Best places to eat near Martin Place

The trains arrived in August, but the rolling stock of food arrivals around the new Martin Place Metro station is on its own busy schedule. Melbourne pastry mecca Lune will open on the station’s doorstep before the end of the year, while cult burger brand Five Guys and two spin-off venues from chefs’ hatted Loulou Bistro at Milsons Point will join the party in early 2025.

Hospitality operators have dipped into their pockets and backed the precinct to become the city’s new food and drinking hub. “We’re pumped about the energy [the Metro] has brought to the place,” says restaurateur Brett Robinson, who on Wednesday, November 20, opened the doors on an opulent new restaurant, The Grill, near one of the Metro entrances.

With its high-gloss timber panelling and a head chef with a bank of experience at Michelin-starred restaurants in the UK, The Grill is part of The International, a new three-level, $10 million play from The Point, the group behind chefs’ hatted Shell House.

At Aalia restaurant opposite The International, restaurateur Ibby Moubadder says he’s also noticed an uptick on the upper slopes of Martin Place since the Metro opened. “More people, more bodies, more energy,” he says.

It has given Moubadder confidence to double-down, with expansion plans of his own. In April, he’ll open Aalia Wine Bar in a neighbouring shopfront which has operated as a florist. While the city is flush with restaurants, Moubadder explains “in the CBD there aren’t many wine bars”.

An award-winning Sydney bar operator, who asked not to be named, will also open a venue next year on the northern edge of Martin Place, near Caterpillar Club, which opened late last year. Another high-profile restaurateur is tipped to be close on a deal to open across the street from the Metro’s entrance at the intersection of Elizabeth, Hunter and Castlereagh streets. And last month, the team behind Hinchcliff House opened four venues – including a rooftop bar – at the nearby refitted Sofitel Sydney Wentworth.

On the lower slopes of Martin Place, close to George Street, the chef-owner at newly toqued Morena restaurant, Alejandro Saravia, has noticed a “slow increment of people” since the Metro opened “but the challenge is encouraging people to stay and enjoy”.

Concerned by the amount of “red tape” in the area, Saravia has joined with other local businesses and residents to form a new group to converse with the City of Sydney.

“We want to see Martin Place as a place for everyone, but a place of quality with an identity that reflects how cosmopolitan Sydney is,” he says.

Saravia would like to see progress on outdoor dining at Martin Place, a proposal for which was first raised back in 2015.

Morena restaurant will be joined early next year by Epula, a new neighbour on the block from veteran Sydney restaurateur Frank Dilernia. Saravia’s dream for the strip is for a respectable number of outdoor tables, so Martin Place can match some of great piazzas of the world.