Best Filipino Restaurants in Sydney

by Nicholas Jordan

Updated 3 months ago

Not too long ago the only Filipino dishes you could readily find in Sydney were based on pork, vinegar and rice. To be fair, those are three unofficial pillars of the cuisine, and the three things every Filipino restaurant should do well; whether expressed through adobo, deep-fried crispy pata or a sizzling plate of sisig.

There are plenty of great joints to eat all those at, and there have been for years, but now we have more variety thanks to a surge of new restaurants, many representing different regional styles and specialities. Spread across the city you’ll find eateries specialising in charcoal grilled squid stuffed with lemongrass and tomato, Filipino baked goods, ox-tail soup, Filipino breakfasts, and more.

If you're with a big group check the listings below for restaurants that offer a boodle fight. It’s a huge feast where the table is covered first in banana leaves then in food. No one is given any cutlery and it’s a hands-in free for all.

Lazza
Restaurant
No cutlery, no plates – just a huge platter of Filipino food to share with your friends. And for the price tag, it's a preposterous and exciting amount of food.
Sizzling Fillo
Restaurant
If you love pork and you’ve never tried Filipino food, you’ve got a very happy future ahead of you.
A-Team's Kitchen
Restaurant
All-day breakfasts of garlic rice, egg, pickles and meat and Filipino-style charcoal barbecue.
Panlasang Pinoy
Restaurant
A tiny grocery store with a Filipino barbeque, karaoke and a cult following.
Mama Lor
Restaurant
Stuffed squid grilled over charcoal; crisp-skin roast pork; and a bakery churning out purple yam cakes, flan and coconut rolls.
Filipino Fiesta
Restaurant
A Kogarah grocer selling Filipino snacks along with provincial fare you’d find along the Filipino coast: noodle soups, homey pork dishes and stews. Its boodle fights – a hands-on communal feast of rice and various toppings wrapped in banana leaf – are extremely popular. Book ahead if you’re keen to try one.
Takam
Restaurant
Tiny Takam serves one of the city’s most ambitious Filipino menus, incorporating native Australian ingredients into traditional recipes. The lemongrass chicken inasal – cooked over coals on the hibachi – is a must order.
Sydney Cebu Lechon
Restaurant
Just like a roadside eatery in the Philippines, this open-air diner serves up marrow-rich beef soups, homemade pork sausage and Cebu-style lechon: roast pork belly with plenty of crackling.
Tita Carinderia
Cafe
Tita isn’t your typical Filipino carinderia. Hit this cafe and bakery for brekkie muffins stacked with egg and longganisa sausage; classic Filipino breakfasts of garlic fried rice, egg and adobo; and ube soft serve ice-cream.
Smoky Cravings
Restaurant
Hit this Filipino barbeque spot for skewers of pork, lamb and chicken drenched in a sticky soy glaze and fired over charcoal. Classic Filipino dishes such as sisig, savoury-sweet spaghetti and halo-halo – a shaved ice dessert – are also on the cards.