Irreverent, boundary pushing and umami obsessed are the most apt descriptors for Automata. Chef Clayton Wells honed his skills in three very different kitchens: Tetsuya’s, Quay and Momofuku Seiobo. His ability to blend these divergent experiences in a coherent manner makes him one of Sydney’s most exciting next-gen talents. Take in a reasonably priced multi-course meal and you’re in for classic European techniques, new-world vegetables and Asian flavours – often all on the same plate.

Dinners at the dim-lit Ester don’t feel like a big occasion, even though Mat Lindsay runs one of Sydney’s most inventive and consistently delicious menus. The place has an easy, effortless feel that off-duty chefs have fallen hard for, along with the rest of the city. It helps that the set menu (a la carte is also an option) comes in under $100 and includes the restaurant’s many woodfired hits (classic such as the potato bread, blood sausage sanga and king prawns figure frequently). Bonus points: confident, knowledgeable staff and a cracking list of minimal-intervention booze from co-owner Julien Dromgool. This is everything great about cutting-edge dining in Sydney.

Ester’s younger sibling is half restaurant, half wine bar and lives in a raw, basement-like space. Expect a long wine list of both classics and genre-busting naturals, plus an innovative, ever-changing snack menu focused on woodfired flavours and eating with your hands. One of our favourite dishes to date is crisp squares of honey- and five spice-marinated pig’s ear served on a skewer. Once again, the staff is possessed with noticeable poise. Choose the wine and ask for matching food, or chose the food and ask for matching wine. Either way, it’s all memorable.

Until Lumi and its Miso-strone came along, the idea of a Japanese-Italian restaurant sounded distinctly unappetising. But in the hands of chef Federico Zanellato (ex-Noma, Attica and Ormeggio at the Spit), this fusion not only makes sense – it makes you wonder why more people aren’t doing it. Enjoy multiple courses with matched wines from Michela Boncagni (Lumi’s sommelier and Zanellato’s wife), with serene views of Pyrmont Bay to keep you occupied between acts.

Sea-urchin crumpets? Grouper-head terrine? Here, they’re a thing. Chef Josh Niland is a pioneer of “fin-to-scale” cooking and will have you eating parts of the fish you barely knew existed. With the help of his fish butchery down the road and an on-site dry-ageing room, he’s doing things with seafood you can’t find anywhere else in Sydney, or in the world.

Seiobo was the first restaurant in David Chang’s Momofuku empire to open outside the US. Under the stewardship of chef Paul Carmichael – who grew up in Barbados and arrived here in 2015 – it’s turning out traditional and not-so-traditional Caribbean dishes reimagined using Australian produce, with superb results. Refined takes on Antiguan sweet-potato dumplings, fried plantains and jerk chicken are all possibilities of the singular tasting menu. One of the city’s best front-of-house teams works a fun, vibe-y room that feels worlds away from its casino location.

Hubert’s low ceilings, timber-panelled walls and candle-lit tables feel like they’ve been there forever. And yet, this convincing facsimile of a grand European restaurant circa World War II only opened in 2016. Behind this extravagant and ambitious facade there’s unmatched reverence for classic hospitality and notably un-classic French food. Sure, the menu includes duck parfait and escargot, but with clever tweaks such as maple syrup jelly and Chinese XO sauce. This is a room you want to eat in, and often.

This lively Italian diner is from Swillhouse, the same group behind Restaurant Hubert. It shows – the place has an ineffable cool and gently subversive food that often seems traditional at first glance. Case in point: the signature trippa alla romana (braised tripe), which employs cinnamon, cardamom and garam masala in place of the expected Roman flavours. Pastas play it straighter but offer no fewer thrills.

We can’t think of a more beautiful restaurant than this one. It’s like no other place in the city and actually feels like dining in a home kitchen. Ask for one of the two tables shared with the chefs, who, from the other end, put finishing touches on Mediterranean-inspired dishes pulled from the woodfired oven. Head chef and American export Danielle Alvarez has a hefty CV that includes a stint at the revered Chez Panisse in California, something that’s writ large on the menu.

A Bondi institution that’s kept up with the times. The long-serving staff continues to deliver exemplary service, and chef Sean Moran remains laser-focused on what’s Australian, what’s ripe and how best to prepare and present it in a way that best shows off each ingredient’s natural flavours. Understated but glorious, this is a quintessential Sydney dining experience, even more so than the flashier, more high-profile restaurants on this list.

This waterside property feels like an opulent hotel. There’s a reception to greet you, it’s luxuriously decorated with period furniture and the bar has a scalloped design that’s almost mesmerising. The menu mixes classical French and Italian dishes and high-end Australian seafood cooked with the precision the prices imply. Despite this, Bert’s is versatile and accessible, just as suitable for dates as for celebrating a boozy long lunch with friends or family.

You’ll feel like a real VIP when you arrive at Ormeggio. It’s hidden among yachts, in the marina just near the Spit Bridge in Middle Harbour. head chef Gianmarco Pardini oversees a nuanced menu. Seafood shines here, so come for Moreton Bay bugs, Queensland red scarlet prawns and Sydney rock oysters done creatively.

When Tetsuya Wakada opened his eponymous restaurant in 1989, its sophisticated service and careful marrying of Japanese and French cuisines changed the game. Thirty years on, it remains one of the most elegant and on-brief examples of fine dining Sydney has to offer, if a little solemn. Tetsuya’s is about balance and fastidious technique – ideals passed down to a legion of alumni who today run many of the city’s best restaurants themselves.

Second only to Saint Peter in the art of seafood cookery. While Brent Savage and Nick Hildebrandt’s Barangaroo restaurant is similarly interested in issues of sustainability, this waterfront restaurant is more focused on luxury. An all-Australian seafood tower, multiple caviar options and an unrivalled selection of chablis are proof of that.

If you want a charming, reliable venue – the kind where you’re just as likely to see a first date as you are a 50th wedding anniversary – this is it. The three-decade old restaurant is family-run, has traditional Ligurian eats, friendly waiters and walls so busily plastered with art you can barely discern the wall colour. And not just any art – take a squiz and you’ll see a Sidney Nolan and Archibald finalists such as Garry Shead. Not that you’ll be looking up from the plate too much – the pastas are exceptional. At the end of January 2021, after alsmot 40 years, Lucio's will close.

Everything you want out of an Italian restaurant but younger, freer and more lubricated. Owners Marco Ambrosino and brothers Enrico and Giovanni Paradiso have built a place that has pull, enticing you for a glass of something exciting from its forward-thinking, minimal-intervention booze list, or a plate of house-made strozzapreti with pistachio pesto, or its signature pretzel with whipped bottarga. Service is chatty-but-informed, the fit-out relaxed, and the vibe is buzzy, always.

Pasi Petanen is back and he’s better than ever. Petanen closed the original much-loved Cafe Paci back in 2015, but now it's back and better than ever. Things are more casual now, a-la-carte, not set menu. The cuisine genre is hard to pin down, there’s a lot of Finnish, a little bit of Italy and some inspiration taken from Australian favourites. On the wine front, vino maestro Giorgio De Maria has created a wine list with an emphasis on fun, drinkable drops.

Frat Paz, as its many regulars call it, has been doing its very confident thing since 2001. That is: feeding and watering everyone from nonnas to the city’s A-listers, people who come back regularly for dishes such as calamari Sant’ Andrea and what could possibly be one of the best tiramisus in the city. This bustling, all-day operation is by the same people who brought us 10 William St, and although it has a more traditional approach to Italian food, the wine list and service are equally as schmick.

Restaurants all over Sydney have tried to copy Mr Wong’s refined Cantonese-led menu, its modern fit-out and the quality of its service, but none have been successful. Consequently the large but intimate-seeming space is always packed, even though it’s down a CBD laneway. Inside, a bank of barbequed ducks aren’t just great to look at: they’re plump, juicy and delicious. Likewise the delicate dumplings, which are some of the city’s best. Chef Dan Hong sets a benchmark that has the right amount of Aussie-Cantonese nostalgia.

The concept is modern Japanese, unrestricted by tradition and more influenced by what goes well with sake or a Japanese-style highball. Maybe that’s a plate of wasabi-dressed oysters or grilled, kombu-buttered prawns. The setting for this slick restaurant isn’t the dark red and black palette you might expect; the space is white, light and brown and sits somewhere between industrial warehouse and Japanese bathhouse.

The food here is very Sri Lankan – there’s a traditional fish curry, hoppers (bowl-shaped crepes made from fermented rice flour), an array of sambols and fluffy dal – but this narrow restaurant is a reflection of chef and owner O Tama Carey. She wanted to bring her experience of the island to Sydney, along with what she likes to drink: Australian-brewed mead, pét-nats, a coconut and coffee slushie, and wine poured from a tap.