Dan Cunningham

It's ticking over to a shameful hour, and you've smoke-bombed from the party in search of sustenance. Is it fried chicken you're after, that fail-safe absorbent of sin and too many cocktails? Or maybe you've been working late, and you're looking to redeem a day of fluorescent-lit corporate drudgery with the perfect plate of spicy noodles? Or maybe you've landed in the city late and you just want to sink into a steamer of pillowy dumplings, soft and plush. Time Out's Sydney's critics, including Food & Drink Editor (and fellow night owl) Avril Treasure have rounded up the best spots where you'll find what you're craving, way up late. Still feeling snackish? Take yourself out to peruse our list of the very best cheap eats you can get in Sydney. RECOMMENDED: These are the best pizza restaurants in Sydney right now

Japan’s best izakayas are the ones you lose yourself in. The places where your first visit ends hours later, when you stumble out after a long night of highballs and grilled offal feeling like a regular. The team behind two of North Sydney’s cosiest Japanese small bars, Yakitori Yurippi and Tachinomi YP, have nailed that feeling so well at their third project, Nakano Darling, that time and place become vague; the little details transportive enough to make you wonder if you’re still in Darling Square.  Beyond the grubby garage door façade, flanked by a wooden bench and a giant, eye-popping yellow flag, is not so much a bar as a Japanophile’s dream. It’s brought to life by unmistakably yellow Kirin beer crates, an abundance of raw oak, and a bar with an impressive line-up of backlit, now ultra-rare bottles of Suntory Kakubin blend whiskey perched above the usual suspects from the Yamazaki, Chita and Hakushu distilleries. That’s in addition to pages of beer, shochu, umeshu and sake imported straight from the source.   There’s a projector casting famously offbeat Japanese advertisements onto the back wall as diners bask beneath. Shed a tear of Nippon nostalgia as MOS Burger, the ubiquitous Japanese fast-food chain, flashes across the screen and fires your synapses. You can butcher the classics in the karaoke booth or pile into one of two tatami rooms for a traditional sit-down. That soft-drink vending machine in the back, the sort you’d find on every Tokyo corner, has probably co