15 Best Restaurants in Sydney, New South Wales

Named after celebrity chef and cookbook author Bill Granger, this sunny corner café is so addictive it should come with a health warning. It's a favorite hangout of everyone from local nurses to semi-disguised rock stars, and you never know who you might be sitting next to at the newspaper-strewn communal table. If you're not interested in the creaminess of what must be Sydney's best scrambled eggs, try the ricotta hotcakes with fresh banana and honeycomb butter or the corn fritters. The coconut-poached chicken sandwich with cucumber and lime mayonnaise makes an ideal lunch. Dinner selections at the Surry Hills location (359 Crown Street) are similarly gourmet comfort food.

The creation of three Italian brothers, this trendy Paddington eatery is a winner at both breakfast or at lunch. The menu has truly unique creations, like the breakfast burger with poached eggs, truffled mushrooms, and crushed peas. There's substantial mains for lunch like lasagne or risotto, including light salads. But for a takeaway option, go for the Italian baked treats, which are baked on-site daily and a coffee.

Bondi is known for being the health epicenter of Sydney and, unsurprisingly, the cafés are all about packing as much healthy food into a dish as possible. Breakfast bowls packed with eggs, vegetables, toasted seeds, and gluten-free toast is a popular option here. There's also fresh juices, smoothies and kombucha, which most grab-to-go and take to the nearby grass bank opposite the beach.

One of eight or nine eateries in the buzzy café strip opposite Bronte Beach, this is a great place to refuel after the Bondi-to-Bronte cliff-top walk. All share the same postcard-perfect view, but Belo is worth seeking out for its consistently good coffee and spicy sticky chai. It has a little more elbow space between tables than some of its neighbors. The menu has all the standard breakfast and brunch selections, many with a slight Brazilian twist, like the poached eggs served with a spicy tomato ragù.

You have to seek out this Bondi Beach restaurant, as it's situated several hundred feet back from the beach. You'll quickly find out, however, why locals love this place: organic, seasonal, handcrafted food. This daytime café and evening bistro is small, hip, and always buzzing. Weekend breakfasts, brunches, and lunches are popular, especially if you like Moroccan eggs (slow-cooked with English spinach, chorizo, spiced peppers, and tomatoes) and sweet treats such as mouthwatering buttermilk pancakes. It's a popular place for dinner, too, so book ahead. Main course favorites include fish pie with leek and truffle oil, while the hazelnut chocolate fondant with honey malt ice cream has to be experienced.

Fresh is the name of the game with this café. Zesty avocado on toast, slow-cooked pulled-pork rolls, fresh juices, and rich coffee. There's limited seating inside but most grab their order to go, taking it to the nearby Bradfield Park which has views of the harbor.

Started as a specialty coffee creator, Pablo & Rusty opened a sit-down café back in 2010 and it has been a popular spot for coffee meetups ever since. The interiors are stylish and hip, there are single-origin espressos and sophisticated breakfasts and lunches. There's also outdoor seating.

Founded by two Australians who had been on a road trip to the United States, the pair returned and launched Pancakes on The Rocks in the 1950s. Seven decades later and it's still an iconic eatery in Sydney. There's a huge array of pancakes available, and each are American-style, arriving with eggs, bacon, and syrup.

You'll probably have to wait to get one of the tiny tables in this rustic hole-in-the-wall café and wine bar on the northern end of Bondi Beach, but it's worth waiting for as it's one of the best (and healthiest) breakfasts in Bondi. Once you've got a seat and a cup of the fabulous coffee, the service is fast and efficient. Breakfasts range from porridge with flaxseed, amaranth, and quinoa to bowls of kale, spinach, coriander, mint, and avocado, with a couple of eggs thrown in for good measure. After sundown, the café morphs into a hip little wine bar on weekends.

It might look like nothing more than a hole-in-the-wall but this modest café has been hailed by locals as serving the best coffee in the Potts Point and Kings Cross area. And the seating outside is always packed every morning of the week. To find it, you'll need to head down Llankelly Place, a back lane that runs behind Potts Point, that offers many unique cafés and restaurants. Easy grab'n'go eats and specialized coffee, with single origin option rotated weekly. More than a tiny opening crammed with tables that flow out onto Llankelly Place, this cozy café serves some of the best coffee in the Kings Cross area.

In 2019, this café opened Sydney's first self-serve batch-brew bar, with craft beer--style taps where you can drink as much single-origin coffee as your heart desires or can handle. But this is more than just an übertrendy spot for coffee: the menu is filled with quirky dishes, with many vegan offerings. The eggplant katsu roll is very popular.

Darling Harbour and Barangaroo are undoubtedly two of the busiest areas of Sydney so for a quiet reprieve step into this tucked-away café. With an impressive wooden art installation snaking around the ceiling, outstanding coffee and freshly baked croissants and muffins, this is the perfect place to recharge before more adventuring.

Located on a jetty that juts out into the ocean, this café is a favorite with Sydneysiders who travel up on weekends and tuck into hearty breakfasts, like poached eggs on sourdough with avocado and pesto, and its trademark coffee that comes with a cocoa anchor on top. It's licensed with many enjoying a long champagne lunch with fresh seafood. A great spot for spotting Australian celebrities.

This hidden gem is the city offering of the popular Grounds of Alexandria, a dog- and kid-friendly eatery with a on-site urban farm that's found just outside of the city. This French-style café is less country rustic and more city slick. It's all low lighting, vintage interiors, with soft velvet seating and intimate booths. And the menu edges toward Parisian-bistro influence, with its croque monsieur a favorite dish. There's outstanding coffee, fresh juices, and breakfast and lunch cocktails. The service is always exceptional.

Fast but fancy fare, that's what this Darlinghurst café has become known for since opening in 2020. The cheese toastie comes topped with black truffle, there are poached lobster rolls and caviar sandwiches. The service is slick, the interiors trendy and the coffee rich, but it comes at a price. This is one of the more expensive breakfast or lunch spots in Sydney, with breakfast costing around $30 a main.