Five top Sydney restaurants where you can get a free bottle of wine with your meal

On a clear autumn evening, fine dining inside the Opera House sails comes with views to the Quay on one side and fireworks going off on the other. Dinner at Bennelong is as peak Sydney as it gets – you’ve ticked off world-class chef, waterfront dining, famous architecture and cultural institution in one fell swoop. Naturally, a five-star dining experience requires a five-star wine, and if you mention the Citi card offer when booking then you can secure a complimentary bottle of McW 660 Reserve Tumbarumba Chardonnay or Pinot Noir. It's a smart way to tick off an essential bucket list experience.

A place where every dish is cooked by wood fire, Firedoor is masterminded by head chef Lennox Hastie (GFG Citi Chef of the Year) to appeal to the primal. On one side of the open kitchen you’ve got blue-eye trevalla strung up for smoking, cut lengthways so that they resemble an anatomical chart. On the other, a huge hunk of dry-aged beef waits for a date with the butcher’s saw. Having the famous marron cooked on the coals? You'll want that bottle of Framingham Marlborough Classic Riesling that comes free to Citi card holders spending more than $50 per table. Or have you got your eye on the black market beef chuck tail? McW Alternis Tempranillo is your pour of choice. 

This restaurant is built in a huge old weatherboard house looking out over the beach. In winter, catch the whales migrating. In summer, watch as locals take to the sea. Chef Giovanni Pilu is all about celebrating classic Sardinian fare. Make sure to order ahead for the incredible platter of golden, crisp-skinned suckling pig and rosemary potatoes. And there’s the zuppa gallurese – a monumental dish of Sardinian crispbread soaked in lamb broth then coated in a layer of melted cheese like a big, fluffy bread-lasagne-soufflé thing. If you're getting one main course per person and paying with your Citi card then you have a choice of two bottles of complimentary wine: McW 660 Reserve Hilltops Cabernet Sauvignon, with its dark chocolate and black cassis fruits, or Mount Pleasant B Side Field Blend Airport Block, an experimental white blend that's aromatic and complex.

Chef Chase Kojima commands the most impressive sushi counter in Sydney. The menu starts at $100 per person, omakase style, which means you trust the chef to put down whatever they feel like making. That typically includes some stuff from the regular Sokyo menu, like rosy slices of tuna tataki with sweet mushrooms and some really impressive tempura cuttlefish, curled and pale and perfectly crisp. ​But ​to be​ perfectly honest, we’d rather skip straight to the lightly seared salmon belly nigiri. Each piece, small and perfectly formed, is made carefully in front of you, served individually and placed on a hand-made ceramic plate. Free wines available to Citi customers are McW 480 Tumbarumba Pinot Grigio, a cool climate white with aromatics of citrus and pear, or Tightrope Walker Pinot Noir, with red cherry fruits, silky tannins and sweet oak.

Brent Savage and Nick Hildebrandt’s restaurant empire (Bentley, Monopole, Cirrus) had always catered to vegetarians without making a fuss, but when they devoted their Potts Point dining room to the best of the plant world, people really started to take notice. And they kept coming back for more of the baby corn served in its charred husk, under a blanket of funky miso milk crumbs. The baked celeriac, with all the earthy grunt and spiced char of a prime cut, trumps meat, while juicy, savoury and feather-light Jerusalem artichokes in a tapioca batter are served on a rich and powerful, condensed Swiss brown and button mushroom purée. Ordering more than $50 of this next-level veggo fare per table and paying with your Citi card gets you a bottle of McW 660 Reserve Tumbarumba Pinot Noir, characterised by plum, cherry and spice with delicate floral notes and subtle mushroom characters, or Mount Pleasant Eight Acres Semillon, a crisp and refreshing semillon with fragrant notes of citrus blossom and rosewater followed by zesty lime aromas.