The best food finds in Chatswood

Chatswood has been changing for as long as I’ve known. I remember my grandma telling me it had once been a sleepy suburb but the Chatswood of my imagination has always had a skyline made of shopping centres and high-rises. Growing up, Westfield and Chatswood Chase offered exciting, transportive experiences – the first stop to catch a new release on the big screen, buy new sandshoes or go Christmas shopping.

I wasn’t acutely aware of its food culture until I was about nine, when my parents split up, and I started to discover what else the suburb had to offer. Mondays and Wednesdays were visitation, and since my dad didn’t have his own place he’d pick us up and take us out. It was with him that I first encountered the Lebanese restaurants and hot-nuts bars on Penshurst Street, tasted my first pad Thai and dove into the char siu and roast duck in the barbecue joints on Victoria Avenue.

When I got older, Chatswood was where you’d go for yum cha or Mongolian barbecue with friends, or to trawl through the grocers looking for doubanjiang or duck eggs. I haven’t lived in the area for decades but I’ve always made a point of going back, craving the tastes of my childhood and curious to see what’s changed.

Looking back, it’s a lot. With more than 40 per cent of residents citing Chinese ancestry, and more than a quarter of residents born in Hong Kong or China, Chatswood has become one of Sydney’s largest Chinatowns. Still, its culinary scope is wide.

Chat Thai and Khao Pla are renowned for regional Thai, Sunflower Taiwanese and Bao Dao are the picks for soy-braised pork, while Choji Yakinuku and Manpuku are standbys for Japanese barbecue and ramen. All of that before you even reach Tida, a standout Persian restaurant sitting just outside Chatswood, on Penshurst Street.

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“The food scene in Chatswood has transformed dramatically,” says Michael Zhang, who opened the Jilin Family restaurant on Anderson Street in 2018. Since then he’s noticed a boom in restaurants specialising in regional Chinese cuisine – much like his own, which serves the warm, comforting dishes characteristic of Dongbei, the region in north-east China.

“A decade ago, local dining options were mostly limited to Cantonese restaurants and roast meat shops,” he says. “Today, you can find all major regional Chinese cuisines alongside Japanese, Korean and South-East Asian eateries.”

Yes, and no. While it’s certainly true that the proliferation of regional Chinese is more visible than it’s ever been, Chatswood has long held variety for anyone willing to weave through its alleys, food courts and tea houses. You’ve never had to look too far to find Shanghainese, Sichuanese and northern Chinese restaurants.

Another part of the suburb’s enduring appeal is how it manages to feel local and expansive all at once. Over the years, shopfronts like East West Gourmet and Gelateria Gondola quietly built a loyal following, while the 2016 redevelopment of the train station attracted international chains such as Ippudo and Haidilao. The upgraded metro has only made it more accessible.

The redevelopment of Chatswood Chase in 2024 led Fabbrica Pasta Bar and self-serve fro-yo chain Freo to open near New Shanghai on the lower ground floor, while Yangga Korean Deli and Vic’s Meat were among the more impressive providores to join the party.

Head to Westfield, and Zilver is serving yum cha in the old King Dynasty site. Mama Mulan above The Concourse is also a good bet. Hit the food court in the less-glamorous Mandarin Centre nearby for Hong Kong-style teas and buns, a hotpot train and (at East West Gourmet) some of the city’s most revered chicken rice.

Up on the pedestrianised section of Victoria Avenue, Lemon Grove Shopping Centre mightn’t be as swish as the big names but Taiwanese takeaway Ommi Don, jjigae (Korean stew) and fried chicken stall Park Bong Sook and Chinatown Noodle Restaurant are packed into the ground floor.

Take the escalator above the station to District Dining and Ho Jiak spin-off Amah is still serving the suburb’s best char kway teow, while queues form for souffle pancakes and matcha at Gram Cafe and Matcha K tea house. Cross under the station and those lines are for the city’s northernmost outpost of Mamak and its plates of curry with roti canai.

Thanks to its night markets (Thursdays to Sundays on Victoria Avenue), Chatswood is also an incubator for new operators, some of whom have transformed weekly stalls into permanent set-ups, including Hao Chen and Ash Lin, the couple behind LinLin Potstickers on Archer Street.

Their restaurant is a good place to start but, whichever path you choose, count on uncovering something new each and every time you come back.

“Chatswood is evolving all the time,” says Chen. “My biggest tip is to be curious and explore beyond what you already know. Take a walk through the streets, visit the markets, try something you’ve never eaten before and talk to the people behind the food. Every restaurant has its own story, and that’s what makes the dining scene here so exciting.”

Yakitori Bar Kitsch Tokyo

The immersion begins from the moment you step into this izakaya, hidden on the highway side of the station. Lighting is low. Tables are rammed. Walls are plastered with vintage Japanese beer posters, knick-knacks and paraphernalia. In the air? The clinking of highballs and the scent of meat grilling over Japanese charcoal. Yakitori and kushiyaki are the move here, be it skewered pork belly with enoki mushroom, chicken thighs, hearts or tsukune, plus more plates to pair with draught Asahi, from wafu-style spicy bolognese to slow-simmered oden in the winter months.

Shop 3/7 Help Street, Chatswood, instagram.com/kitsch_tokyo

The Lamb Lab

A sibling to Shang Lamb Soup, the Shanxi restaurant in Hurstville, The Lamb Lab strips things back to the essentials. Yes, there’s deeply flavoured soup concealing potato noodles and slices of marinated, braised and grilled lamb in its depths, but it’s the fatty pieces of lamb meat fired over charcoal – primed for sharing on the streets of Chatswood Interchange – that steal the show. Skewers are an essential order but the lamb ribs are gloriously fatty, coated edge to edge with a dusting of cumin. Bring friends.

Kiosk 8 & 9, Concourse Level, Chatswood Interchange, 436 Victoria Avenue, Chatswood, 0466 694 777

Hanasuki

You could spend days in Chatswood and never scrape the bottom of every soup bowl. Let’s take stock. For hot pot, Haidilao combines refined soup bases, a nail salon and a dancing noodle show; Soup Zen Hot Pot (by Haymarket’s The Dolar Shop) offers marbled beef and daily specials; and No 1 Malatang lets you pick and mix.

Hanasuki is the outlier. Opened by the team behind Choji Yakinuku and Prefecture 48 and decidedly upscale in blond wood and beaten copper, it’s a place where Japan’s famed shabu-shabu comes into focus. Pick one of four broths, add a bountiful platter of vegetables, a plate of seafood or wagyu, then dip and swish to your heart’s content. Ask to end with zosui, and your waiter will fold beaten egg through the reduced stock and rice for a nourishing finish.

Shop 1/18-26 Anderson Street, Chatswood, hanasuki.com.au

Jilin Family Restaurant

The Dongbei connection is apparent at a glance at Jilin, where Michael Zhang serves the food of his home town, in China’s north-east. Come nightfall, groups gather around cast iron pots set into the tables to scoop up chicken and hazel mushroom stews, and prise soft buns from the surface (make a point to pre-order). Dumplings are filled with preserved cabbage, shredded tofu skin is dusky and full of satisfying chew, and the guo bao rou, thinly cut and gloriously sticky, is like sweet and sour pork on steroids. A raucous, uniquely delicious experience.

Shop 5/18/26 Anderson Street, Chatswood, 0430 612 588

East West Gourmet

This family-run stall in the Mandarin Centre draws a broad crowd but the one thing connecting them is their appetite for East West Gourmet’s famed “number eight”: Hainanese chicken rice. Poached slowly, splashed with soy, hit with ginger-shallot sauce and finished with a spoonful of chilli, East West’s rendition is mega, the soup delicate and aromatic, the rice slick with chicken fat. Dig into the backlit menu to discover more pleasures: laksa packing heat and funk, velvet white fish lolling in fiery broth, or tangy noodle soup, served with a flash-fried salmon head.

Food Court, Level 2, Mandarin Centre, Chatswood, eastwestgourmet.com.au

Luwei Chatswood

Taking its name from the Taiwanese tradition of braising in master stock, Luwei is a one-stop shop for containers of gelatinous, tender and soy-infused meats to pack up, take away and spread out on the table. Mix and match duck wings, chicken liver and beef shin, all sold by weight, then spring for Sichuan pepper chicken or half a braised duck, scented with cinnamon and five spice, shredded, and finished with a splash of fiery garlic sauce. Black fungus, knotted kelp, house chilli sauce and a whole host of offal make it a party.

17 Spring Street, Chatswood

Lady Chai

The first international outpost of this celebrated Beijing beef restaurant isn’t exactly a breeze to find but persevere and you’ll be rewarded with some of the city’s most memorable braised beef – simmered in master stock, made with a 130-year-old recipe. Order the surprisingly refined plate of shank, slackened in a five spice-scented broth, and it will land in front of you, kept warm with a candle. Add a plate of cucumber pickle. It’s fragrant with peanut oil, lively with fruity red chilli and full of slippery crunch. That same broth is offered in soup with noodles made to order, while there’s house-made chilli oil on hand (add it to anything and everything).

Access through the staircase outside Chatswood Library, Lady Chai, Mills Ln, Chatswood, ladychai.com.au

LinLin Potstickers

What Hao Chen and Ash Lin started in the markets has now transformed into a freshly renovated shopfront on Archer Street. It’s a level up from a street stall but the signature dumplings that catapulted the couple to success are just the way you remember: supple on one side, lacy and crisp on the other. Made by hand, the pot-stickers are the dish to build around, whether they’re stuffed with minced pork and chive or whole prawns. Don’t sleep on the biang biang noodles, though, thick as belts and satisfyingly chewy. Sets mean you can add the likes of spring-onion-oil noodles to a plate of dumplings, as well as fresh salads, including pickled cucumber and black fungus.

86 Archer Street, Chatswood, instagram.com/linlin_potstickers

Xin Jiang Handmade Noodle

Yes, there are noodles, and yes, they are good, whether it’s pulled wheat noodles with tomato and egg, slippery biang biang or stir-fried chopped “ding ding” noodles. But the menu offers far more than the name suggests, including north-western specialties such as fiery lamb skewers dusted with cumin, say, or fried lamb on xinjiang naan, the bread pockmarked and chewy. Interiors may be tired but this is cooking that enlivens the soul and body.

1/84 Archer Street, Chatswood

My Cookware

You need to go looking to discover My Cookware, tucked into the back of Victoria Plaza. The reward is a visit to one of Australia’s finest purveyors of premium Japanese cookware, endorsed by ambassador Adam Liaw. It’s here you’ll find a host of konro grills (premium, handmade portable grills fired by binchotan charcoal) from brands such as Okunoto and Mikawa, as well as Japanese rice cookers, clay pots, and lightweight yukihira saucepans (plus much more). Come for one thing, leave with many.

Shop 9, 369 Victoria Avenue, Ground Floor, Victoria Plaza, Chatswood, mycookware.com.au

Ye Mama’s Kitchen

Ye Mama’s Kitchen is one of the few Sydney restaurants specialising in the cooking of south-west China (see also: Pretty Chef in Petersham). Opened in March, Ye Mama’s dishes build around the sour, smoked and fermented flavours that define Guizhou province, a diverse region home to many ethnic minorities. Start cold with chewy konjac noodles splashed with gently numbing sour, spicy dressing, then sink into the sour fish soup, made on a fermented rice base and brightly flavoured with tomato, mountain pepper and chilli. The bar, like the space, is no frills, but the baijou offering (Guizhou is the home of Moutai) is nothing to sneeze at.