Skewers at Firepop
Photograph: Supplied/Firepop

The best restaurants in Enmore

This little suburb punches well above its weight on the food front

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While neighbouring Newtown has long gotten the props as a Sydney dining destination, little Enmore has slowly and surely been building its own reputation for deliciousness. Whether you're after a bite before a gig at the Enmore, you're a longtime local looking a cheap and cheerful dinner, or you're from out of town and adding the 'burb to your dining hit list, there's a surprising bredth of options contained in a small area, from gussied-up pubs, to curry houses, neighbourhood fine dining and Lebanese snack bars.

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Want more? Check out our guide to Sydney's best restaurants

Just feel like a drink? Check out our guide to Enmore's best bars 

Looking for hotspots nearby? Here's our guide to Newtown's best restaurants

Food in Enmore

  • Enmore
  • price 1 of 4
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • Recommended

At Emma’s Snack Bar you'll want a serve of the smoky, feather-light babaganoush, but the spicy humous dressed with warm chilli oil and flecked with fried garlic is a worthy challenger for top dip. Emma's is one of our favourite cheap eats, and it's BYO, too.

  • Barbecue
  • Enmore

Wife-and-husband duo Alina Van and Raymond Hou have been serving flame-licked skewers to hungry folks all across Sydney – at festivals, breweries, the Royal Easter Show – since 2019. In March 2024, they opened their first bricks-and-mortar venue – a two-storey restaurant on Enmore Road – right next door to Bar Louise. With an intimate chef’s table, chic seats and colourful art, it’s a sophisticated step up from their beloved red food truck, but their delicious food remains.

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Avril Treasure
Food & Drink Editor, Time Out Sydney
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  • Sri Lankan
  • Enmore
  • price 2 of 4
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • Recommended

It’s easy to boil sustainable practices in restaurants down to scrapping single-use plastics and pounding pesto from leftover carrot tops – and those are important things. But what about the social, human element? What about creating an inclusive, empowering workplace that promotes personal and professional development and also contributes to the community at large? These are big, often overlooked questions, but they’re questions that schoolmates Peter Jones-Best and Shaun Christie-David are tackling headfirst at Colombo Social, the contemporary Sri Lankan diner they opened on Enmore Road at the end of 2019.

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  • Pubs
  • Enmore

Above the dark and moody Queens Hotel is a high-end Cantonese restaurant by Merivale. The sunny and beautiful dining room is punctuated by tropical plants and ornate features, and it’s one of our favourite places to sit and spend a few hours eating with friends. Speaking of food, you can get delicate dumplings, succulent fish with soy, ginger and shallots, salt and pepper calamari and Peking duck. And yes, deep-fried ice cream with butterscotch sauce.

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Avril Treasure
Food & Drink Editor, Time Out Sydney
  • Middle Eastern
  • Newtown
  • price 1 of 4

Egyptian street food pulls crowds to this corner spot where the pita pockets come stuffed with a heady garlic chicken, the fries are dusted in paprika and the beers in the fridge are local and crafty.

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  • Pizza
  • Enmore
  • price 1 of 4

Enmore has its own New York-style slice shop, firing up 22 and 12-inch pies, with dough and cooking techniques taken straight from the Big Apple. These guys are proving the dough for 24-hours to improve the flavour and cooking down a rich tomato sauce to top every pizza. They also allow the oversized pizzas to cool before heating slices on a stone-bottomed oven for a crisper base.

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  • Enmore
Cow and the Moon Gelato Bar
Cow and the Moon Gelato Bar

They do coffee in the mornings to get you started and then delicious iced sweets until late, making it the perfect destination for an after dinner stroll on a balmy evening. Or it was, until a Enmore's favourite gelateria won a world gelato award and now the queues extend around the block every evening. Even Mondays. Even when it is raining. The time-saving move is to pop in early and get a tub takeaway. 

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