The June Hit List: Ikaria, Lucky Kwong, Khaybar, and More

In 2019, Kylie Kwong closed Billy Kwong – her flagship restaurant of 19 years. Then she announced its successor: a Cantonese-Australian canteen planned for South Eveleigh. It would draw on Indigenous ingredients grown nearby, as well as sustainable fish supplied from Josh Niland and herbs and vegetables harvested from Palisa Anderson’s Boon Luck Farm. Cut to mid-2021 and her promised eatery – Lucky Kwong – is finally open. It features her trademark savoury steamed pancakes, prawn dumplings flavoured with native bush mint and hokkien noodles that pay tribute to her uncle Jimmy. Family and community are a big part of Lucky Kwong, which is named after the chef’s late son and uses honey collected from Wayside Chapel’s rooftop beehives for its menu.

Dining status: open for walk-ins and takeaway.

2500 years ago, people sought out the hot springs of Ikaria, hoping their ailments  would be cured by a good soak in the thermal baths. Today, the Greek island is known as a place people “forget to die”: many residents were born around a century ago and their long lives means the region is known as a “Blue Zone”. Ikaria – the new Bondi venue by Joaquin Saez and Emily Abay – commemorates this with a Blue Zone cocktail: it’s an Aegean Sea shade of blue, thanks to a good splash of curacao, and the accompanying rosemary smoke recalls a sunny landscape. Chef Robert Young (Quay) evokes Ikaria’s Mediterranean setting with Greek dishes such as horiatiki salad, keftedes (lamb meatballs) and saganaki served with chestnut honey and lemon.

Dining status: open for walk-ins and bookings.

If your sweet tooth has directed you towards Dulcet’s Haymarket and Burwood locations, you’ll know that Vivienne Li (Sweet Art) and her team create exquisite cakes with matcha, tofu, Musang King durian and other distinctly Asian flavours. Good news for bookworms, Dulcet has now taken over the Kinokuniya café space in The Galeries (previously held by Black Star Pastry). So after you’re done browsing the nearby shelves lined with novels, cookbooks and manga, you can sit down for a 20-layer rose lychee cake, a mandarin mousse dessert, or the shokupan bread that Li spent five months perfecting. You can also settle in with a beautifully crafted pot of Marukyu-Koyamaen tea from Uji, too – the gyokuro is especially good.

Dining status: open for walk-ins and takeaway.

It’s hard to improve on P&V, the beloved Newtown liquor merchant that stocks everything from Wildflower’s white peach ales to bottles of Radikon and some seriously good non-boozy options (Sobah’s craft beers flavoured with Indigenous ingredients, Pyewacket’s fizzy shrubs, Kimino’s yuzu sodas from Japan). But P&V found a way when it opened its second shop in Paddington: accompanying the space is Porcine, a French bistro where the food is by Nik Hill (The Old Fitz) and Harry Levy (Don Peppino’s). On the blackboard menu, you might see smoked eel potato gratin, celeric tarts, ox tongue ‘au poivre’ and pork chop offered in a chou farci (stuffed cabbage) fashion. And of course, you can BYO a bottle from the excellent boozy selection downstairs.

Dining status: open for walk-ins and bookings.

Say hello to the Civic Hotel’s recently launched portal to Hong Kong: Ni Hao Bar is here and it’s a pop-up that’s remixing Asian staples. The curly fries are flavoured with instant-noodle seasoning, the Peking duck is jammed into a toastie with mozzarella cheese and the prawn toast gets extra crunch from typhoon shelter crumbs. Espresso martinis are redone with the Hong Kong coffee-tea blend known as yuenyeung and and the classic Long Island Iced Tea has been transformed into Kowloon Iced Tea.

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

For seven years, Khaybar has been serving Afghan flavours off Auburn’s main eatery-lined drag. There are plenty of great things to order, from the bulanee pastries (gloriously golden-brown and filled with spring onions) to the buranee bademjan (yoghurt-topped sautéed eggplant) and the range of spiced rice dishes (like the lamb or chicken qaboli pallaw). In addition to Afghan staples such as mantu (dumplings) and aush (noodles), you can also order qaimaq chai, a traditional tea that’s pink from beetroot and has a crunchy walnut hit.

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

The two-time winner of Australia’s Best Beer Venue (as crowned by Beer and Brewer Magazine) has always been a good place to crush your thirst. There’s guaranteed to be an interesting selection of pours available (from Wildflower’s collaboration with Ravensworth Wines using salvaged, bushfire-affected grapes to The Bruery’s Sticky Bun imperial stout from its Bakery series), but during June, Bitter Phew offers another worthwhile reason to drop by: the bar will be running a special fermentation festival for Sydney Solstice. There’ll be food and drink samples, special events and collaborations with Ziggy’s Wildfoods and Wild Provisions covering Indigenous and local ingredients.

Dining status: open for walk-ins and bookings.

There’s more to Mexican food than tacos – which is why you won’t find them on the menu at Maiz. Chef Juan Carlos Negrete is, instead, showcasing sopes, tlacoyos, chilaquiles and tortas. He’s also teamed up with Pancho bakery to offer a breakfast experience like the one you’d find in his homeland; the conchas and other early-morning pastries can be ordered with a great selection of drinking cacao. For something truly different, try the chef’s Mexican version of Vegemite, served on a quesadilla with avocado. The fiery, chilli-rich recipe is inspired by his experiments with the condiment, which date back to his time at Three Blue Ducks.

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

It’s hard to know what’s larger: Maybe Sammy’s trophy shelf or its expanding empire of cocktail-pouring venues. The Sydney bar has won awards both locally and internationally for its drink-serving flair and not long after its Sammy Jr coffee-and-cocktail-slinging venue launched in March, the team now has a new outlet in the city: Dean & Nancy on 22, located in the Adina Sydney hotel. Yes, you can expect the signature boozy theatrics here: the Rolling A Double cocktail comes with dice you can throw – land a double and you’ll be rewarded with a champagne upgrade. But the Jane Strode menu of snacks is another big drawcard: think cauliflower bhajis and molten-hot ’nduja and cheese “fireballs”.

Dining status: open for walk-ins and bookings.

Like many industry figures, Orazio D’Elia has rethought his restaurant in the wake of COVID-related lockdowns. So Matteo Downtown, in its reinvented form, draws on the Naples-born chef’s heritage and his travels around Italy. His current menu includes Sicilian savoury cannoli with salmon crudo and a section dedicated to lesser-known pies from his homeland – like the spinach and ricotta pasqualina that might trigger memories of the traditional Easter pie. And don’t worry, the Matteo staples still remain: the mozzarella bar and its wood-fired pizzas are still here.

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