Potluck

Esther Sun grew up in a family of great cooks. Her uncle Tong – who she credits as her main inspiration – was the star chef at family meals. Her mum Rita Sun and dad Peter Sun migrated to Australia from Xinjiang and Beijing respectively, and instilled a reverence for food in their daughter. Dumpling-making sessions were a regular occurrence at home.

Sun joined the industry at 15 and fell for restaurant life. In 2024, she and her mum opened Potluck, a Chinese Australian restaurant inspired by Sun’s family potluck dinners. The space has an elevated old-school Chinese restaurant feel, with wood-panelled walls and pendant lighting. Vintage-style portraits hang at the kitchen entrance where, if you peek inside, you may see Sun’s mum preparing pork and prawn wontons.

A standout here is Rita’s beef noodle soup. It’s a time-intensive dish centred on bone broth that’s boiled, strained and reduced over eight hours. The meat is slow-braised separately until tender, then added back into the broth with thick Shanghai-style noodles, herbs and chilli. There’s also Sun’s spins on mapo tofu, prawn toast and san choy bow.

Beverages include non-alc aloe and honey highballs, and sour plum juice. In Sun’s opinion, no Chinese restaurant is complete without tea, so she serves infusions of chrysanthemum and honeysuckle, as well as rose, goji and date. Plus, BYO is available.