7 Best New Restaurants to Try in NSW

Sydneysiders love a new restaurant. Maybe it’s the anticipation, maybe it's all about trying new foods or being in a different top-rated environment.

Whatever it means to diners, the love and wanting an experience is not just held within the confines of the city limits. NSW as a whole has seen people coming out to newer establishments willing to give the young guns a go.

The tried-and-true restaurants may remain favourites and long shall it be so, but there’s a new kid on the block. Actually, a few new kids all scrambling for the diner’s attention and of course their dollar.

So here we go. Let’s explore some of the new choices for both the newly awakened diner and the seasoned veterans who might want to swap out the old for the new.

Just for one night, anyway.

The Ones to Watch

Well-known hospitality group restaurants may be the go-to for diners wanting a consistent experience. Still, there is something to be said about the new faces and new attitudes that are not affiliated with the giants of the industry.

What more can we say? Everyone loves a brave new owner and chefs with something to prove or established owners and chefs set to show off their stuff in a new location.

Prove away. One thing is for sure. Your diners will soon let you know their verdict.

1. Brasserie 1930

Brasserie 1930 Circular Quay is a French food classic with an Australian touch. 2023 will see the opening of this much anticipated venue, with the Bentley Group hoping for its fare and extensive wine list to become a staple among those diners who wish to make a no question, easy choice for fine dining.

Its home is the Capella Hotel. A heritage listed sandstone beauty, proud of its features and now showing off its past as a badge of honour to all those who enter.

Diners can experience the best in seafood, steak tartare or caviar to begin and then move onto a wide choice of mains, including duck, pork, or exquisite beef of their choosing.

Pair it all with wine to compliment, and this restaurant will fast become a city vacationer's must-do or a local’s monthly night out.

Where: Capella Hotel 35 - 39 Bridge Street Sydney, NSW

Cuisine: French Australian

Reservations: Book here.

2. Promenade Bondi Beach

Let Promenade Bondi Beach show you there is more to the beach suburbs than the sun and surf.

Fast becoming a diner’s delight, Bondi Beach will now be home to a relaxed coastal dining experience with diners experiencing the familiar Bondi setting they have come to love.

Offering a menu encompassing the best of coastal must-haves. Seafood being a staple, along with meats presented with the world’s best born techniques.

The choice in fare is vast and who doesn’t like that?

Casual but elegant interiors draw in each guest not just because of that importance but in the knowing the menu is supplied with the best in sustainable, fresh and small grower Australian produce as a given, rather than a trending fly by night idea.

Both travellers and locals alike will have this number on speed dial before too long.

Fancy a dip? I’d leave it for another day. You’re going to be too busy eating.

Where: Shop 4 Bondi Pavilion Queen Elizabeth Driver Bondi Beach, NSW

Cuisine: Something for everyone. Fresh Australian produce, Beef, seafood. Kids menus. All day dining.

Reservations: Book here. Bookings are recommended, but walk-ins are always welcome.

3. Petermen

Petermen lives across the Harbour Bridge at St Leonards. Not generally known as a dining mecca in the past, it may to time to watch this space.

New populations require local establishments for the areas to flourish and become an area to remain in rather than one to escape from.

St Leonards is certainly enjoying that growth. With a mix of apartments and businesses, some say the area is yet to see its biggest growth.

Multi-cultural cuisine resides here without much fanfare but quickly becomes a source of gastronomic pleasure many may want to keep secret.

Peterman offers diners a seafood restaurant with a difference. If you’re expecting the run of the mill fish restaurant, you’ll be pleasantly surprised.

Owners Josh and Julie Niland, in partnership with a widely renowned team from Saint Peter, Fish Butchery and Charcoal Fish, have teamed up to present diners with an alternative. For those with an understanding of the power of sustainability, local produce and technique designed to work with such delicates of our ocean, Peterman will become a favourite.

Try the line caught John Dory, or for a meatier option, indulge in the line caught Big Eye Tuna.

Will the secret be kept? Doubt it.

Where: 66 Chandos Street St Leonards NSW

Cuisine: Fresh Australian seafood and vegetables

Reservations: Book here.

Regional NSW

Our regional diners are not forgotten, with some excellent establishments set to tingle your taste buds—the best of the best, old and new.

Let’s see what’s on offer.

4. The Mermaid Beach House

In the Coffs Harbour area? Don’t go past The Mermaid Beach House. Owner Rowan Tihema’s goal is to source local seafood from as close as possible to the restaurant’s location at Park Beach. It may seem like a hard or even unenviable promise to make, but it is done with the passion and fortitude of a real spokesman for the food provided to diners of this establishment.

The menu consists of fresh local and home-grown vegetables with meats and seafood of the best quality they can find. The Mermaid Beach House restaurant offers a vast range of options, from appetising entrees to mains reminiscent of a large Italian gathering.

Can’t decide? Choose the Feed Me option for a sample of the restaurants choosing. Guaranteed you won’t be looking to make a sandwich once you’re back home!

Small and casual but elegant in its environment and the impression it will make on all who choose to dine here.

Where: 81 Ocean Parade Park Beach Coffs Harbour, NSW

Cuisine: Italian, Seafood

Reservations: Book here.

5. Pixie Food & Wine

Pixie Food & Wine settles itself in the very (more so in the recent 5 years) popular District of Byron Bay.

This casual establishment melts into the Byron lifestyle and surroundings without much effort.

The effort all goes into the care taken to prepare the best in fresh cuisine for locals and visitors.

Breakfast, brunch, lunch or dinner, they have it all with an ever-evolving choice of fare.

Diners have a choice now, not that they didn’t before. It was just that there was one or two go-to’s for this kind of dining, and people follow one another frequently.

Make this your next choice.

1. This is a dog friendly restaurant.

Where: 139 Jonson Street Byron Bay, NSW

Cuisine: Modern Italian with a coastal twist.

Reservations: Book here.

6. Osborn House

Want to stretch those legs away from Sydney? Go South, young man.

Stop at Bundanoon for a Southern Highlands treat. Osborn House is a much-awaited restaurant catering for diners who wish for all the slick appeal of a city establishment but want to take in the highlands air and the environment it offers as a side dish.

This Five Star rated boutique hotel is truly complimented by such an eatery.

Food is cooked outside over fire in the gardens which surround this bespoke experience and has been explained as simple yet refined Australian fare with an international flare and experience, which shows.

Stay and play. You won’t regret it.

Where: 96 Osborn Ave, Bundanoon NSW

Cuisine: Australian, European.

Reservations: Book here.

7. Cinnabon

Enter the Wild Card. Would it be remiss to ignore one type of establishment that brings a smile to most faces?

Whether weekly diners or once in a while celebrators, the dessert remains a must-have.

Saving room is essential for those with a sweet tooth. For those who choose to forgo the main and head straight for the sweet stuff, there is plenty of options. The lines don’t lie at Cinnabon. There are plenty of established dessert restaurants in Sydney for when nothing else will do.

Dessert for dinner?

We won’t tell if you don’t.

Where: 50 Hay Street Haymarket Sydney, NSW

Cuisine: Cakey bun Cinnamon heaven.

Reservations: Simply walk by (or stand in a line)

Of course, newness means different things to diners. For some, all these establishments may be new to them. For the seasoned (dare I say professional) diner, new means somewhere untested, opened within the last few months or even soon to be opened.

It’s hard to choose so we won’t make you.

Just visit them all. Regional or city based, there are new dining out options opening all the time.

Why not use your Good Food Gift Card and make that reservation today?

Make a memory or amplify any occasion. Oh, and if you’re looking for the perfect food gift, you’ve just found it.