Where to eat, drink in Surry Hills, Sydney’s special suburb at centre of creative cuisine

Taylor Swift ate pasta in this area where Australian gastronomy thrives. We explore Surry Hills on foot from the artsy Ace Hotel Sydney

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A selection of dishes at Kiln, in Surry Hills. We look at other restaurants, bars, cafes and bakeries in this hip, freewheeling Sydney suburb at the cutting edge of Australian gastronomy. Photo: Kiln

Published: 4:15am, 6 Nov 2024Updated: 10:54am, 6 Nov 2024

It is a perfect spring day in Sydney, and the wooden roof panels of Kiln restaurant have been slid back to let a gentle breeze into the dining room.

Framed by the open wood-fired kitchen, chefs Mitch Orr, Rosheen Kaul and Trisha Greentree are a flurry of activity as they pump out tiny platefuls of bite-sized treats to a full house of diners.

We are poured elegant cups of “before the rain harvest” white peony tea as the first few courses arrive.

First come Sydney rock oysters, here licked by flames and topped with a nutty XO brown butter; then Vietnamese-adjacent grilled beef patties swaddled with waxy betel leaves and served with a punchy pineapple sauce.

In September, Chefs Trish Greentree, Rosheen Kaul and Mitch Orr collaborated on Kiln’s “Taste Buds” series, with their theme centred on the culture of dim sum. Photo: Kiln

We are also served pork wontons, plump and swimming in a glistening puddle of black bean sauce, and spinach and crab dumplings – whose pearlescent skins obscure the vibrant green and orange fillings.

This is dim sum, but not as you know it – it is an entirely new interpretation by the three chefs, each with a diverse background but united by their connection to Australia.