• Good Food Guide 2022 hub

Exciting new openings since the Good Food Guide 2020.

Bistrot 916

With its moody lighting and blush-pink tablecloths 916 looks every bit the bistro you'd find during a wander through the 11th arrondissement. But what chefs Michael Clift and Daniel Pepperell put on the plate is a little more subversive. Think duck frites and baby squid grilled in their own ink.

22 Challis Ave, Potts Point, 02 9167 6667, bistrot916.com

Cafe Paci

Nobody cooks quite like Pasi Petanen. The Finnish-born chef brings a wild sense of creative freedom to his Newtown diner, supported by strong technique, deep flavours and a Scandinavian sense of clarity. Who else would create a Toblerone mountain range of LP's mortadella on a bed of crisp crostoli, the peaks dusted with comte cheese?

131 King St, Newtown, 02 9550 6196, cafepaci.com.au

Margaret

Chef Neil Perry's latest and final restaurant is a culmination of the chef's decades of experience, all rolled into one $5 million restaurant. Come for the burger, stay for the lobster dressed with sambal butter.

30-36 Bay St (cnr Guilfoyle Ave), Double Bay, 02 9068 8888, margaretdoublebay.com

Mimi's

Welcome to seaside dining where excess is barely enough, where diners eat caviar off the backs of their hands, pondering the $120 scallop and caviar pie. And where side orders of vegetables are so beautifully sourced and treated you might be tempted to order a whole menu of them. Feel free – as with most things here, anything goes.

130A Beach St, Coogee, 02 9114 7324, merivale.com

Ursula's

The restaurant everyone is talking about, on the old Darcy's site in Paddington. It's a homecoming for chef Phil Wood and his family after spending the last few years cooking at Point Leo on Victoria's Mornington Peninsula. Expect refined Aussie bistro classics executed with Wood's signature gentle touch.

92 Hargrave St, Paddington, ursulas.com.au

The It Lists are brought to you by Citi

This article features in the Good Food Guide 2022 magazine, published on November 30 with presenting partners Citi and Vittoria Coffee, and free with The Sydney Morning Herald. Also on sale from December 7 in newsagents and supermarkets.