garden & Bar has opened on the 7th level of Westfield Sydney, as space which has been vacant since 2011 when the centre opened.
It’s a sprawling space which seats more than 200, but because there are a number of different sections to the area (including outdoor seating) it feels more intimate than the size would suggest.
The space includes a restaurant and a separate bar. The bar has its own extensive menu (around 30 dishes) which the chef says is “more like street food that’s simple, fast and easy to eat” whereas the restaurant is more fine dining.
At the restaurant, the menu is split into flora, fauna and ocean. The kitchen includes a 3 metre long grill and the smell of charcoal and smokey meat is intoxicating as you walk in.
The chef is ex Efendy and has a track record of producing great Middle Eastern food so we were expecting a lot. We weren’t disappointed.
Bread with Za’atar butter and Spiced Fried Cauliflower
To start we ordered house made bread with smoked Za’atar butter. Who would have thought butter could taste this good? I’d find myself wishing I could buy some to take home.
The next three dishes – Cauliflower with ras el hanout, lemon, tahini and almond, Spinach and duck egg yolk with persian feta and black rice and Lamb and pistachio kebab with smoked eggplant, yoghurt and sumac onions were all equally good.
Spinach and duck egg yolk with black rice
This is modern Middle Eastern food at it’s best every dish packing plenty of flavour without being too heavy. The portion sizes are generous (2 smaller dishes and one main was just the right amount of food for two of us). There is a good selection of wines at reasonable prices and the service attentive without being intrusive and they take bookings (something which seems to be becoming all too rare in Sydney restaurants). Plenty of reasons to go back. I know I will be.
Babylon Rooftop Garden & Bar Level 7 Rooftop, Westfield Pitt Street Mall, 188 Pitt Street Sydney
The fact that Busshari has been around for more than 12 years is a testament to the quality of the food and service. This was my 4th visit in the past 6 months after rediscovering how good it is. It’s a highlight in a section of Potts Point that doesn’t have a lot of good choices.
The menu is extensive, offering lots of sashimi and sushi dishes as well as plenty of hot options.
This time we had the small mixed sashimi plate, the spicy tuna dynamite roll and the sizzling waygu beef. All were very good – the sashimi very fresh and included a mix of 5 different seafoods, the dynamite roll carrying a bit of a kick without being overwhelmingly hot and the beef melt in your mouth tender with the added bonus of being able to take it off the grill when it was cooked to our exact liking.
The drinks list is also extensive, with a page devoted to sakes and 15 white and 10 red wines either by the glass or bottle with options from Italy, France, New Zealand and Australia.
Service is professional and efficient, with only a small wait between dishes.
