The April Hit List: Momofuku Seiobo, Westwood Pizza, Uma Curry & Roti, and More

Closing Momofuku Seiobo might not make sense. Its brilliant post-lockdown reinvention has led to its most financially successful period, ever. It’s won Australia’s top honours and been named one of the world’s best restaurants by Food & Wine. But after a decade, the lease is up and the award-winning team wants to sign out on a high. The restaurant is booked out until the June 26 finale, but it’s worth joining the wait list to try Paul Carmichael’s deeply personal and inspired Caribbean menu.

Dining status: pick a date and join the wait list (take heart: some people have successfully scored reservations after diners made last-minute cancellations).

While working as a teenage dishwasher, Mitchell Westwood dabbled in making conveyor-belt pizza. Then he graduated to Cronulla’s Queen Margherita of Savoy, which has been name-checked by Italy’s Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana for producing traditional pizza to a high standard. After stints at Bella Brutta and CicciaBella, Westwood now makes brilliant slices and toppings under his own name. His eatery is tiny, his ingredients minimal, but each pizza is a blockbuster-scale revelation, from his garlic-honey pizza showered with two kinds of cheese to the potato and smoked eel flavour topped with oven-crisp rosemary.

Dining status: open for takeaway and walk-ins.

Opening a restaurant in the CBD as the March 2020 COVID lockdown came into effect – that’s Above Par’s origin story. The Middle Eastern eatery has adapted from those early takeaway-only days and has revamped itself for 2021, just as restrictions ease further and the CBD starts to resemble its busy, pre-pandemic self. There’s a brightly refreshed interior, free DJ sets as the working week starts to loosen up and new Turkish dishes, such as künefe, lahmacun (ground-beef pizza) and baklava sandwiches with traditional Maraş ice-cream. Don’t skip the lavas bread: the puffy dough holds a hot, steam-filled centre, and each baked-to-order serve is drizzled with sea salt and Turkish olive oil.

Dining status: open for walk-ins and bookings.

You might already be familiar with Parliament On King, the award-winning social enterprise cafe that’s been doing good things for many years – from creating hospitality jobs for refugees at above-award wages and running a pop-up soup kitchen in response to COVID. It now has a second refugee-run eatery: Uma Curry & Roti, located at The Exchange, aka the famous Kengo Kuma building down at Darling Square. Expect well-spiced and carb-friendly dishes by its Burmese, Pakistani, Bangladeshi and Sri Lankan chefs, who cook food reflecting their culinary heritage. The menu is short but accessible – you’re covered if you need a good halal, gluten-free or vegan feed.

Dining status: open for takeaway and walk-ins.

After spending many smoky hours in Sapporo’s yakitori bars, Tin Jung Shea wanted to replicate this democratic style of celebrating (or commiserating) over Japanese skewers and drinks in Sydney. Following stints at the markets and The Cliff Dive bar, he opened Yakitori Yurippi with Mitomo Somehara in 2015. Dine in for the straight-off-the-grill appeal of charred chicken, beef, eel and mushroom skewers or attempt your own approximation of a yakitori joint at home, with takeaway kits available for your barbecue. Yakitori Yurippi isn’t just about glazed and charred bites on a stick: there’s donburi, onigiri, karaage, sukiyaki and burdock root chips, too.

Dining status: open for takeaway, deliveries, walk-ins and bookings.

By day, John Montagu serves coffee, juices, sandwiches and salads. At night, it transforms into Juan Montago, an eatery led by its Colombian-born staff. The menu, by chefs Juan Camillo Hurtado and Santiago Sabogal, is presented in English and Spanish and includes staples such as sobrebarriga (beef-braised beef flank), encocado de camarones (coconut prawn stew) and Colombian empanadas. Some other dishes go beyond the country’s borders, but you can wash it all down with a Pony Malta or Colombiana, as they might do in Bogota.

Dining status: open for walk-ins, takeaway, deliveries and bookings.

Calita overlooks Bondi Beach, which is apt given its status as a marisqueria (seafood restaurant) inspired by Baja California’s coastal cuisine. There’s a big focus on fresh-caught seafood and flavours drawn from the ocean at Calita: so your tostadas might be flavoured with blue swimmer crab or your tacos filled with spiced school prawns. The region is also represented by prawn aguachile and the classic hangover cure, the “Vuelve a la vida” (which translates as “come back to life” and is served with clamato juice and crackers).

Dining status: open for takeaway, walk-ins and bookings.

If you need proof that work-from-home life is on its way out, head to South Eveleigh during lunchtime: you’ll be deluged by hungry office workers rushing towards one of the many on-site eateries. They have good reason to battle their way to RaRa Chan, the latest addition to the RaRa Ramen family. This tiny eatery has a short-and-sweet menu and noodles – understandably – make a cameo. There are two kinds of pork tsukemen (the ramen style where you dip the noodles into a separate broth), as well as the more typical slurp-it-from-one-bowl kind. Skipping the meat? There’s a rice bowl that’s headlined by slow-cooked jackfruit and backed up by kimchi, grilled corn and vegan mayo.

Dining status: open for takeaway, walk-ins and bookings.

After a mainly housebound 2020, we don’t need much encouragement to get out again – but Rediscover Sydney gives us extra reason to head out the door. As part of the city-reviving initiative, Esteban is launching “Esteband”, a live music series that takes place in its CBD laneway. On the bill for April: a Latin soundtrack brought to you by the Brazilian-inspired Samba Roots, Cuban-influenced Wemilere Batá Trio and the tango-focused Luciano Steffanoli Duo. Don’t overlook Esteban’s menu, which adds a local accent to Mexican dishes: think pumpkin tostadas with charred avocado and a dusting of Davidson plum.

Dining status: open for walk-ins and bookings.

Chiswick at the Gallery might be gone, but Matt Moran still rules this (very scenic) corner of the Art Gallery of NSW. The Aria chef-owner’s newest establishment has moved into the location and is called Crafted by Matt Moran. It continues his tradition of highlighting local producers: the cheese in the croque-monsieur is from Tasmania’s Heidi Farm, the sirloin with anchovy butter originates from Jack’s Creek in Tamworth, while the burrata with autumn figs and sourdough is made just a few postcodes away from the gallery – in Auburn.

Dining status: open for walk-ins and bookings.