Restaurants are shrinking. In part, reducing the number of tables is a logical way to cope with a shortage of staff (and diners), but increasingly, it’s being done by choice rather than by necessity.

When four of the five finalists for The Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Guide 2024 Oceania Cruises Chef of the Year Award are running restaurants seating 40 people or fewer, it marks a shift in Sydney dining to smaller being better than bigger.

At Restaurant Ka in Darlinghurst, owner-chef Zachary Ng feeds just 10 people at the long red marble counter facing the kitchen. After a decade of working for Martin Benn at the renowned Sepia restaurant, he wanted to do something more personal that reflected both his Cantonese heritage and his fine dining experience. At Ka, he greets guests, takes drinks orders, and even shakes the cocktails himself. “I taught myself by watching YouTube,” he says.

Scott McComas-Williams, executive chef of the Love Tilly Group hospitality outfit, oversees five of the smallest restaurants in Sydney – Love, Tilly Devine, Dear Sainte Eloise, Fabbrica CBD, Fabbrica Balmain and La Salut. Typically, they are small, street-wise dining rooms or pasta shops, some tucked into the side of pubs; none holding more than 40 people.

This year, the group went for broke with the opening of the 120-seat Palazzo Salato in Clarence Street. What was previously the Redoak Boutique Beer Cafe is now a clamorous dining room where the private room holds the same number of diners as the group’s first restaurant in a back lane in Darlinghurst.

In Newtown, Chef of the Year finalist Jemma Whiteman cooks over coal and wood, sending out sake-friendly dishes in a warm, jazz-fuelled bar reminiscent of the Japanese rekodo, or listening bar. While Ante seats only 30, she often cooks for 90 over the course of an evening.

When Josh Niland opened his fish-focused restaurant Saint Peter in Paddington in 2016, he filled it with conventional tables and chairs for 34 diners. By 2020, he and his wife Julie took them all out and installed a single long Carrara marble bar for just a handful of diners. Their only view is of chefs expertly preparing their dishes, just a metre away. The intimacy and transparency, he says, was deliberate.

“I wanted to physically demonstrate that there is so much more to a fish than a fillet,” he says. “By cutting back the number of diners, we were able to refine and evolve what we did. It also offered opportunities to open other small businesses.”

The next incarnation of Saint Peter, when it moves to the Grand National in Paddington in the first quarter of 2024, will seat 45 diners, with extra seats on offer in a more casual bar.

Finalists for Oceania Cruises Chef of the Year 2024

One chef feeds just 10 people, another has snacks that start at $7, and a third’s high-wire circus act of fine dining costs $400 a head. Welcome to the age of diversity, Sydney dining style. And the nominees are:

Zach Ng, Restaurant Ka

Ka is a treasure hiding in plain sight behind a simple door in Darlinghurst. Zach Ng merges his Hong Kong upbringing with his Sepia training across eight courses, which peak at a show-stopping lacquered duck breast with plump, juicy pickled cherries.

Josh Niland, Saint Peter, Petermen

Josh Niland is on a relentless mission to open our eyes to the beauty of fish, from eyeball to tail. Each diner bears witness to original, wave-making thinking from a highly focused chef as he turns coral trout or Murray cod into gastronomic icons worthy of a religious cult.

Clare Smyth and Alan Stuart, Oncore by Clare Smyth

The dining experience at Oncore is a tour de force of theatricality, precision, consistency and attention to detail. Irish-born Clare Smyth, of Core in Notting Hill, was the first female chef in Britain to win 3 Michelin stars. With the extremely talented head chef Alan Stuart in the view-blessed Crown Sydney site, they are hitting the heights of Michelin starriness right here in Sydney.

Scott McComas-Williams, Palazzo Salato, Ragazzi, Fabbrica, La Salut

The executive chef of the Love Tilly Group heads up a bevy of tiny eateries (and one big one in Palazzo Salato), while still maintaining an emphasis on artisanal foods, hand-sliced salumi and worth-a-detour house-made pasta.

Jemma Whiteman, Ante

After exiting the pioneering collective Pinbone, Whiteman is cooking her own personal take on ‘drinking food’ at jazz bar Ante, evolving grills and pasta dishes to match the exciting world of Japanese sake with memorable results.

The Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Guide 2024 awards will be announced on October 23, presented by Vittoria Coffee and Oceania Cruises. The Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Guide 2024 will be on sale from October 24, featuring more than 450 NSW and ACT venues, from three-hatted fine diners, to suburban wine bars, regional chicken shops and food-court icons. Venues listed in the Guide are visited anonymously by professional restaurant critics, who review independently. Venues are chosen at our discretion.