-Special Feature Header-c94024f395.gif)
BEST OF 2025
Words by Grace Mackenzie · Published on 27 Nov 2025
I am the biggest advocate for keeping things casual. I want to sit with an oat flattie and my book. I want a quick onigiri or taco or sandwich. I want to wear jeans and a T-shirt. I have a very fond spot for coffee shops and casual eateries – it’s where a lot of us are spending most of our dining-out time, after all.
And while we have local favourites that’ve generously served us for years, 2025 brought a wave of new contenders to the cafe, coffee and casual scene. Our drinks got funkier, scrolls were on a roll (then kept rolling), and we went absolutely mad for bread.
Here are the 16 best new cafes, bakeries and casual eateries for 2025, Sydney. See you there.
When third-wave coffee culture arrived in Australia in the 2000s, the goal was refinement. Make my single origin as singular as possible, my brewing water as pure as angels’ tears. Those days, it seems, are well and truly over. Now, we’ll take our coffee bonkers, please. Let them mimic Negronis and wear fluffy whipped-cream hats. Algorithm – with its Mont Blanc riff and matcha-espresso hybrids – is emblematic of that seismic shift in the cafe landscape, and its first outpost only ramps it up. Throw in butternut squash toasties and yakiniku chicken rolls and it feels safe to call it: the fourth wave is here. – Dan Cunningham, national food and drink editor
Image: Yusuke Oba
When the team behind Takam opened Adhika in Rushcutters Bay, it was impossible to miss – in part due to the crowds hovering outside, waiting for a table in the pint-sized Filipino cafe. The bright team has a calling: educating Sydneysiders about the breadth of Filipino flavours.
For brekkie, that could mean beef tapa: pan-seared soy-marinated meat served alongside little bowls of pickles, sauce, dressed leaves, and a dome of rice crowned with a fried egg. Starlight Bakery’s pan de sal buns power the brekkie sangas, filled with melty cheddar cheese and a Japanese-style omelette, or patty melts with cheese, egg and embutido (pork meatloaf). There’s also a hangover-busting chilli egg bicho, with Filipino sambal and longganisa sausage.
But the vibes are perhaps seen brightest in the drinks section, where a fluffy, technicolour, extremely photogenic ube matcha waits. – Lucy Bell Bird, national assistant editor
Is it a cafe? Or a bar? Maybe it’s a restaurant? Honestly, it depends when you arrive at AP’s sandstone cottage. The vibes are like mornings at Melbourne’s Napier Quarter, or nights at the adored Florian. Anyway, the fact that the “what” of it all is up for debate is exactly what shines about the bread lord’s first restaurant-ish venue.
There’s a morning mix of coffee, eggs (drowned in chicken soup, please), plate-sized pancakes and egg-filled muffins. Then a lunch menu with salads, patty melts, fish sandwiches and a concertinaed “lasagne of sorts”, imported from Ester. In the arvo, order a happy meal (Martini, fries, oysters) or anchovy-topped snack, a vermouth with soda, vodka tonic, or swish cocktail. When night comes? Snacks, silky pastas and chef-driven mains. It’s an impressive offer any way you play it – and exactly my kinda cafe. – Grace MacKenzie, Sydney food and drink editor
Image: Yusuke Oba
Dan Kim was one of the first Sydney coffee roasters to put the “special” in specialty coffee. He did that by zagging from established cafe-aesthetic norms (exposed bricks, blackboard menus) in favour of a serious, minimalist design led by concrete and blond timber. This year he upped the ante with a second, slightly larger cafe in the roastery heartland of Marrickville. It’s a beautiful space for your daily ritual – made prettier with Pioik pastries and Shortstop doughnuts. Cafe, coffee showroom or caffeine temple? This place is the whole shebang. – Dan Cunningham, national food and drink editor
Image: Declan Blackall
Chef Jeremy Agha’s dance between tradition and creativity shines in Iftar ’s dishes of Wagyu kofta dumplings. In shawarma tacos. In the “sausage sizzle”, where the flavours of the Levant hit an Aussie classic. The macaroni bi laban delivers the pasta drenched in a herbed yoghurt and browned butter. Then there’s the splashy brekkie board, where fried eggs cosy up to a zesty house-made ful; Lebanese village cheeses, haloumi, akawi and baldiye; pickles aplenty; and little soft puffs of labneh. It’s the food of the Levant, ready to eat exactly as it was intended: generous servings piled high on heaving tables. – Grace MacKenzie, Sydney food and drink editor
Image: Yusuke Oba
Salt and pepper. Fish’n’chips. Neil Perry and Double Bay. Some things just go together. Perry has spent much of 2025 pivoting. Song Bird became Gran Torino. Bobby’s became Bar Torino. Then Next Door became Cafe Margaret – and ruined my life.
Okay, I’m being dramatic. But knowing I’m only a short drive from the Cafe Margaret bacon, egg and cheese roll has been an incredible test of self-control. Perry’s morning bun possesses the perfect alchemy: rich gooey egg, salty and crisp bacon, melty cheese and smoky chipotle mayo with zingy spring onions. It’s best enjoyed with the hash brown slab squeezed in between the bread.
The menu pushes past breakfast to a sanga-heavy lunch and fancier nights. It’s all great, but I mean, it’s Neil Perry – what did you expect? – Lucy Bell Bird, national assistant editor
Image: Declan Blackall
When William Tooley had the opportunity to create the sandwich deli of his dreams, he took it – and Marrickville hasn’t let go since. There are zero misses in the eight-part sandwich menu, where there’s proteins and cold-cuts from LP’s Quality Meats and Whole Beast Butchery, along with Tooley’s own pickles, sauces and roast veggies. Your choice comes tucked into Infinity Bakery’s airy Turkish bread. Unless, of course, you go for the muffin, with its breakfast sausage and egg. An obligatory hash brown, of course, and you’ll understand the perpetual queue. – Howard Chen, contributor
Image: Yusuke Oba
If there’s a vibe we like, it’s a high-low one. The Ursula’s pair – Phil Wood and Lis Davies –opening a cafe is exactly that. In the charming Queens Court space, Cafe Cressida is your ticket to daytime eating with a cheffy edge. Gruyere toasties on Iggy’s bread, silky scrambles with bacon and an LP’s sausage, a pudding-y French toast. Then, doing more work teaching Sydney what a cafe can do, there are dinners. That pastel pink dream of a courtyard and the casual buttery interior is where you’ll dine on prawn cocktail toasts and minty fried zucchini flowers, then your choice from a lengthy list of entrees and mains. Hello, high-low. – Grace MacKenzie, Sydney food and drink editor
Image: Yusuke Oba
Honestly, it’s hard for a sandwich spot to cut through the noise of the Sydney sanga scene. It’s 2025, we’ve known about the magic of mashing things between bread for centuries. To make a splash as a sanga business, you’ve got to have something special – luckily Luigi Panini does.
A trio of cousins pass ciabattas – stuffed with Nonna’s meatballs, a ripper porchetta and plenty of local cheese – out of a window on Fitzroy Street. The Brickfields rolls do the crusty yet fluffy thing so you don’t feel like you’re at risk of ripping out a tooth with a vigorous bite. Get the Sicilia! Or the Calabria! With a glass-bottled chinotto and house-made tiramisu, for good measure. – Lucy Bell Bird, national assistant editor
Yes, Baking 101 serves 2025’s It Baked Good (the cinnamon scroll) and achieved sell-out status within three hours of its April launch. But don’t mistake it as another bakery aiming to be relentlessly viral. Instead, it’s refreshingly old-timey: the cafe’s classic, unhurried vibe is matched by the red-curtained entrance, gentle piano jazz tinkles, chandelier lighting and its ceiling’s ornate moulding. The signature cinnamon scroll isn’t an over-the-top extravaganza designed for quick social media likes. Baker Jaemin Song (ex-Black Star Pastry) simply serves it with an understated whoosh of vanilla cream. I’m also here for his Scent of Stanmore, a carrot cake perfumed with earthy spices, zingy citrus and smoky pecans. Endearingly named after the bakery’s postcode. – Lee Tran Lam, contributor
Image: Yusuke Oba
The only place in Chippendale I ever used to go to deliberately was Ricos Tacos. Outside of that, Chippo has never been a suburb I seek out – it’s more like somewhere you just happen to end up. But then I went to Khanom House for the first time at the start of the year. And I was there on purpose. After gorging myself on inventive, expressive baked treats (from the mind of owner Yeen Veerasenee) and sufficiently slaking my thirst – seriously, don’t sleep on the drinks here – I knew I had a great reason to come back to Chippendale. Again and again. Then I realised where I was: in the old Ricos Tacos space. No wonder I love it so much. – Callum McDermott, Hot List editor
Image: Yusuke Oba
Getting your hands on a Jamaican beef patty used to feel like a wild goose chase. That changed when Chris Skuce opened Jamaican Patty Bakehouse on Glebe Point Road. The local Jamaican and Canadian expat communities immediately began beating down the doors to get a golden pastry – and it’s no wonder why. The 27-layer pastry flakes everywhere (in a good way), and wearing those crumbs feels like a badge of honour. The OG beef and cheese patty nails the spicy-creamy balance, and the goat curry special is a must if it’s on. Expect to go back for seconds. – Howard Chen, contributor
Image: Yusuke Oba
Raise your hand if you’ve ever been personally victimised by the Sundays queue. (It’s me – and probably every other person you know in the eastern suburbs.) When Sundays first opened, I queued for more than an hour to get my hands on the viral scrolls. I’m pleased (relieved?) to report it was worth the wait. The mega rounds are light and airy, almost like a pancake. There are three core flavours – cinnamon cream cheese, Biscoff and Kinder – as well as a rotating special.
And it’s not a hospitality heavyweight behind all this hoopla. Rather, Sundays is run by 22-year-old Laetitia Loefti, who joins a string of Gen Z owner-operators who’ve turned online success and community building into real-world sales. Sometimes the algorithm just gets it right. – Lucy Bell Bird, national assistant editor
Image: Yusuke Oba
Unless you’re a stationery tragic or gift-wrapping nerd (guilty on both counts!), it’s hard to believe a piece of string could bring an outsized amount of joy. At Sydney Daifuku Store, it’s actually key to consuming the shop’s headline Japanese dessert: daifuku mochi. Chisato Nakayama’s supple rice cakes are stuffed with everything from grapes and chocolate to matcha cream. Your squidgy order comes with string you twist around the daifuku: pull and you’ll lop it in half, revealing a telescope of colourful filling – perhaps blueberry-streaked cream cheese, strawberry enveloped with sweet bean paste, or recent specials like salted pistachio, chocolate with orange-peel mousse or coffee jelly. – Lee Tran Lam, contributor
The name might be semi-inspired by Island Radio in neighbouring Redfern, but Radio Taco’s menu is straight outta Jalisco – the western Mexican state that’s the birthplace of birria. Although the spiced stew was traditionally made with goat, this dish has been remixed endlessly for the social-media age, evolving into a spiced broth for cheese-crusted taco-dipping. Radio Taco flexes this further, serving birria as mushroom-loaded fries, meaty ramen and more. Grabbing a seat inside this corner-store taqueria has been tough; crowds have flocked here since its September opening. The 12-seater is a collaboration between mates who’ve worked at The International, Ola Lola and Carbon, and the birria-boosting signal they’ve transmitted across Sydney has been heard loudly and clearly. – Lee Tran Lam, contributor
Image: Declan Blackall
It was a year that many of our top casual stops opened venue number two. Or number three. Or, whatever we’re up to with AP Bread’s Sydney takeover.
The funky Fiore Sandwich and rotisserie-powered AP Quay have both added standout lunches to the CBD, while Wilburs brought its Manly-famous sangas to Brookvale. In Leppington, Crumb’s on lasagne toastie duty, fighting the “sameness” of brunch.
It’s widely accepted that mother-daughter duo Blanca Mejia and Blanca Perera craft the best tortillas in Sydney – so there’s no surprise their first permanent taqueria, in Newtown, is always busy. And the first permanent Papi’s Birria hit Oxford Street, delivering cheesy, charred tacos hot off a grill, ready to dip into that famed 30-ingredient consommé. It’s just across the road from Mapo 3.0, where you’ll find granita topped with mascarpone cream (and, on the weekend, brioche too).
Foli brought crowds looking for exceptional cakes and specialty coffee to Campsie’s industrial area, while Seeker brought detail-oriented playful caffeinated creations to a sleek Cabramatta spot. In Surry Hills the coffee scene’s decidedly more high-tech with Beta Coffee’s arrival; and Manly’s Bote keeps it chill at the on-the-water boatshed.
Martha’s za’atar knots and cinnamon scrolls made sure everyone knew about Wareemba, the teensy five-block suburb in the inner west; and at-home medialuna bakery Tuki has its work cut out keeping up with demand for its syrupy croissant-like Argentinian pastries.
About the author
Related Content
-742203cd5d.gif)
-f457cced3b.gif)