Sydney Restaurant & Wine Bars

Heading to Australia for vacation in June. We will have 5 days in Sydney before flying to Adelaide to meet friends for a week of winery visits in McLaren Vale and Barossa Valley. We have the wine part of our trip fully nailed down, thanks to helpful advice gleaned from WB and careful planning by our friends. I am still working on the Sydney piece and was hoping to get some great suggestions for restaurants and wine bars. We love to spend our days walking and exploring with a nice stop for lunch to break up the day. We are open to different cuisines - and like to get a feel for the local culture. Only requirement - must have an interesting wine list. So far we have scheduled our bridge climb for one of the mornings and also plan on doing a day trip to the Blue Mountains. Any other activities that are not to be missed?

Thanks in advance!

I literally just got back from Sydney a couple days ago. We really enjoyed the bridge climb so you’ll love that. In Sydney, we had dinner at Bennelong in the Opera - it was expensive but very good. Would book now though as they book up in advance. Cafe Sydney was also nice, though it was very, very loud, so you really go for the view. If its nice outside one day, go sit on the harbor at the Opera bar and then go for a walk in the botanical gardens next door, which are beautiful. The view is the best and we found the drinks weren’t outrageously priced either which was nice. Also, while not a wine bar, the Australian Wine Center is a wine store right by circular quay - we tasted a variety of wines there and they also offered to ship back to the US if we bought a case for $120 USD (which we didn’t do, but I found reasonable as most wineries in the Hunter Valley where we traveled to quoted us over $200 USD).

Yep some good advice there.

Barangaroo and Darling Harbour are easy for a walk and dine option.

Ripples on the north side of the harbour is a great view and you can check out Luna Park while there. https://www.ripplesmilsonspoint.com.au/

Some wine bars

Love Bentley Wine Bar, went twice in a week, great wine list and an excellent Sommelier. Not a fan of Love, Tilly Devine though.

Returned from our trip to Australia a couple of weeks ago and just finished writing up a tasting story/trip report with pictures on CellarTracker
https://www.cellartracker.com/event.asp?iEvent=42096

We had a great trip, really fell i love with the country!

Holy shit, that is an epic write-up!! Wow you certainly got around the place and experienced so much.

Huge effort in typing all that up. Well done, was a fantastic read and some great photos. [worship.gif] [worship.gif]

That’s a terrific write up Maire. A trip done properly.

Dave & Jeremy - thanks for the nice feedback - glad you enjoyed the write up. Really enjoyed spending time in your lovely country!

You obviously researched your itinerary very well Maire. As much as I love travelling to the States and France for wine trips, there really is some very exciting things happening in our own backyard and many of these wines are not seen outside of Oz. Glad you enjoyed yourselves.

I was in Sydney for the first time in 2018, just for a few days, and had some very nice meals.

I had a delightful lunch at Ester, sitting at the counter:

And a truly excellent solo lunch at Firedoor - it’s been around for a long time, and is still turning out playful and delicious food with first rate staff:

I very much enjoyed my dinner at Sixpenny, and had a wonderful time chatting with the friendly staff. They had Keller on the winelist, which was a pleasant surprise.

I had a huge failure of a meal at Momofuku Seiobo and cannot recommend it in any way.