Australia has no long culinary tradition of its own in the European sense, and Sydney has made that an advantage. What is called Modern Australian is essentially the food of a city where classically trained cooks work with Cantonese, Thai, Japanese, Lebanese, Italian and Greek techniques and excellent local produce, without much regard for which came from where.
At its best it is among the most interesting cooking anywhere. At its worst it is fusion for its own sake.
The seafood
The reason to eat here. Australian waters are cold and diverse, and the species are unfamiliar to most visitors:
Sydney rock oysters — smaller and more mineral than Pacifics, and the ones to order. Balmain and Moreton Bay bugs, slipper lobsters, sweet and worth the effort. King George whiting. Barramundi. Kingfish, usually raw. Murray cod. Marron and yabbies, freshwater crayfish. Abalone and scallops from Tasmania.
The Fish Market is the obvious place, and the good restaurants are better.
Asian food
Sydney’s Asian cooking is the everyday food of the city rather than a category.
Thai — the concentration in Newtown, Haymarket and Surry Hills is exceptional, and Sydney has a reasonable claim to the best Thai food outside Thailand.
Cantonese — yum cha in Chinatown at weekends, and the seafood restaurants out at Chatswood and Hurstville.
Vietnamese — Cabramatta, in the south-west, is the real centre and is worth the 45-minute train ride for pho, banh mi and a district that feels like Saigon.
Korean in Strathfield and on Pitt Street. Japanese throughout. Lebanese in Lakemba and Punchbowl, where the Ramadan Nights street festival each year is one of Sydney’s best food events.
Native ingredients
Increasingly used seriously rather than as garnish: finger lime, wattleseed, lemon myrtle, saltbush, Davidson plum, macadamia — the only Australian native food crop grown commercially at scale — and kangaroo, which is lean, dark and should be cooked rare.
Restaurants working closely with Aboriginal producers and knowledge are a genuine and growing part of the scene.
Breakfast
Sydney takes it more seriously than dinner in some quarters. See coffee and brunch.
What to know about the bill
Tipping is not expected. Hospitality staff are paid a legal minimum that is high by international standards. Rounding up or leaving ten per cent for exceptional service is appreciated and entirely optional.
Surcharges are. Most restaurants add 10 per cent on Sundays and 15 per cent on public holidays to cover penalty wage rates. This is legal, must be disclosed on the menu, and is not a tip.
BYO — bring your own wine — exists at some restaurants, with a corkage fee per person. It is a genuine saving and is worth asking about.
Card surcharges of around 1 to 2 per cent are common and must be disclosed.
Practicalities
Kitchens close early by European standards — often by 9.30 or 10pm outside Chinatown.
The good Surry Hills and CBD restaurants need booking, sometimes weeks ahead.
Tap water is excellent and served free.
Vegetarians and vegans
Very well served. Sydney has one of the higher rates of vegetarianism in the English-speaking world and Newtown in particular has more vegan restaurants than most cities have in total.
Every café menu marks vegetarian, vegan and gluten-free options as a matter of course, and staff are used to detailed dietary questions.
Pubs and the counter meal
The Australian pub is a genuine institution and the food is better than the reputation. A counter meal — steak, schnitzel, parma, fish and chips — is reliable, generous and much cheaper than a restaurant.
Many pubs run a cheap steak night or schnitzel night midweek.
Note that a great many Australian pubs contain poker machines in a separate room. It is a well-documented social problem and the revenue is why so many suburban pubs are enormous.
Booking
The good restaurants in Surry Hills, the CBD and Potts Point book out weeks ahead, particularly Thursday to Saturday. Many hold walk-in seats at the bar.
Where the neighbourhoods sit
Surry Hills and Potts Point for the concentration of good restaurants. Chinatown and Haymarket for cheap and late. Newtown and Enmore for vegan, Thai and value. Cabramatta for Vietnamese, worth the train. Lakemba for Lebanese. Marrickville for Greek and Vietnamese and a good deal of brewing. Bondi and Bronte for breakfast.
The CBD has the harbour views and, with a few exceptions, is not where locals eat.
Meat pies, and the rest of it
The things Australians actually eat that no restaurant will serve you: the meat pie with tomato sauce, from a bakery; the sausage roll; the Bunnings sausage sizzle, a charity barbecue outside every hardware store on a Saturday; Vegemite on buttered toast, spread thinly, not thickly; lamingtons; Anzac biscuits; and a pavlova, whose origin Australia and New Zealand have argued over for a century.
Chiko rolls, Iced VoVos and a Golden Gaytime ice cream complete the education.
None of it is fine dining and all of it is worth trying once.