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Olympus Dining’s retractable oculus glass ceiling.

Collection

Sydney’s most exciting openings of the year so far

From hatted Italian restaurants to CBD grills and destination sandwiches, these are the new spots to put on your dining hit-list.

20 stories
Olympus Dining’s retractable oculus glass ceiling looks like it came off the set of Dr. No.
14.5/20

Move over Totti’s, Olympus makes a bid for Sydney’s long-lunch crown

  • Callan Boys
Wood-fired fennel, spinach, chicory and ricotta pie.
Good Food hat15.5/20

Bessie’s clocks up a second hat for the Bar Copains team

  • David Matthews
Eleven Barrack is banking on the market for plush dining rooms.
Good Food hatGood Food hat16.5/20

New two-hatted grill Eleven Barrack is so good, our critic booked it for his birthday

  • Callan Boys
Mister Grotto is set among a new strip of venues on Australia Street.
Good Food hat15.5/20

Mister Grotto is the ‘smart-casual fish shop that’s long been missing from Sydney’

  • Callan Boys
Half-chicken with French onion soup toast.
14.5/20

Heritage farmhouse meets natural wine at A.P Bread and Wine

  • Callan Boys
14.5/20

Cosy waterside restaurant Chillis Cottage is your new weekend destination

  • Callan Boys
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From left: Black sesame and Vietnamese yoghurt and sugarcane and calamansi sorbet.

‘The most refreshing scoop’: Visiting Kreamu is like taking a tropical holiday

  • Lee Tran Lam
Flora’s friendliness is so outsized, it ends up embracing everyone.
Good Food hat15/20

Flora vegetarian restaurant in Newtown is so friendly it ends up embracing everyone

  • Lee Tran Lam
The renovation was painstaking in its attention to detail.
Good Food hat15.5/20

How does Randwick’s reborn and retro-fabulous Corner 75 rate with regulars?

  • Myffy Rigby
Pigeon liver Melba toast will be one of the snacks on the menu at L’Avant Cave.

Porcine and P&V teams open French-inspired wine bar L’Avant Cave

  • Scott Bolles
Cressida is, fundamentally, a nice place to sit with a coffee and read the paper.
14.5/20

Our critic doesn’t like to eat out for brunch. Cafe Cressida changed his mind

  • Callan Boys
The porchetta sandwich.

Hot sandwiches hit the menu at A.P Bakery’s shiny new site A.P Quay

The signature green, yellow and red negronis.

New York-style bar Herbs Taverne serves a negroni in three colours

Dry chilli chicken.

India meets Chinatown in this chicken dish that’s not to be missed at Kolkata Social

  • Lee Tran Lam
Local designer Luchetti Krelle captures all the best bits of Australian life by the coast.
Good Food hat15/20

Breezy new beach spot Cibaria ‘feels made to go from surf-to-seat’

  • Myffy Rigby
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Good Food hat15/20

Newtown’s candlelit Italian restaurant Osteria Mucca just scored a hat

  • David Matthews
Clockwise from left: Pistachio tissue bread; mini waterfall cakes in fig, strawberry and tiramisu flavours; matcha tissue bread; and lemon meringue tissue bread.

Try the TikTok-famous ‘tissue bread’ at Buttered in Chippendale

  • Lenny Ann Low
14/20

Don’t miss the head-turning beef platter at World Square’s soup spot Master Cow

  • Helen Yee
The dakdoritang, a signature featuring aged kimchi, is pure comfort.
14/20

Jiho Hanbang Samgyetang has 95 sites in Korea. Now its first global spot is in Sydney

  • David Matthews
Olympic Meats proves takeaway food can offer the same level of care as a fine-diner.
14.5/20

The stakes are high in Sydney’s gyros heartland. Does Olympic deserve the hype?

  • David Matthews