The World's Best Food Cities: Sydney

1988 Restaurants with great views often have terrible food. Not Quay, which looks out on the Sydney Opera House and Harbour Bridge and has been one of the city’s best restaurants for 25 years. Chef Peter Gilmore’s dishes have all the hallmarks of modern Australian food—exquisite plating, well-integrated Asian influences and incredible local produce, seafood and meat. quay.com.au

1989 Tetsuya Wakuda is a pioneer of haute Japanese-French fusion cuisine. His 10-course menu mixes pristine Australian ingredients with Japanese flavors, as in the confit of ocean trout with kombu seaweed and ocean trout roe. tetsuyas.com

1989 Chef Neil Perry has seven restaurants around Australia, but it all started at this high-end flagship, which has appeared regularly on the San Pellegrino World’s 50 Best Restaurants list. Chef Phil Wood is now running the kitchen, creating menus that blend European and Chinese influences, like a velvety chicken terrine served with a light egg custard and eight Chinese medicinal herbs.rockpool.com

1999 When Longrain opened in a warehouse on a then-grungy strip, it changed Sydney’s restaurant rules: first-come, first-served communal tables and a DJ in the bar. Chef Martin Boetz cooks vibrant modern Thai dishes, like a “net” made from fried egg and filled with crunchy pork, shrimp, peanuts and bean sprouts. Downstairs, the two-year-old Shortgrain is a lunch spot that specializes in curries. longrain.com.au

2000 Every night there’s a line of people waiting for one of 50 stools at this restaurant from Australian-born Kylie Kwong. The reason: her fresh, light take on Cantonese cuisine. Kwong now uses more native ingredients, so shumai comes stuffed with wallaby (a small kangaroo), and crisp-skinned duck with blood-orange sauce includes quandongs (a native fruit). kyliekwong.org

2006 The tapas craze, late to Sydney, arrived when tattooed chefs Ben Milgate and Elvis Abrahanowicz opened this small, boisterous spot in a scruffy area. Their modern take on tapas has an Argentinean influence (thanks to Abrahanowicz’s heritage), so the menu features arepas and empanadas. bodegatapas.com

2009 After several years as Tetsuya’s head chef, Martin Benn carved out his own niche in a club-like setting. Like his mentor, Benn brings together East and West, as in his yellowfin tuna sashimi with jamón Ibérico and dashi-onion cream. He shows off his technical skills in his chocolate dessert, which creates a forest scene out of rose geranium cream, crystallized fennel fronds, chocolate twigs and sour cherry sorbet. sepiarestaurant.com.au

2011 David Chang chose to open his first non-New York City restaurant in Sydney—an astute choice. The city welcomed his quirks—like the online-only bookings and tasting menu (with no substitutions). Most of the menu is unique to Seiobo (named after a Japanese goddess), using distinctly local ingredients, like striped trumpeter-fish sashimi with rhubarb and salt bush, a native desert plant. momofuku.com

2012 This new two-level Cantonese restaurant has the feel of 1930s Shanghai. Young chef Dan Hong creates unique combinations (raw sea scallops with wood-ear mushrooms; Alaskan snow crab with chrysanthemum leaves), while former Hakkasan chef Eric Koh makes exquisite dim sum. merivale.com.au/mrwong

2012 This revolving restaurant space, 180 yards above the business district, has offered a panoramic view of the city since 1968. Chef Michael Moore recently renamed and redesigned it, introducing fresh, healthy dishes (such as spiced shrimp cakes with a quinoa crust and lemon yogurt) inspired by his battle with diabetes. The adjacent bar is fun, serving wagyu beef sliders and boutique Aussie beers. obardining.com.au