Anyone who tells you they don’t like Chinese food, probably hasn’t eaten a lot of Chinese dishes. The cuisine dwarfs all others in this depth, diversity and ingenuity, and it’s been terrific to watch Sydney emerge from its honey prawn era, and into a city where Sichuan restaurants increasingly share the same block as sprawling Cantonese dining rooms, Chongqing noodle shops and Xinjiang skewer joints.

The following list is barely a snapshot of the breadth and depth of Chinese restaurants in Sydney, and there are many more just collected in the Good Food Guide app that I haven’t been able to squeeze in here. But hopefully it can provide some inspiration for booking a Lunar New Year banquet over the coming two weeks to ring in the Year of the Snake.

Beverly Hills Chinese Restaurant

You can find several of Sydney’s best Cantonese restaurants on King Georges Road, Beverly Hills, including Yummy Seafood, Xi Xiang Feng and Golden Oceans. Just off the main drag is the appropriately named Beverly Hills Chinese Restaurant, where owner Anthony Kwok’s hospitality is some of warmest you will ever encounter, and there are live lobsters the size of two Tonka trucks. Anything with salted egg yolk is the right idea, such as a ferocious amount of fried rice topped with meaty, orange nubs of the stuff. Live mud crab fried with salted egg yolk for a savoury blast will swiftly send the bill into triple-digit territory (worth it, though, plus you can BYO).

Good to know: The Chinese New Year banquet will feed four for less than $130.

32 Tooronga Terrace, Beverly Hills, instagram.com/bhchineserestaurant

Blue Ocean

Despite the name, Blue Ocean has no water views, but the clatter of chopsticks and the happy hum of diners is proof that nobody at this popular location cares in the least. Patrons are here for excellent Cantonese fare delivered with rapid-fire service in generous portions. Every second table has a plate of the cold-cut free-range chicken – its plump succulence and glistening layer of gelatin is a wonder of textbook mastery. Live seafood prices are some of the best value in town: expect to see mud crab or lobster atop glossy noodles, while live eel is also popular, stir-fried with black bean.

Good to know: Free red bean soup for dessert! Also, booking is highly recommended – call 02 9792 2707.

17/19 Revesby Place, Revesby

The Chairman

The Chairman has been kicking about since 2008, first in a modest Kensington spot (then called Chairman Mao) and, since 2022, in fancier digs opposite Hyde Park. What owners Andrew Bao and Dingjun Li gained in plush surroundings, they sadly lost in foot traffic, so these days the restaurant relies on its reputation for excellent Hunanese food. For the uninitiated, that means hot, tangy and spicy dishes, with ferments, smoky meats and pork – lots of pork.

Good to know: When we say “hot”, we mean, like, serious heat. Hunan knows how to get a fire started.

1/18 College Street, Darlinghurst, thechairmanrestaurant.com.au

Eaton Chinese Restaurant

It’s easy to see why this inconspicuous neighbourhood restaurant, partitioned from bustling Liverpool Road by a facade of hazy fish tanks, has such a cult following with locals and chefs. Freshly shucked and fried oysters are crisp, vibrant and bursting with briny deliciousness, while Shandong chicken and a host of other standards are done well. But really, it’s all about the live seafood, so bring some friends and splurge on the ginger and shallot lobster.

Good to know: Open every night until 1am. (CBD restaurants, take note.)

313 Liverpool Road, Ashfield

Hong Kong Bing Sutt

In Hong Kong, the average cha chaan teng – a casual eatery serving Western-influenced Cantonese dishes – has more menu items than square footage. True to form, the carte at Hong Kong Bing Sutt boasts 100-plus classics, even if the dimensions are more generous. Silky cheung fun doused in peanut and hoisin sauce, served piping hot, are a fine opener, followed by juicy baked pork chop over fried rice, covered with tangy tomato sauce and cheese. Flat rice noodles with beef have smoke and char from the wok, while dessert has to be tofu faa – the refreshing, just-set pudding steamed in a traditional wooden barrel.

Good to know: Chinese New Year pre-orders for poon choi – Hong Kong’s favourite festive cornucopia of abalone, scallops, prawns and friends – have just been extended to February.

8/11-15 Deane Street, Burwood, hongkongbingsutt.com.au

Royal Palace Seafood Restaurant

Every day of the week at Royal Palace, families and friends across generations come to drink tea over yum cha, and choose live seafood from the tanks. Dumplings from the trolley are sweet and plump, the cheung fun slippery, the prawn-stuffed wu gok shatteringly crisp. Meanwhile, the room is swish and waiters are on it (Peking duck service is just the beginning). The makings of a new Chinatown institution? It might already be there.

Good to know: Chinese New Year gifts such as water chestnut cake are available to order and pick up (phone 02 9211 8518).

393-399 Sussex Street, Haymarket, royalpalace.au

Spicy Joint

If you haven’t taken the escalator to Spicy Joint’s noisy but dignified dining room in Haymarket, you may have eaten at one of the chain’s offshoots in Burwood, Chatswood or Rhodes. A similar menu of Sichuan favourites is available at all restaurants, headlined by the signature poached, chilled and sliced chicken in a viscuous combination of chilli oil and sesame paste. Dan dan noodles topped with a rubble of pork in dusky red broth are excellent value, as is boneless white fish in a Sichuan pepper-spiked broth of potent flavour and eye-popping size (come with a group).

Good to know: It’s a big dining room, but it quickly fills up – book online or expect to take a number and wait in the foyer.

Level 4, 25-29 Dixon Street, Haymarket, spicyjoint.com.au

Sun Ming

Sun Ming lays claim to being one of Sydney’s original cha chaan tengs, and mixes old-world charm with modern Cantonese panache. Owner-chef David Chan excels at cooking seafood, such as steamed and butterflied garlic king prawns that delicately pull apart from their shells, while pucks of lightly fried silken tofu served on a sizzling plate are delicious over rice. The signature dish belongs to Chan’s grandmother – sticky rice with lap cheong sausage that’s smoky, savoury and sweet. Also in Parramatta.

Good to know: The six-person Lunar New Year banquet is cracking value at $360.80, featuring live crab, steamed scallops, drunken chicken and a lot more.

173A Forest Road, Hurstville, sunminghurstville.godaddysites.com

Taste of Shunde

Where other restaurants have essential orders, Taste of Shunde has non-negotiables. First, roast goose, the skin burnished, the sauce sweet, richly guttural and scented with five-spice. Second? Steamed seafood. Pick Murray cod or a coral trout from the tanks and minutes later it’ll be ferried out on a plus-sized bamboo platter, silk-like fillets spread with green peppercorns on one side, chilli on the other, the remaining flesh coated in black bean and olive sauce and reassembled in the centre. On top are rows of pipis and prawns, primed to drag through chilli-flecked soy, while underneath ribbons of sheet noodles soak up the juices. Also in Eastwood.

Good to know: if you have enough people for a third dish, consider the wagyu with sticky Shaoxing punch.

9-11 Crofts Avenue, Hurstville, tasteofshunde.com

XOPP

They sell cognac by the bottle at XOPP. Whisky, too. That should tell you plenty about the big-occasion atmosphere at this spin-off of Chinatown’s much-loved Golden Century. Pipis in XO are loaded with umami upon a bed of fried vermicelli that softens as it soaks up a truckload of rich sauce, the live seafood tanks are always teeming and the formidable cellar is stocked with mic-drop bottles (anyone for a 1976 Chateau Lafite?). You’ll rarely see a table of two in the mezzanine dining room; this is Cantonese geared for celebration.

Good to know: Golden Century has just reopened at a new location inside Crown, and offers three Lunar New Year banquet menus starting at $1488 for 10 people.

31/1 Little Pier Street, Haymarket, xopp.com.au