Dixon Street, the night markets, and some of the best and cheapest Asian food in any Western city.
Sydney’s Chinatown is the largest in Australia, and it sits in Haymarket, immediately south of the CBD. Chinese Australians have been in this part of the city since the gold rushes of the 1850s, though this is the third location — earlier Chinatowns were at The Rocks and around Campbell Street.
It is no longer only Chinese. Thai, Vietnamese, Korean, Japanese, Malaysian and Indonesian food is all here in quantity, and the Thai presence in particular is substantial enough that Sydney is sometimes said to have the best Thai food outside Thailand.
Where to eat
Dixon Street is the pedestrianised centre with the paifang arches at each end. It is fine and it is the touristed part.
The better food is a block either side:
Cantonese — the yum cha houses on Sussex Street, busy at weekends and best before noon.
Sichuan — several around Liverpool and Goulburn Streets, and genuinely hot.
Malaysian — Mamak on Goulburn Street, with a permanent queue, for roti and satay.
Thai — Chat Thai on Campbell Street is the institution; there is always a wait.
Korean — Pitt Street north of Liverpool has a run of barbecue places open very late.
Japanese — ramen and izakaya throughout, particularly around Regent Place.
The food courts — Dixon House, Eating World, Sussex Centre — look like nothing and serve some of the best cheap food in Sydney. This is where to go if you want the actual thing rather than the shopfront version.
Spice Alley in Kensington Street, Chippendale, is a lane of small hawker-style stalls, cashless, popular and pleasant, though somewhat curated.
The markets
Friday Night Markets on Dixon Street — food stalls, crowds, from about four until eleven.
Paddy’s Markets at the southern end, in a building since 1834 and on this site in various forms since: fruit and vegetables, cheap clothing, souvenirs, open Wednesday to Sunday. It is chaotic and it is where Sydney actually shops for produce.
Around it
Chinese Garden of Friendship in Darling Harbour, built for the Bicentenary in 1988 by landscape architects from Guangzhou, a small ticketed classical garden with a tea house. Twenty minutes and worth it.
Golden Water Mouth, the dead gum tree gilded and standing at the Sussex Street entrance, is a 1999 sculpture by Lin Li and a good marker for the quarter.
Practicalities
Most restaurants take cards; the food courts and some markets prefer cash.
Sydney eats early by international standards and kitchens close by around ten, though Chinatown runs later than the rest of the city — Korean barbecue and Chinese places on Dixon Street serve past midnight.
More Food & Drink
Sydney Fish Market
The largest fish market in the southern hemisphere, with an auction at half past five in the morning and a new building next door.
Coffee and Brunch in Sydney
Australia exported the flat white and the avocado on toast, and it takes both more seriously than you expect.