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How to find the restaurant that's right for you

Indexes Explained

The 2 main ways of finding a restaurant on our website is by region and by cuisine. And just so you don’t go to all the trouble of locating your restaurant only to find it’s out of your price range, we’ve included the pricing symbols beside them, along with the phone number and a number of other types of useful information.

Price
You’ll get a ballpark idea of prices by the dollar rating next to the cuisine, but we also include specific prices of dishes in the Sydney Eats reviews. These are, to the best of our knowledge, accurate at the time of publishing the information to our website, but details may change over time. If price is important to you, as it is to most of us, the safest approach is to ask the cost of an average entree and main when you phone to make a booking.

Restaurants where you can have entree + main for $25 or less are indicated by a $ symbol;
$45 or less ($$ symbol);
$55 or less ($$$ symbol);
$65 or less ($$$$ symbol);
no upper limit ($$$$$ symbol).

But we don’t get it all right all the time — we’re only human, after all. Things can change: good chefs often move on, owners change, prices might jump a category and places can close down. If any of these changes happens after we do our research and publish the information to our website, and it results in a bad experience for you, we’re very sorry but that’s the nature of the beast.

Cuisine

Cuisine description is an imprecise science that doesn’t cover everything. We try to use terms that are familiar, with regional specialisation indicated in the body of the listing. Sometimes, restaurants insist that their food be described in a certain way and we do our best to accommodate this. In recent years, we’ve noticed a tendency for some chefs to describe their food as Modern European where once it would usually have been referred to as Modern Australian. The difference? We think it’s that Mod Oz uses Asian flavours and Modern European doesn’t. But don’t quote us.

There’s every chance the dishes we mention won’t still be on the menu when you go, as menus tend to be seasonal and keep changing so regulars stay interested. If you want to sample a particular dish, ask if it’s on when you phone.

Hours
Hours can change according to seasons and diners’ habits, so we describe the trading hours by mealtimes — breakfast, lunch and dinner. Where the service is continuous or the mealtimes are unusually early or late, we may quote specific times.

Licensing & BYO
Every listing tells you whether a restaurant is licensed, BYO, both or neither. Occasionally, you’ll find some of the non-BYO restaurants are happy for you to bring a special bottle for a celebration, but always check first — and, when you do, be sure to ask about the corkage; you might be better off leaving it in the cellar.

Credit cards
Here, we indicate whether any or all of the major cards are taken. If you have a lesser-known card or wish to use EFTPOS, check with the restaurant.

Outdoor dining 
Summer or winter, Sydneysiders love to dine alfresco. Why wouldn’t we, with the kind of views and mild climate we enjoy? Smoking is forbidden by law inside NSW restaurants (though some with club licences retain a small indoor smoking area), so many smokers prefer to dine where they can still light up between courses — outside.

Where possible, we indicate whether it’s pavement, courtyard, terrace or balcony, whether there is heating in winter and whether there are nice views to enhance the dining experience.

Wheelchair access
Wheelchair access is detailed only if there is good access to both the restaurant itself and the toilet. Sometimes we find it necessary to rely on the restaurant owner’s opinion as to the level of wheelchair access, so it’s always wise to phone ahead and check.

Function rooms
This indicates whether there are separate function rooms and how many people they can accommodate, or whether the whole restaurant or part of it is available for private functions.

Websites
More and more restaurants have websites today, which can give a better idea of the menu and what the restaurant looks like, so we include the web addresses.

CityRail details
Many of us like to have a few glasses of wine or beer with our meal and not worry about losing a licence or getting a parking fine. And, unless you’re very persuasive, it can be tough convincing one of your party to dine but not wine when you go out. So why not let CityRail drive you? You’ll dispense with parking problems and everyone can relax and enjoy themselves.

To make it easy for you, we give walking directions for all restaurants within an easy 15-minute stroll of a railway station.