Where to Get Sydney’s Best Seafood

This Oxford Street pescatarian fine diner boasts one of the best, most meticulously planned fish-based menus you’ll find anywhere.

The heart behind this spot is unbeatable quality matched with inerrant technique. Diners can perch on the leather seats as they watch the kitchen action – a careful flurry of swishing knives – and await deliciousness.

Their degustation menu changes daily so you’re in for a surprise each time you visit, but expect the likes of line-caught wild kingfish, yellowfin tuna with biquinho peppers, and charcoal flounder chop. You must try the $175 tasting menu

Cirrus is yet another name in the pockets of F&B bigwigs Brent Savage and Nick Hildebrandt. This waterfront Barangaroo spot is a pretty, sunshiney bistro featuring both a degustation menu and a la carte plates.

The menu here focuses on ingredient combinations that enhance and bring out the best flavour from their quality maritime catch, and you’ll find the likes of raw hiramasa kingfish with miso, cumquat, and betel leaf, BBQ hapuka with chardonnay vinegar egg sauce, and W.A Marron with salted duck egg.

Plates here are designed for sharing, and with such delectable flavours, your party will be fighting for every last bite. What to order? The $46 Rainbow Trout with Citrus and Trout Roe Butter.

This hatted Palm Beach dining stalwart is effortlessly transcendent of both time and trend, and the exquisite seafood dishes here take a page out of the classic French cuisine cookbook.

Here, Murray cod is cooked with chicory, orange and saffron emulsion, and chives, while a whole lobster is given the French-style treatment of being cooked in a rich wine sauce before being browned in its shell, resulting in a beautifully cooked lobster termidore, which we highly recommend!

Sides are greens-focused, rounding off a balanced diet with your choice of grilled broccolini served with chilli oil and prosciutto crumbs, or garden leaves with radish and walnut dressing. For red-meat lovers, there’s excellent cotoletta alla milanese and wagyu beef on offer here, too.

Pilu surfaces top of the class for beautifully refined, Italian-inspired seafood dishes. A Northern Beaches household name, this gorgeous beach house is perched on the coastline and boasts sparkling ocean views. Only the finest seafood is sourced here, and when the occasion calls for it, ingredients are also flown over from the Italian motherland.

Their seasonal menu mainly draws inspiration from Sardinian roots, but other regions of Italy can be tasted in their dishes too.

Entrees like their Aragosta features hand-rolled fregula and Australian Bay lobster cooked with tomato and a hint of chilli, while mains features mains features a pink snapper with vongole, vernaccia sauce and Pilu bottarga.

If you’re after the entire package, their $165 Sardinian Experience will transport you directly to Italy’s doorstep with the likes of Bluefin tuna tartare and Spanner crab in sundried tomato.

Some people love love, and others love love.fish. The second outpost following their massively successful first run in Rozelle, this contemporary joint is all about the ethically sourced seafood.

Here you’ll find panko-crumbed salmon hash cakes, fish fillets (QLD coral coast barramundi, Tasmanian salmon, and Mooloolaba swordfish amongst others), and some meaty sirloin steak thrown in for good measure. Every dish is carefully thought-out and cooked with simple cooking techniques as a labour of love. The team here is all about stepping back and letting the ingredients speak for themselves, and you’ll soon come to realise that’s a tall order that requires stellar skills. Try out the $27 Mooloolaba Swordfish Loin Fillet.

Located in foodie destination The Star, Flying Fish is one of the city’s most popular joints and showcases Asian-inspired seafood and meat dishes in classy surrounds and a sprawling view of Sydney Harbour.

Ingredients here are sourced from the very best of Australia and New Zealand’s waters, and each dish you get here is meticulously prepared with delicate precision and a heavy-handed emphasis on capitalising full flavour.

Their seafood platter is comprehensive and features the likes of butterflied King George whiting and the deeply flavourful charcoal roast Moreton bay bug. You can also grab mouthwatering a la carte seafood dishes like the BBQ easter rock lobster spaghetti, and Roast glacier 51 toothfish served with peas, pistachio, asparagus and jamon cream. The $230 Seafood platter is a great way to get a holistic experience of this amazing menu.

With a gorgeous harbour view and elegant, upscale interior, all there’s left for a perfect experience is great food and the chefs at Harbourfront Seafood have got that in the bag.

Specialising in fresh local seafood, the dining experience at Harbourfront is casual sophistication, without any of the presumptuous pomp and fanfare. The service here is excellent and combined with the plush fit-out will have you feeling like a million bucks.

The menu here changes seasonally and encapsulates the best of both land and sea (with an emphasis on the sea-side), and you can expect dishes like their popular ora king salmon (we recommend this!), pink snapper fillets, scampi with tomato and sobrassada risotto, and both hot and cold seafood platters.