Where to Eat in Sydney (with Gluten-free and Vegetarian Suggestions)
After spending a week in Melbourne, we realized that Australia has some of the best food variety we’ve ever had! We were so excited to move on to Sydney to see what this city had to offer. When researching and planning our trip, one of our favorite things to do is create a list of restaurants to try!
8 bit
After landing in Sydney, we dropped off our things and headed straight to 8bit. It is an arcade inspired burger joint. There are free to play arcade machines in the back and all of the burgers are video game themed. There were several vegan options as well as a gluten free bun. We ordered a side of french fries and a side of onion rings to split. Nick got the Golden Axe (chicken burger), and I got the 1-Up Mushroom Burger. Everything was so good and we watched a grandfather try to corral his grandsons to eat their hot dogs when all they wanted to do was play Pac Man. Such a fun experience!
Chat Thai
We heard that Chat Thai had amazing food and that the lunch menu was much cheaper than the dinner menu. So we ventured out for lunch and found ourselves in the middle of Sydney’s Thaitown (which we didn’t even know was a thing!). It was actually hard to find Chat Thai because the sign was so small compared to all of the other Thai restaurants displayed on the street. I am so glad we finally found it because it was one of the best meals we had! We ordered dumplings as an appetizer, Thai red curry, and Guay Tiew Larb (which was not our favorite, but definitely interesting!).
Funky Pies
We stopped at Funky Pies before doing the famous Bondi to Corgee walk. Oh, my gosh. There were at least a half a dozen different kinds of savory pies - all vegan! We got their most popular kind, called the Funky Chunky pie and the gluten free G’day Satay. It came with mashed potatoes, gravy, and peas on the side. It was so delicious and filled us up. They have frozen pies so that you can buy them and reheat them for dinner. We were trying to find a way to come back and get more for dinner but with our long walk to Corgee in 80 degree weather, that unfortunately wouldn’t work. Hands down the best “pie” in Sydney.
Lentil as Anything
We were hoping to check out Lentil as Anything - there are locations in Melbourne and Sydney - and luckily, on one of our last days, we went to the one in Newtown. It is 100% vegan and gluten-free and runs on donations. There is no set price to the meal and all of the workers are volunteers. We love their mission is to provide food to everyone in their community. This restaurant was so busy and we sat at a communal table. We both ordered different Indian dishes so that we could try each other’s. It was absolutely delicious! We wish there were more restaurants that had this mindset.
Flower and Stone
Our Airbnb host recommended Flower and Stone to us. The bakery was literally right around the corner from where we were staying, and she said that they are famous for their lamingtons. We had no idea what lamingtons were but we decided to go for it. Flower and Stone had dozens and dozens of different pastries and cakes. We ordered one lamington and one carrot cake slice. A lamington is cake covered in chocolate and coconut with jelly in the middle. It was alright - too many flavors in one bite for us, although everyone else seemed to love them! They were almost sold out and we went early in the morning (yes, we had cake for breakfast). The carrot cake, however, was the best!!
Spice I Am
On one of our last nights in Sydney, we weren’t sure where to eat. We had tickets for a stand up comedy show and right around the corner was Spice I Am. It had amazing reviews (apparently it is a multi-award winning Thai restaurant and the head chef has his own cookbook) so we decided to go. I ordered pad thai and Nick ordered beef fried rice. Both were delicious! We got there right at opening time because we didn’t want to be late for the show and the restaurant was not crowded at all!
Both Melbourne and Sydney had some of the best food we’ve eaten. It was definitely hard to leave Australia but we were excited to eat through the rest of the countries on our agenda!
- Jess