The best restaurants in Bondi

Sean’s is freshness, simplicity and fun on a plate – it’s the antidote to every bad meal you’ve ever had. Chef and owner Sean Moran cooks his own food his own way. And has done since he opened the restaurant in 1993. The restaurant looks straight out over Bondi Beach – it’s some of the best real estate in the country. The breezy coastal friendliness, the welcoming room and the fiercely produce-driven menu (very often specials will change depending on the week, or even the day) is an all-seasons win.

Icebergs can be everything you love about Sydney, or it can be everything you hate. Those with even a slight case of reverse snobbery might accuse this top-shelf Bondi restaurant of being a little private beach club at times. Admittedly, fellow diners do have a tendency to give off a ‘comfortable on any size yacht’ vibe. But letting that get in the way of what could potentially be an epic lunch would be a mistake. Because when it’s good, it’s very, very good. At the height of its excellence, it gives you the feeling every restaurant should leave you with: utter refreshment.

Bondi’s latest scene is an Italian restaurant tucked inside an old pub like some sort of dining hermit crab. You can bypass the red felt pool tables and airy public bar of the Hotel Bondi entirely thanks to a direct side entrance. Out here in the sunny, white courtyard, beneath the skinny branches of two olive trees, Bondi’s most stylish gather for long lunches (oh look, it’s the Preatures). Eggert has joined forces with chef Khan Danis, who is bringing his years behind the Rockpool woodfired grill to bear on a menu of whole garfish fish, barramundi fillets, minute steaks and a protein heavyweight, 800g rib-eye.

There’s only one place you need to be right now, and that’s face-first in a focaccia con porchetta. The outrageous sandwich is a hot, fatty, rich and juicy pile of chopped-up roast pork straight from the rotisserie, laid with crisp cos lettuce leaves and grilled eggplant, all smooshed between pieces of pizza bread in a happy delicious mess. And that’s what happens when you put Popolo’s Orazio D’Elia in the kitchen and catch Maurice Terzini at full power.

Why Granger waited up till now to open in Bondi is a total mystery. The queue’s a mile long, but nobody seems to care – partly because it’s a scene in itself waiting for a table and everyone seems to know each other, and partly because the turnaround is unusually quick. It's even easier if you pop in for dinner and order miso salmon, a high-end schnitzel or something off the barbecue menu. 

There are very few venues in Sydney that are truly beachfront, but North Bondi Fish is in as close in proximity to Bondi Beach as the grassy knoll. As you walk in there’s sand on the doorstep – this isn’t decorative, it’s just what happens when you’re 12 metres away from one of the world’s most popular shorelines. Given it’s prime NoBo position, this bright and breezy seafood palace has been the spot for many long lunches since it opened back in 2013.

For anyone who says you can’t sell carbs in Bondi, this bar presents a full house doing swift demolition work on an excellent cacio e pepe that is rich but stops short of heart-busting territory. It’s probably all that black pepper giving the dish a flinty, sparky spiciness that keeps the cheese in check, but tender oily pieces of sardine also give this cheesy pasta a surprising sophistication.

This new trattoria on Bondi road uses old school pasta making techniques with a new world vegan approach, seeking to prove Italian staple doesn’t necessarily need animal products to taste great. It comes from the folk behind Paperbark, and takes on a more relaxed feel than the slick Waterloo restaurant. Inside the emerald-walled, disco music playing, good value plant-based neighbourhood pasta bar, you'll find plates of tomato-sugo slicked gnocchi and bowls or warming mafaldine alongside herby garlic bread, crisp arancini and bright bowls of citrus seasoned heirloom tomatoes. 

Nobody panic. Bondi may now sport an A Tavola serving spaghetti by the sea, but the original Darlinghurst digs where chef/owner Eugenio Maiale makes his own pasta, is still going strong. The look of the place follows the same cues that made the original A Tavola such a hit. Big copper orbs light the room, marble communal tables double as a workbench for the chefs rolling out fresh pasta. It’s a like a living window display. Despite the new shiny fit-out, A Tavola remains a neighbourhood restaurant. 

You’d think that Bondi is more than accounted for in the pizza front – you’ve got Pompei’s or Da Orazio for traditional pizze, Gelbison for a cheerful BYO affair and BBPB for pub-style pies. So when Tipica opened in place of an underused Mexican restaurant on Hall Street, we were curious to see if another pizza palace was necessary. Luckily, it certainly has a place in the beachside suburb, thanks to its awesome woodfired product. The pizza here is Tuscan style and the dough is rested for 48 hours, resulting in a crusty, fragrant bready base – you’ll want to devour the entire pizza right down to the last chewy crust.

If you’re going to build an all-day restaurant on the fêted Campbell Parade you may as well go all in. Wear the extra cost of those beautiful curved timber window frames and gold lettering – it’ll make people feel like they’re entering a luxe hotel. Shell out on brass clipboards that are so hefty they turn your menu into a weapon. Pony up for a big open kitchen complete with glowing wood fire and mosaic mural of life savers. 

Pompei's is a great restaurant. That's not to say the service is slick, but it is friendly. Start with some grissini (that's breadsticks to youse) with a plate of prosciutto while you think about pizza. Play it straight with a margarita (tomato, buffalo mozzarella and basil) or try the broccoli topped with mozzarella and ripped up chunks of pork sausage. They also make an excellent pizza biancho (that's pizza sans tomato) with thin slices of potato, sea salt and rosemary. The bases are thin, wood-fired and made on a stone (all very traditional) and if you fancy your dough folded, this is the place to come - the salami and ricotta calzone is a ripper.

When you walk into this Hall Street staple you can instantly smell fragrant Thai basil and hear the sounds of woks clanging. They do seriously big serves (one serve will satisfy two) of grilled meats, super rich curries and wok-fried favourites. You'll also find a whole page of the menu devoted to duck (try the boneless roasted 'Lucky' duck) and lamb (the massaman uses whole lamb shanks) alongside plenty of veggo dishes. 

After slinging tacos, Tecate tins and Tommy’s Margaritas for years up on Bondi Road, this pan-American bar and restaurant is now right in the thick of it, situated within the shiny Pacific complex. Panama House's second coming is once again doing boozy brunches (think bottomless Bloody Marys and mimosas with breakfast burritos and corned beef has browns) and transforms into a taqueria in the evening. 

Bondi is a suburb of two budgetary extremes. There are the backpackers who fill dorm rooms like sardines and know where every happy hour in the 2026 is located; and then there are the people whose names are on the leases, and they are the people that this North Bondi eatery is aimed at. Rocker is a little bit fancy. Not Sean’s Panaroma spenno, but you’d wear proper shoes to come here for dinner. It would also make a great date spot because you can just roll up to the bar, perch around the huge communal table and order from their short but compelling list of wines by the glass. 

China Diner offers a cross-pollination of Indonesian, Vietnamese, Thai and Chinese dishes. They're doing a menu that’s been designed with big groups in mind, which might explain the caveat at the bottom of the snacks section. And that is ‘a minimum order of two per item’. There are Vietnamese sandwiches (the smoked tofu with pickled carrot, cucumber and coriander is the winner here) and sticky, sweet Malaysian-style Marmite chicken wings. Puffy and addictive rice crackers flecked with seaweed go strangely well with a side of Cantonese-style pickled red cabbage.