‘Every day more people come out to eat’: Sydney dining scene is abuzz with new restaurants of all stripes, but the pandemic has left Chinatown ‘on life support’

Whether it is Asian flavours and regional Chinese cuisine, Middle Eastern food, French bistro cooking or Australian fine dining, Sydney’s food scene is diverse

From MuMu and Lankan Filling Station to British chef Clare Smyth’s Oncore and Australian chef Neil Perry’s Margaret, there’ve been some notable openings

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Dishes at MuMu in Sydney, Australia. The restaurant transports diners on a culinary tour of Southeast Asia.

Kee Foong

Published: 7:15am, 3 Mar 2022Updated: 8:53am, 3 Mar 2022

The lead-up to Christmas 2021 was an exciting time for Dan Hong.

After enduring four months of lockdown in the Australian city of Sydney, the executive chef at the Merivale hospitality empire, which includes Chinese and Asian restaurants Mr Wong, Ms G’s and Queen Chow, was set to launch another mega eatery, MuMu.

Sydney’s residents, starved of restaurants and bars, were cautiously but determinedly heading out again. “We opened with guns blazing, the city was in full swing, and it was the peak Christmas period,” says Hong.

The euphoria of opening MuMu lasted two weeks before Omicron, the fast-spreading Covid-19 variant, ripped through the city. “There were days over Christmas where we couldn’t open,” he laments, as restaurants had to close because of infections and people cancelling in droves.

Dan Hong, the executive chef at the Merivale hospitality empire in Sydney.

Several weeks later and Hong is more upbeat as case numbers drop and people in Sydney learn to live with Covid-19.