The Best Restaurants in Chinatown Sydney

Sydney’s Chinatown, loosely defined as the stretch between Liverpool Street and Market City, is the largest in Australia. The area is no longer strictly considered a Chinese enclave but a vibrant Asian precinct reflecting many cultures and cuisines.

Thousands of southern Chinese immigrants came to New South Wales during the 1850s gold rush, but the community here didn’t emerge in earnest until the 1920s. Racist attitudes of the day forced many Chinese people to seek work in the wholesale fruit and vegetable market on Hay Street. A wave of Chinese enterprises naturally followed, from kitchens to grocers and immigrant housing.

By the 1980s, attitudes had changed. The Chinese Garden of Friendship was created to symbolise the bond between Sydney and its Chinese sister city of Guangzhou (where many of Sydney’s early migrants came from), and Dixon Street was converted into a lively pedestrian mall to foster more tourism to the area. Bookended by traditional ceremonial gates, the mall is a punctuated by Cantonese seafood restaurants, Sichuan hotpot joints and homey diners specialising in lesser-seen Uygur cuisine from China’s north-west. Here’s where to find it all, plus a smattering of Japanese, Korean and other restaurants around Haymarket.