10 best dining spots in Western Sydney: delicious. magazine
From laksa and Vietnamese pho to dumplings and fried chicken, Asian-style restaurants have dominated delicious. magazine’s top dining destinations in Western Sydney. See the list.
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From slurpable phos to specialities worth queuing for and funky new outposts, these are the very best restaurants in Western Sydney, according to the team at delicious. magazine.
Temasek, Parramatta
The head chef and owner at Castlecrag restaurant S’More, Sam Young, says Temasek is one of his favourite restaurants in Western Sydney.
He turns up to this legendary restaurant – known well in chef circles – for curry fish head, Hainanese chicken rice, and what he promises are “life changing almond butter king prawns”.
The prawns take up to 30 minutes to prepare so order them when you arrive.
Temasek also does a showstopping Singaporean-style laksa.
Temasek has been serving locals for nearly 30 years, a family-run restaurant turned cult classic, known for its Singaporean-Malay dishes.
— Shop 2-4, 71 George St, Parramatta
LilyMu, Parramatta
LilyMu arrived in this city with the same $3.2 billion Parramatta Square development that brought Cicciabella to town.
From the team behind Surry Hills venues Nour and Henrietta, LilyMu is a kind of pan-Asian bistro, with former Mr Wong chef Brendan Fong at the pans backed by sous chef Bass Songphum (also Mr Wong), whose heritage is Thai.
Fong is half Chinese, by his own estimations, and so the menu breaks down lines between the two countries. There are tom yum prawn dumplings, and the likes of Laos-style sausage with roasted duck, combined together to create a single glistening protein.
This is sophisticated dining in an elegant setting, from one of the best hospo teams in the state.
Colleagues Michelle Abibadra, Selena Jumaah and Raghida Younes, who work in Parramatta, were at LilyMu to wind down on Friday with a relaxing lunch after a busy week.
All three of them have dined at LilyMu before, with various people including family, partners and colleagues.
Ms Younes said she kept on coming back to LilyMu because it was “fine dining but in a relaxed way.”
“It gives you that fine dining experience without needing to go out into the city, because the quality here is equally good,” she said.
Ms Jumaah agreed and added that “you eat with your eyes, it all looks beautiful.”
Ms Abibadra noted the staff were worthy of a special mention, saying: “I’ve never met more friendly staff.”
— T3.02–3.03 153 Macquarie Street, Parramatta
Tân Viet, Cabramatta
A day in Cabramatta must involve grocery shopping around bustling John Street and a well-timed pit stop at the legendary Tan Viet, the 20-year-old Vietnamese institution known for doing some of the best fried chicken in all of Sydney.
There’s no batter, just the crack of well-fried skin and succulent chicken maryland underneath. The dish is served with a side of dry egg noodles and garlic, chives and coriander, the chicken designed for taking apart and eating with the noodles.
It’s a given that there’ll be a hungry line outside Tân Việt, so get there a little early or join the queue. The original is in Cabramatta but there are now worthy offshoots in Haymarket and Eastwood as well.
— 100 John Street, Cabramatta
Phu Quoc, Cabramatta
The best of Vietnam, food wise, is fresh and light, crunchy; it’s simple, produce-led dishes packed with texture and slurp and aroma.
Phu Quoc covers all these bases, and is known for doing the best chao tom wrap in town. You’ll find this place crop up on the Instagram feeds of chefs such as Dan Hong (Merivale), an expert on the secret gems of Sydney dining.
Prawn mousse is shaped around short sticks of sugarcane and cooked over fire, served with small slabs of steamed angel hair noodles, wavy batons of carrot and piles of herbs and sticks of cucumber, all prime for DIY rice noodle wraps at the table.
The grilled pork patties serve the same purpose. Bring a few friends so you can sample and share more at this excellent little restaurant on John Street.
— 117 John Street (enter from Hill Street), Cabramatta
Pho Tau Bay, Cabramatta
Sydneysiders have become better accustomed to pho in recent years, and most savvy diners know to expect rare beef, beef flank, beef balls and tendon in any authentic bowl of pho dac biet just as they now know “pho” doesn’t rhyme with “bro” but “fur”.
And one of the best bowls of this Vietnamese bowl of noodles and broth studded with cinnamon, cardamon, star anise aromatics is at Pho Tau Bay.
It’s one of a handful of Sydney institutions that is consistently voted as the best pho in Sydney, depending on who you ask, and though cheap and unfussy decor-wise, it hits all the right notes in those bowls of pho.
— 12/117 John Street, Cabramatta
Hai Au Lang Nuong, Canley Vale
This Vietnamese barbecue house in Canley Vale feels like another world – part Hanoi street-food vibes, part eclectic horder meets Disneyland on tour. The place is filled with bright global knick-knacks in the cheeriest of ways.
But chefs and other discerning foods come here for the earthy, aromatic ox tail steam boat, and for the beef wrapped in betal leaves, the grilled chicken wrapped in banana leaves and a vast menu of shellfish.
At night, there’s always a line out the front of Hai Au Lang Nuong, and you know you’re close from the smell of the open fire and all the delicious things being cooked over it.
— 2/48 Canley Vale Road, Canley Vale
Chatkazz, Harris Park
Go to Harris Park for the inconceivably thin dosas at Chatkazz, for the Indian market-food style, for the chaotic and nostalgic vibes of a real India.
This fresh South Indian diner-slash-restaurant hits a chord somewhere between up-market fast food chain and family restaurant, doing comfort food on a menu spanning more than 200 dishes.
This place, which now has outposts in Adelaide, Bella Vista and a sweet shop also in Harris Park, is a local legend and crowd pleaser. The food is authentic, well considered – think, deep-fried black lentil doughnuts infused with fragrant herbs and spices – and the fact that it’s all vegetarian without making a big deal about it just adds to its appeal.
— Unit 4, 14-20 Station Street East, Harris Park
CicciaBella, Parramatta
Cicciabella opened in Bondi in 2019 to much acclaim, initially led by chef Mitch Orr (Acme) and then Nic Wong (Cho Cho San), but the Italian beauty on the beach closed during the pandemic.
In its second location, at the $3.2 billion Parramatta Square development, Cicciabella is finding great success. Like at the Bondi original, the woodfire oven here is the centrepiece and the ethos is pared-back “cucina povera” or simple cooking.
The menu spans wood-fired Florentine steak, crudo, pasta and pizza. Dishes focus on ingredients done simply, over fire. Think: roast cauliflower, chickpeas, cavolo nero, tomato pesto, or potato, gorgonzola, confit garlic pizza either by the slice or the slab. Pasta is top notch, too – try the fregola, tomato, clams, calamari, prawns.
— 12 Darcy St, Parramatta
Pho Pasteur, Parramatta
A true pho is about balance – not too sweet, not overly spiced, the right tangle of slurpable noodles and fresh herbs, sticks of bean sprouts, an assortment of bouncy or tender protein. Short of travelling to Vietnam, Pho Pasteur is one of the most authentic pho in Sydney.
Owned by the Pham family, who arrived in Parramatta as refugees in the early 1990s, Pho Pasteur is an ode to their Southern Vietnamese heritage.
Each bowl of broth is loaded up with herbs, spices and tender beef, and here the requisite balance is spot on.
— 137 Church St, Parramatta
Traditional Cantonese Taste, Eastwood
It’s technically outside the Western Sydney boundary, by a hair, but Eastwood is a burgeoning hub of cheap, cheery and downright delicious restaurants. It’s a destination savoured by hungry chefs looking for eats off the beaten track, for vibes over hats and stars.
Inside an unpolished shopping mall, the tiny shop Traditional Cantonese Taste does made-to-order flat rice noodles (cheong fun), which are topped with all sorts of things and folded over themselves.
Here the rice noodles are silken, just firm enough to hold the steam fish fillets or shopped braised beef brisket, or shredded vegetable and mushroom. They also specialise in Chinese doughnuts (youtiao), which are long, savoury, golden sticks much like puffed up churros, designed for eating with congee topped with pork, pork liver and preserved egg.
— Shop 9A, 1 Lakeside Rd, Eastwood
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