Hello 2025, we’re pleased to be here: Sydney feels warm and hopeful for the year ahead. While there’s an excellent clutch of restaurants, bars and cafes that joined our hospo scene in 2024, the year ahead promises plenty of newbies. Here are the ones we’re looking forward to already.
Khanom House, Chippendale
The popular market-only bakery The Baking Lists is setting up shop in the old Ricos Tacos digs. Baker Yeen Verasenee’s crème brûlée doughnuts and airy chiffons will be available – in their signature Thai flavours, honouring his heritage – along with Marrickville-roasted Double Tap coffee from Friday February 7, 2025.
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SIGN UPBessie’s and Alma’s, Surry Hills
Bar Copains is a Broadsheet Sydney favourite, so it was an excellent day when the trio – Morgan McGlone, Nathan Sasi and Sali Sasi – announced their next project: cocktail bar Alma’s and Med-leaning restaurant Bessie’s in the old Chef’s Warehouse site on Albion Street. The lofty space has been totally revamped, with exposed bricks, warm lighting and wraparound leather seating. The newcomers are both slated to open on Thursday January 16, 2025.
Cibaria, Manly
Soon after opening Postino Osteria in a Summer Hill post office, Alessandro Pavoni is readying a Euro-style joint by the beach. Aimed at re-creating an Italian piazza, Cibaria will morph between cafe, wine bar and restaurant. “In Italy, every street-food outlet finishes with ‘-ria’,” Pavoni tells Broadsheet. “Trattoria, osteria, pescaria.” Ciba means food, so Cibaria is an amalgamation of all kinds of Italian street cooking. Beyond the expansive restaurant and bar, there’ll be a private dining room and rooftop terrace. Cibaria is expected to open by the end of January 2025.
Sana, Eveleigh
Joel Bennetts, of Bondi’s Fish Shop and Burger Park, is teaming up with Daniel Sorridimi (of cafe Blackwood) with a Mediterranean salad bar designed to be quick, nutritious and tasty. Expect protein-packed bowls – like the Sana, with lamb mince, pickled zucchini and veggies topped with spicy almonds – and rolls. The eatery is expected to open in early February 2025.
Fiore Sandwich, CBD
The McMahons Point bread lords at Fiore are becoming cityslickers, with a sanga shop heading to Clarence Street near Martin Place. Menu details are still to be locked down, but you can expect the same dark sourdough made on that sustainable, old-world flour from Gunnedah’s Wholegrain Milling. It’s expected in early 2025.
Eleven Barrack, CBD
The Bentley Group’s moving into a flash little site on Barrack Street. “The bones of the building are just incredible,” Brent Savage, one half of the team, told Broadsheet. “The building is very grand, and it deserves beautiful food and beautiful wine.” Diners will spill out onto the street, and the menu will be the “most classic” they’ve got. Eleven Barrack’s expected to open on Tuesday February 4, 2025.
Cafe Cressida, Woollahra
Ursula’s, the fine sunshine-hued dining room in a Paddington terrace, from celebrated chef Phil Wood and his partner Lis Davies, is getting a little sister: Cafe Cressida. The daytime stop, with its blush-pink render, will hit the old Queens Court, where Bills once was. Known for elegant Euro-style plates in Paddo, we’re looking forward to Wood’s take on brekkie. Cafe Cressida is expected to open in February 2025.
Bar Julius, Redfern
This day-to-night restaurant and bar from Liquid & Larder (Bistecca, The Gidley, The Rover, Alfie’s) is hitting the ground-floor space at Sydney’s most-anticipated hotel opening: The Eve. Expect leather banquettes, wattle-coloured chairs and marble, with a menu that moves from morning classics to New York-style bistro. Three-egg omelette? Hefty burger? Steaks? All here, along with Bloody Marys and Mimosas to take it up a notch. Bar Julius is expected to open on Tuesday January 28, 2025.
Lottie, Redfern
From the same team behind Bar Julius comes Lottie, a Mexican restaurant and bar atop The Eve Hotel. A fully retractable roof will ensure it’s an all-weather haunt for dishes like pork jowl slow-cooked in Jarritos cola and Murray Cod pilbil cooked in a banana leaf – plus mezcal-powered cocktails. Lottie is expected to open on Tuesday January 28, 2025.
Baptist Street Rec Club, Surry Hills
Directly above the just-opened Island Radio you’ll find a “neighbourhood cocktail and wine tavern” for “drinks and hoopla”, with local drops, live music on weekends and room for 120. Expect nods to the eccentricity of ’80s and ’90s Australiana through a playful cocktail menu, ice-cold brews and a very funky fit-out. Baptist Street Rec Club will open on Tuesday February 4, 2025.
Tam Jiak, Pyrmont
Restaurateur and chef Junda Khoo, known for his string of Ho Jiaks, is one of the headliners at the Sydney Fish Market’s $800 million redevelopment. Tam Jiak – a 180-seat restaurant, with a part surf-and-turf, part Malaysian-Western grill house menu – will be his biggest venue yet. The opening adds to a massive 2025 for Khoo, who’s also opening his first Melbourne restaurant this year. Tam Jiak is expected to open in October 2025.
Golden Century, Barangaroo
In 2021, after 32 years, Sydney’s Chinatown institution Golden Century announced it was going into administration. As our features editor writes, it was the “clearest canary in the coalmine” for the pressures on Sydney’s hospo industry. But the next era is here, with owners (and family) Eric, Linda and Billy Wong announcing Golden Century’s reopening in the Crown Sydney. It will take over the casino and hotel’s third level, with a recognisable menu – complete with live seafood, XO pipis and yum cha – for anyone who loved the first. Golden Century’s expected to open in January 2025.
A Sydney first from a Melbourne pasta whizz, Double Bay
Andreas Papadakis, the pasta devotee of Melbourne’s lauded Tipo 00, is making the move to the Harbour City in 2025. The as-yet unnamed restaurant will open in Double Bay, as part of the Ruby House development on Bay Street. While it won’t be another Tipo, we’re expecting the same refined Italian edge – perhaps the signature squid-ink tagliolini tangled with calamari, flawless gnocchi and service, service, service. It’s expected in late 2025.
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