Things to do in Sydney this week
Find the biggest events happening in Sydney over the next seven days, from what to see at the theatre to film festivals, food events, art exhibitions, kids' events and more. Looking for more inspiration? We've picked out the 50 best restaurants in Sydney and 25 things to do under $25.
Night Noodle Markets
Hyde Park’s evening food markets returns this year for 18 nights as part of October’s Good Food Month program, which includes ’90s and ’00s themed lunches and a pasta battle. In the 20th year of Good Food Month, the Night Noodle Markets will include food stalls from Gelato Messina, Hoy Pinoy, the Original Korean Twist Potato, Mr Bao, Shallot Thai, Donburi Station, Waffleland, Wonderbao, Donut Papi, Eat Fuh, Puffle, Poklol, Chat Thai, Teppanyaki Noodle and many others. Add to that dragon dancers, lanterns and balmy spring evenings and you can see why the Night Noodle Markets are a mainstay on Sydney’s calendar. It's a cash-free event, so bring your plastic.
Carriageworks Farmers Market
It’s imperative that you do not eat before you visit the Carriageworks Farmers Markets. You’ll want to save maximum belly space for your personal version of The Bachelorette where you decide who gets your dollars and what delicious produce gets to come home with you. Maybe you like something soupy and savoury first thing? In that case go for the pho stand for a traditional Vietnamese start to the day. There’s a bibimbap stall that will even replace the rice with shredded cauliflower if you don’t believe in cheat days, and a French crêpe stall and a classic bacon and egg roll for creatures of habit. The big hitter is always Billy Kwong, where a perfect fried egg is swaddled in a Chinese pancake, packed with salad and dressed in a luxe ginger tamari sauce. And for breakfast dessert, no visit is complete without a baked treat from Flour and Stone – they soak their lamingtons in a panna cotta mix to make sure they’re extra soft and rich.Once the hounds of your hunger have been quieted it’s time to prepare for your next meal, or seven. Maybe you need the sweet bite of Pickle Hill’s Worcester sauce for the pantry? Or some fresh goat’s curd from Willowbrae? While you’re there you may as well get some smoked salmon, fresh ravioli from Pasta Emilia, free range eggs, a load of beer and barley bread form the Bread and Butter Project, and some jersey milk butter to go on it. If you forgot your sweet French basket the 2 Duck Trading Co stall sells them, so you can pack them full of fresh
Marrickville Festival
Spend a day celebrating all the things you love about Sydney’s Inner West: music, food, local creatives, makers and diverse cultures. The Marrickville Festival is a free day of entertainment across the suburb that regularly enthralls a crowd of 60,000 shoppers, dancers and diners. This year, there’s more 120 market stalls to hop between, perusing locally crafted gifts and homewares, as well as some of Sydney’s finest gourmet fridge fodder. If you run out of cash, set up your farmers’ market bounty at one of the three festival stages. The main entertainment hub will showcase music from jazz-funk to electo and classic local rock, with acts including Funk Engine, Didgimatix and King Tide. The other stages feature up-and-coming musical youngsters and groups sharing performances with international roots. The menu for the day will be similarly diverse, with stalls serving dishes with influences from Vietnam and Nepal to Spain and Greece. And if all the snacks and dance sessions don’t tire out restless tikes, there’s also a kids play area featuring music, dance, storytelling and martial arts.
Orange Grove Organic Food Markets
Using the expanses of Orange Grove primary school, these markets fill the playground with covetable goods on a weekly basis. Farm fresh fruit and veg is everywhere here and you’re spoilt for choice for truss tomatoes, plump berries, technicolour capsicums and leafy greens. There’s also a glut of small producers for all your smallgood and fancy condiment needs; grab a fragrant saucisson (an air-dried pork sausage); or rummage through bright yellow, ice-filled eskies for some juicy free-range steaks and nab a carton of free-range eggs.The popularity of the bacon and egg rolls from Bowen’s has reached celebrity status, with queues long enough to make you think Bieber is signing autographs at the end of the line. They’re undeniably delicious. But our breakfast of choice is a steaming carton of Eat Fuh pho, purveyors of one of the most fragrant broths in Sydney. Try their vegan option, too; the broth has a rich mushroom aroma that almost overshadows the meat version. And, if the crisp crunch of an organically grown carrot isn’t your thing on a Saturday morning, the market also has tables laden with top notch baked goods. Grab a slab of Flour and Stone’s popular lemon cake or a goat cheese and zucchini savoury tart from Croquembouche patisserie, or collect flavoured seed varieties at Brooklyn Boy Bagels.Food isn’t the only thing on the menu – there’s also a range of handmade and environmentally conscious clothing, second-hand records and jewellery. Find the best markets in Sydney.
Culinary Women of Influence
While Good Food Month explores new flavours and innovative dishes, the annual event also celebrates the talented individuals behind the service counter. This three-course dinner with matching beer and wine is being held in honour of all the female chefs and hospitality professionals making change and amazing meals across the country. Four leading ladies have helped devise the menu. There's Alia Glorie, the head chef of hatted Perth restaurant Billie H; Sydney-based Alanna Sapwell, formerly of the seafood-focused Saint Peter; Karena Armstrong, who is the co-owner and head chef of the Salopian in South Australia; and Kylie Javier-Ashton from Momofuku Seiobo who’ll be hosting the evening. You can join these industry-leading women at the pop-up dining centre in Hyde Park on October 18.
Sea Life Aquarium and Whale Watching Cruise
Marine lovers of all ages will be bouncing in their boat shoes for a chance to experience this underwater adventure combo. Sea Life Sydney and Captain Cook Cruises have set up a big day of aquatic exploration, starting with a visit to the aquarium and then hitting the waves for a whale watching cruise. After a self-guided tour where you’ll encounter the aquarium’s shark, penguin and dugong residents, spot humpbacks and southern right whales on their annual migration. You’ll hop on the Rocket Ferry to jump across to Circular Quay, where your cruise vessel departs at 1.30pm. The two-and-a-half hour journey takes you past the Sydney Opera House, Fort Denison, through the Harbour headlands and out to the open ocean. And if you don’t catch a glimpse of a fin or spout, you’re guaranteed another free cruise. Don't forget to pick up your tickets from the Captain Cook Cruises office at Darling Harbour before setting out for the day.
William Street Festival
Boutique shopping lane William Street hosts a festival each year with fashion markets, food stalls and music from just before lunch to early evening. As it’s a street largely known for its shopping, many of the retailers will be offering special discounts on the day. James Cook Reserve will become a place for kids. Entertainment continues into the evening with light projections show and the Open Air Cinema.
Auburn Spice Market
Auburn Redyard has had a facelift, and to celebrate they're hosting a food truck carnical on the weekend of October 20-21. On the snack line-up over the two days is Shiso Fine serving Japanese street food, Chicken Hustle slinging Korean fried chicken and Pasalubongs with Filipino soul food. 2 Smokin Arabs will be smoking meats onsite, Sabor is serving South American cuisine, and Sol y Luna’s is in charge of Mexican eats. There will also be Falafel Bros for vegos, and deep-fried ice-cream from Duo Duo. They are also launching an international film program at the Reading Cinemas in the Redyard complex. You can see Shoplifters (Japan), which won the Palme d'Or award in 2018, plus films from Lebanon, Palestine and Turkey. This is to celebrate the opening of the new Luxe facilities at the cinema, including one with a 24m wide screen. The food truck carnival runs all weeknd from noon to 8pm each day at 100 Parramatta Road Auburn NSW, and entry is free. Tickets for the international films will need to be purchased from via Readings Cinemas Auburn website.
Young Chefs Lunch presented by Citi
Head chef Rob Cockerill from Bennelong – the glamorous restaurant inside the Sydney Opera House – will watch over some of the country’s rising culinary stars as they construct a three-course feast they’ve designed for Good Food Month. Matched with Brand’s Laira wine and James Squire beer, the lunch at the purpose-built pop-up dining centre in Hyde Park will showcase Sydney’s next generation of chefs. While Cockerill plays sous chef for the evening, Jessica Moore will bring her skills learned in the kitchen of Baranagroo’s Bea and work beside finalist for the 2019 Josephine Pignolet Young Chef of the Year award Malcolm Hanslow, who struts his stuff in the kitchen of Newtown’s Oscillate Wildly. Together they’ll show diners the talent emerging from Sydney’s extremely competitive restaurant scene.
Architecture Hub
The Sherman Centre for Cultural Ideas (SCCI) is bringing together a host of renowned international architects and designers for this inaugural event. The ten-day program will explore contemporary issues and initiatives surrounding architecture and its interplay with social, cultural and technological development. Held across SCCI, the Museum of Applied Arts and Science, Art Gallery of NSW, Barangaroo and the Golden Age Cinema, the program will feature keynote talks, panel discussions, and architecture films, tours and workshops. Prominent guests will include award-winning Japanese architects Kengo Kuma and Ryue Nishizawa, innovative modern Indian architect Gurjit Matharoo and Iraqi-American conceptual artist Michael Rakowitz. A discussion about social justice through urban design is set to be a program highlight, alongside talks about the experiences of women in the industry, public art and the future of architecture.
Boney M
The Enmore Theatre is firing up the disco ball to welcome boogie bigwigs Boney M to the stage. Coming to Sydney for their Greatest Hits Tour, this grooving group of Germans created a dance floor dynasty in the '70s and '80s. Fronting the show is original member of the group Maizie Williams, as opposed to Game of Thrones’ Maisie Williams who was not even alive when the group was founded. They'll be busting out some of their most iconic songs such as "Daddy Cool", "Rasputin" and "Sunny". You’d be crazy like a fool to miss this one.
Eskimo Dance
Skepta performing a headline set at the Opera House in September is undeniable proof that grime has gone truly global, but if you want a guided tour through the genre’s past, present and future, there’s only one place to be. Eskimo Dance began life as a club night on the outskirts of London in 2002 back when the burgeoning scene’s frenetic beats, rapid-fire spitting and tales of UK urban life didn’t even have a name that everyone could agree upon. Thanks to Wiley’s seminal instrumental, ‘Eskimo,’ and his place at the heart of Eskimo Dance, “eskibeat” was born, which gradually evolved into the signature grime sound we know today. Sixteen years on, the Godfather himself, Wiley, is heading up this impressive line-up, along with London stalwarts Lethal Bizzle and Devlin. There’ll also be an appearance from Big Shaq, whose viral hit, ‘Man’s Not Hot’, went platinum on the ARIA Charts last year.
Live Jazz at Kittyhawk
Sydney’s live music scene has a little extra pep thanks to Kittyhawk’s decision to start hosting jazz and swing every week. Every Thursday and Saturday you’ll be able to see some of Australia’s best bands and vocalists on stage – past performers include Kate Wadey, the Corridors, the Finer Cuts, the Cope Street Parade and Adam Pringle. The Liberation Day-themed bar’s old-world vibe is a pitch-perfect backdrop for jazz and, as a bonus, they mix some seriously good cocktails here. Best of all, it’s completely free, so all you need to do is turn up, snag a seat as close to the stage as you can, and order a rum and rye Old Fashioned as you wait for the sweet tunes to begin.
Iranian Film Festival
The Iranian Film Festival returns to Sydney this October with a series of films by world-renowned Iranian auteurs and exciting new talents in world cinema. Highlights of the 2018 program include Jafar Panahi’s Three Faces, which scored the Best Screenplay award at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. This illusive think piece follows actress Behnaz Jafari and filmmaker Panahi as they travel across the rural northwest of Iran and explore the role of women in Iranian life and cinema. The opening night film will be Sly, a hilarious (if somewhat fictionalised) portrait of former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, directed by veteran Iranian director Kamal Tabrizi. Another must-see is Pig, a dark satire about a blacklisted director who has been unable to make a film in years, and who subsequently wonders why a serial killer (who is targeting Iranian directors) isn’t targeting him. You can see the full Iranian Film Festival program here. Mark your calendars: the Iranian Film Festival will screen at Event Cinemas Top Ryde from Oct 18-22 and Dendy Cinemas Newtown Oct 19-23.
Japanese Film Festival Classics
A diverse program of classic Japanese movies will screen for free in the satellite program to the annual Japanese Film Festival. This year’s program has been curated to reflect the current political climate in the land of the rising sun, with women at the forefront – showcasing their struggles in a nation where the sexual politics remain challenging to this day. In Kenji Mizoguchi’s 1953 film A Geisha, young Eiko trains to be a geisha, a dignified profession but one built on lies. Sticking with the Geisha theme, 1956’s Nihonbashi depicts the power struggle between two young women vying rule over Tokyo’s leading Geisha district in the 1950s. The Affair is a 1967 drama also tuned into the taboos placed on women’s sexuality in postwar Japan. Oriko, originally scornful of her widowed mother’s pursuit of younger men, begins to empathise with her when she finds herself in a loveless marriage. We see the same breakdown of traditional pre-war values in Manji: The Goddess of Mercy. Director Yasuzo Masumura depicts a lesbian relationship without judgement or fetishism in this tragic 1964 romance where well-to-do, bored housewife falls in love with a young heiress. Social taboos are also tackled in the 1966 satire, The Pornographers. Subu is a pornographic filmmaker that sees his work as an antidote to a repressed society. Meanwhile, his widowed partner guiltily harbours feelings for her deceased husband while Subu secretly desires her daughter. The classics program will play
Jewish International Film Festival
The Jewish International Film Festival hits town this October and November, showcasing more than 60 films from 23 countries. This year’s festival will include 31 feature films and 28 documentaries, including Love, Gilda, a film dedicated to comedy legend and original Saturday Night Live cast member Gilda Radner. JIFF's opening night film will be comedy-tragedy The Interpreter, which tells the tale of a Holocaust survivor who wishes to seek revenge on the former SS officer who killed his parents but instead ends up on a road trip with the officer’s son. Other highlights of the program include Russian historical movie Sobibor and Seder Masochism, an animated musical comedy film featuring animation by American artist Nina Paley. The Jewish International Film Festival will screen at Event Cinemas in Bondi Juction and Roseville Cinemas. Check out the full program here.
Crazy Rich Asians
“We’re comfortable” says Nick Young (Henry Golding, mega-confident in his feature debut), a handsome Oxford-educated NYU professor, when he’s asked about his background by Rachel (Fresh Off the Boat’s Constance Wu), who knows nothing about how loaded he is after a year of their dating. Like Rachel, we’re a touch taken aback about nonchalant he is, especially when “comfortable” turns out to be a fortune, but Nick isn’t snobby about it—it’s just family money. Meet the family. Crazy Rich Asians, the 2013 literary sensation by Kevin Kwan, is finally a Hollywood movie, the first with an all-Asian cast and director since Wayne Wang’s The Joy Luck Club 25 years ago. Seeing this kind of onscreen representation is incredibly satisfying, especially via Kwan’s rich page-turner (loosely based on the author's real life), loaded with cattiness but also plenty of Asian diversity, from wholesome friends and wise confidantes to jealous mean girls and scheming parents. Fittingly, the movie follows suit: It’s a reinvented romantic comedy, sassy and fun, that doesn’t necessarily rely on obvious tropes and is worth the wait. In a deeper way, Crazy Rich Asians is truly groundbreaking (especially now, in our xenophobic moment), paying attention to cultural nuances that rarely make the multiplex. To hear your mother’s regional Chinese dialect spoken in a major Hollywood film is an occasion for no small amount of pride. Nick plans a trip back home to luxurious Singapore for his best friend’s weddin
Mission: Impossible - Fallout
Tom Cruise is 56 years old. Fifty. Six. And he’s been making Mission: Impossible movies for 22 of those 56 years. By all rights, Fallout, his sixth high-flying mission, should be to M:I what A View to a Kill was to Roger Moore’s Bond (Moore being only a year older than Cruise is when he made his final 007): tired, creaky and a bit embarrassing. Astonishingly, however, the opposite is true. This is easily the best, slickest and most daring Mission: Impossible installment. Not only that, it’s the finest action movie of the year so far. The bait-and-switching, double-crossing plot twists and twists again, with Hunt still haunted by his now-incarcerated Rogue Nation nemesis Solomon Lane (a superbly creepy Sean Harris) and dealing with the global terrorist power vacuum left by Lane’s capture, but you won’t care with all the sinew-straining spectacle on show. This is thanks largely to writer-director Christopher McQuarrie. Being the first director to return for a second go at the franchise, he brings a sense of continuity hitherto lacking. Fallout is a direct sequel to Rogue Nation, bringing back most of the key players and upping the stakes from the most knowing of perspectives. McQuarrie also builds on the last film’s self-aware level of wit and, most importantly, its set-piece-crafting sophistication. No action sequence is allowed to peter out, or be chopped to ribbons in the edit, or lean on the crutch of CG augmentation. From a frantic Parisian chase to a brutal brawl in a
Scenes from a Marriage
Long before the term "prestige television" was coined, influential Swedish filmmaker Inmar Bergman made a provocative miniseries which captured the imaginations of audiences across the world and is said to have even led to rising divorce rates in Sweden. (Although to be fair, it was 1973 and women's liberation was in a pretty significant growth phase.) Now Bergman's Scenes from a Marriage is coming to the Sydney Opera House in this production by the Royal Danish Theatre. It will be performed in Danish, with English surtitles, and stars, direct from Denmark, Stine Stengade and Morten Kirkskov, who both appeared in the TV series Borgen. Bergman's TV series was adapted into a film in the year following its release and has been on stage several times since then. It tells the story of Marianne and Johan, a couple in a seemingly perfect marriage which disintegrates across ten years. But even if you know the TV series back-to-front, there's a significant twist to this version: the roles have been flipped so that it's now Marianne who leaves Johan and the kids for a younger partner.
Maggie Stone review
Maggie Stone probably reads the Daily Telegraph. She’s a regular, working Aussie, which means she has a job processing small loans, eats Maccas at her desk, loves a drink, and is a racist. Played by Eliza Logan in the Darlinghurst Theatre Co staging of Caleb Lewis’s 2013 play, she’s flinty, pessimistic and witty. But she’s still racist. When she denies a man (Thuso Lekwape) the funds that could free him from a loan shark – and that she had clearance to approve – because he is black, and she is a racist, the worst happens. He is killed. When his wife Amath (Branden Christine) arrives in Maggie’s office by chance, her family newly diminished but still in financial crisis, Maggie is shaken enough by the consequences of her actions to have a change of heart. Soon, she is entrenched in the life of Amath and her family, a bumbling white saviour learning growth and change as she tries to help out. This in itself, that Maggie believes she must save the family, is still racist – she denies Amath and her teenage son (Lekwape again) the agency to make their own change and own choices. She’s there paying off the woman who complains about Benny’s violent behavior; she’s there trying to tell Amath how to handle her new life. She’s a well-intentioned bulldozer. Logan cuts a sympathetic figure as Stone, sparking pleasingly against the rest of the cast – her showdowns with the piously racist, self-styled hero Georgina (Anna Lee), Amath’s ‘friend’ from church is a highlight. But it’s all a
Evita review
There are few musical theatre songs that have attained the anthem status bestowed upon ‘Don’t Cry for Me Argentina’. Most composers dream of creating just one tune so universally hummable – the kind that keeps the money rolling in in the form of royalty cheques long after the composer has passed on. Andrew Lloyd Webber, who penned that earworm for his 1978 musical-cum-rock opera, Evita, is responsible for a handful of them. So it’s quite a moment when, at the start of Evita’s second act, Australia’s own Tina Arena steps forward on the balcony of the Casa Rosada as Argentina’s controversial first lady, Eva Perón, to deliver the song. The clarity and warmth of her voice is astonishing as she, along with the Opera Australia orchestra, weaves a musical tale of triumph and yearning. And, of course, it’s glorious. Wrenching. The kind of singing that makes you hold your breath, anticipating the next phrase. The stuff that musical theatre dreams are made of. Eva is declaring her love to the working-class people of Argentina, who’ve just elected her husband to power. She appears to be pouring her heart out and seducing the nation. And then, something unexpected happens. She turns away from the crowd, her whole demeanour changes – the spell of seduction is broken – and she sings nefariously to her husband: “Just listen to that, the voice of Argentina. We are adored, we are loved.” That cynicism and winking eye is a large part of the appeal of Evita, which tracks the meteoric rise o
Andy and Terry Live on Stage
They’ve won the hearts of Aussie kids and children around the world with their bizarre literary adventures, and in October the two-man author and illustrator team will share stories and create cartoon characters in real time at the Sydney Opera House. Andy Griffiths has been inspiring kids with hilarious tales like the Day My Bum Went Psycho and the gruesome adventures in the Just! book series for more than 20 years. Terry Denton has been his long standing companion and illustrator, while also writing and creating visual for his own kids' stories in his 30 years in the industry. At this live event, the pair will explore the latest installment of their internationally renowned Treehouse series, which is now into its eighth edition and being sold in more than 30 countries. Maybe you’ll visit the level with the submarine sandwich shop selling life-size subs, or the one with the human pinball machine or the stilly hat level. Griffiths will be spinning hilarious yarns while Denton illustrations the stories for a massive projection. The audience will be part of the creative process, as the storytellers brianstorm ideas with help from the crowd. As a wacky aside, the Sydney Opera House will also be attempting to break the World Guinness Record for the largest group of people dressed as trees. So come in tree-like attire – brown pants, green tops and a leafy hat. A ghillie suit is probably overdoing it. Arrive with extra time up your sleeve, because Griffiths and Denton will be
Accidental Death of an Anarchist review
Corruption, mass scandal and police-sponsored terrorism are not new problems. In 1970, Italian absurdist Dario Fo wrote Accidental Death of Anarchist to expose these very machinations to the audience of his native Italy. Amid a neo-fascist political landscape, an anarchist died in police custody for a bombing – of which he was assuredly innocent, and Fo’s play takes those events and blows them up (pun intended) for the stage. He exaggerates the crime with absurdist tropes, but the details of the events in his play bear strong links to the case that inspired it. He wrote to challenge the party line and encourage audiences to examine the information they are fed by those in authority – and by a biased media. In this production, reinvigorated for full farce in an adaptation by Francis Greenslade and Sarah Giles for Sydney Theatre Company, director Giles helms an all-female cast in committed male drag (journalist Maria Feletti, played here by the sharp Annie Maynard, remains a woman). This grotesquerie of performative masculinity, and its relationship with superstructures of power in fraught contemporary democracies, works a treat; the real strength of this production is in these performances. Amber McMahon is the ‘maniac’ at the heart of the play who infiltrates a Milan police station where an anarchist has died after ‘falling’ out of a window. He assumes the role of a judge sent to investigate the death, and shenanigans – along with a strong dose of anti-fascist revenge
Going solo?
The best things to do when you're alone in Sydney
It can be difficult to master the art of hanging out by yourself. But a bit of introspection and calling all the shots can be extremely rewarding. Make time for yourself and try out Sydney's best adventures for one.
