The Best Restaurants in Chinatown Sydney

Melbourne’s Chinatown is the oldest in Australia and one of the oldest in the world. Gold was discovered in Victoria in 1851, and enterprising Chinese miners began arriving by the thousands soon after.

New arrivals hopped off the boat at the bottom of William Street, then took a short walk to the short-term boarding houses on Little Bourke Street. Within ten years the area had morphed into an ethnic enclave, thanks to both the language barrier and the outright racism directed at Chinese miners by their European counterparts.

Those early immigrants were mainly Cantonese, and in Melbourne and Australia more generally, Cantonese is still the most widespread and popular of China’s “eight great” regional cuisines. Visit Chinatown today, though, and there are far more thrills to be had: Shandong-style mackerel dumplings, soupy xiaolongbao from Jiangsu, steaming bowls of Gansu-style noodles in broth and much more.

Here’s where to find it all, plus the smattering of Japanese, Thai, Italian and other restaurants along the roughly three-block stretch.