“I’m coming to Sydney for the week, where should I eat?” I get this question a lot and I love it. Planning restaurant itineraries for friends is one of my favourite ways to avoid doing real work. But it’s a different list every time, depending on the person asking. Someone may be chasing food court gems and couldn’t give a hoot about what Peter Gilmore is cooking at Quay; a mate from Nashville only wants to know about what’s hot and new.

So when my editors asked for the essential Sydney restaurants I flick to visitors, I didn’t have a foolproof, all-inclusive list ready to go. Instead, this is the kind of list I would like to have in my own inbox when visiting London, Paris or La Paz. The places that have terrific food and booze, but more importantly, they make the city tick. If I’m in New York, I want to visit three-Michelin Le Bernardin, sure, but I’m just as keen to spend an afternoon in the happy-hour dive only Brooklynites know about. (That happy-hour dive is more in my travel budget, too.)

Keeping visitor timeframes in mind, a lot of the following suggestions are close to the city, but you can also spend a full week eating in Cabramatta, Eastwood, Burwood, Ryde, Liverpool, Hurstville, Merrylands, Parramatta …

Ante

This long, dark bar and restaurant would still be worth a visit if it only offered tap water to drink and exclusively played Wham. Jemma Whiteman’s smart cooking merges Australian and Japanese with a borderless pantry, and you likely won’t encounter fried potato mochi with “everything bagel” sprinkles anywhere else on this earth, or buttery casarecce pasta with kanzuri fermented chilli, prawns and clementine. But owner Matt Young’s sake selection also zigs, zags and thrills, and his record collection dives deeper than Jacques Cousteau.

146 King Street, Newtown, ante.bar

While you’re there: Bloody hell, how long have you got? Cafe Paci for ox-tongue rye tacos, Bella Brutta for pizza, Westwood for more pizza, Continental Deli for cured meat and a martini, Bar Planet for another martini …

East Sydney Hotel

Victoria, on the whole, has better pubs than NSW, and it irks me no end to admit this. But few pubs in Australia can top Wolloomooloo’s East Sydney, the last great pokie-free “country” pub in the city. Sit on a Guinness, tread the weathered floorboards, and admire all the Tooth’s Stout and Flag Ale memorabilia covering racing-green walls.

111-113 Cathedral Street, Woolloomooloo, eastsydneyhotel.com

While you’re there: Book in for the tasting menu across the road at Viand, where chef Annita Potter cooks some of the most thoughtful and dynamic Thai food outside of Thailand. It’s a dinner-only restaurant, so you can probably squeeze in a Manhattan beforehand at mood-lit neighbourhood bar Jangling Jack’s just up the hill.

Sean’s

Floor-to-ceiling windows with postcard views. Bumper serves of roast chook with shiny bronzed spuds. Scallop shell pendants that should be heritage listed. In fact, we’ve got our best scientists working around the clock to preserve Sean’s in Bondi forever, or at least another 31 years of generous cooking, honed technique and BYO wine.

270 Campbell Parade, North Bondi, seansbondi.com

While you’re there: Sean’s for lunch, the beach for a swim, and Icebergs Dining Room and Bar for a post-dip spritz is your perfect Bondi day. However, if you can swing by Savion for a falafel plate, or Mami’s for tacos, well, that’s even better.

Marrickville Tennis Club

To be clear, this isn’t one of those ironic bars run by vaping 30-year-olds in Kurt Vile T-shirts. You know, the ones with vintage pub coasters and cheap natural wine, and names like “Brunswick Surf Club” or “Enmore Hopscotch Society”. Marrickville District Hardcourt Tennis Club is the bonafide thing – an irony-free hub for multiple generations of inner-west locals. There’s cold beer, court hire and weathered tennis posters, and a pretty ace Portuguese bistro, Casa do Benfica. Come for a hit, stay for the muscat wine and espetada beef skewers.

33 Centennial Street, Marrickville, marrickvilletennisclub.org.au

While you’re there: Drink more beer. Marrickville is a big, semi-industrial suburb, but Wildflower Brewing and Blending is within walking distance for complex ales fermented with natural yeast. Grifter Brewing is nearby too, plus the Australiana-drenched Bob Hawke Beer and Leisure Centre.

Bennelong Bar

If you’re visiting Sydney for the first time, you’re probably going to want to see the Opera House. And if you visit the Opera House, you should probably have a sundowner at two-hatted Bennelong. It’s the grandest dining room in Australia (I mean, it’s the Opera House), and while the three-course pick-your-dish menu is $190, the bar is walk-in only and you can just order a drink and Peter Gilmore’s knock-out take on prawn toast. Also, oysters. If you’re visiting Sydney for the first time, you’re probably going to want to eat oysters.

Sydney Opera House, Circular Quay, bennelong.com.au/the-bennelong-bar

While you’re there: Take yourself on a bar crawl to Double Deuce on the fringe of the city and don’t miss The Stinger. And for New York steakhouse vibes with one of Sydney’s best grilled squids, try for a booking at Clam Bar.

Happy Chef

Sydneysiders are still mourning the recent losses of Haymarket’s Eating World and Dixon House Food Court, but at least Sussex Centre is holding strong. Happy Chef is the main drawcard of the shopping centre’s upstairs food court, and the laksa and offal-loaded wonton noodle soups are the main drawcards of Happy Chef. Heady, steadying stuff since 1995.

Shop F3, 401 Sussex Street, Haymarket

While you’re there: The black pepper pork bun at Mother Chu’s Taiwanese Gourmet is a nifty little lunch on the go, and if you’re into intense (very intense) tonkotsu ramen broths, Gumshara is a must. There’s also Golden Century’s XO pipis at XOPP, and incredible Thai food and tiger prawn noodles at Porkfat. Haymarket rules.

King Clarence

And it’s a big, warm welcome back to Sydney for Khanh Nguyen. The chef grew up in Marrickville but made a name for himself cooking in Melbourne at Aru and Sunda, filtering South-East Asian cuisines through his Australian upbringing. Last year he partnered with the team behind Bentley and Monopole to open King Clarence, which looks a bit like a brutalist ramen bar, but with more pink neon and a disco ball. There’s a lot of Chinese and Korean influence here too – a rejigged mapo tofu, say, teeming with red prawns, smoked marrow and chewy tteokbokki rice cakes. Explosive food. Dynamite wine.

171 Clarence Street, Sydney, bentleyrestaurantgroup.com.au/kingclarence

While you’re there: Small bar PS40 is right next door and its banana bread-flavoured “breakfast negroni” and dual-textured Africola are all-timer Sydney cocktails. Other essential bars nearby include agave-centric Cantina OK!, and a pitstop at Palazzo Salato for a trippa alla Romana never hurts either.

Ester

Don’t miss the potato bread. Craggy wood-fired rolls, hot from the oven, baked for swiping through cold kefir cream, dashi jelly and electric pops of trout roe. Whipsawing, punched-up flavour like this is what chef Mat Lindsay is all about, and weekend lunch is an especially lovely time to eat and drink in Ester’s handsome dining room, natural light spilling everywhere.

46-52 Meagher Street, Chippendale, ester-restaurant.com.au

While you’re there: Japanese-inspired cafe Poketto opened in January, and it’s a one-stop shop for coffee, shokupan toast, soba, and roasted soybean panna cotta. For more brunch adventures, A.P. Bakery(co-owned by Lindsay) serves breads and pastries with an awesome edge of caramelisation from a rooftop in Surry Hills, while Kiln at the Ace Hotel is worth a lunch for the grilled lion’s mane mushroom wrapped in wasabi leaf alone.

Margaret

“Oh, you’re going to Paris – have you heard of the Louvre?” That’s what I feel like I’m saying by recommending Neil Perry’s Double Bay restaurant, but this wouldn’t be much of an “essentials” list without it. The menu is big enough to double as a wobble board, featuring the greatest hits of Australian wild-caught seafood, and many dishes based on tried-and-true flavour combinations from Perry’s South-East Asian playbook. (Yes, there is steak and a date tart, too.) Speaking of great Australian fish cookery, at this juncture I should also mention Josh Niland’s Saint Peter in Paddington. “Hey, when you’re in New York, you should check out that Statue of Liberty”.

30-36 Bay Street, Double Bay, margaretdoublebay.com

While you’re there: If you only go to one cafe in Sydney, make it a bills. There’s an outpost for scrambled eggs and ricotta hotcakes in Double Bay, plus Bondi, Surry Hills and the original trailblazer in Darlinghurst.