Start from 94 curated places around Sydney, AU, then choose the recommendations that fit your guests.
Restaurants & cafés
Quay
Peter Gilmore's three-hatted dining room above the Overseas Passenger Terminal — the Opera House framed in floor-to-ceiling glass and a tasting menu built around native Australian produce. The special-occasion restaurant other Sydney chefs cite as their benchmark.
Bennelong
Peter Gilmore's second restaurant — inside the smaller Opera House sail, with the kitchen pass open to a single dining room divided into bar, mid, and the tasting Cured & Cultured counter. The only restaurant inside the Opera House and the only one that uses its silhouette as a chandelier.
Trails & outdoors
Bondi to Coogee Coastal Walk
The 6km clifftop path linking Bondi, Tamarama, Bronte, Clovelly, and Coogee beaches — sandstone steps, ocean pools at every cove, and the open-air Sculpture by the Sea exhibition each October. The single most-walked trail in Sydney.
Spit Bridge to Manly Walk
A 10km harbour foreshore walk from the Spit Bridge through Clontarf, Forty Baskets Beach, and Reef Beach to Manly Wharf — five hours one-way with seven swimming-beach detours and ferry back to Circular Quay. The harbour version of Bondi-to-Coogee.
Things to do
Art Gallery of New South Wales
The state gallery on the Domain — the original 1880s sandstone wing, the modernist 1972 extension, and the 2022 Sydney Modern Project that doubled its footprint with a Snohetta-designed contemporary building. Free entry to the permanent collection; ticketed special exhibitions.
Museum of Contemporary Art Australia
Australia's only contemporary art museum, in the Art Deco former Maritime Services Board building on Circular Quay — five floors with the harbour as the back wall. Free permanent collection, paid major exhibitions, and a rooftop cafe with the building's best view.
Landmarks & sights
Sydney Opera House
Jorn Utzon's white-tiled sail roof on Bennelong Point — the building that put Sydney on the global skyline and still the orientation point every first-time visitor walks toward. The forecourt is free to wander; the interior only opens to ticket-holders and the daily guided tours.
Sydney Harbour Bridge and Pylon Lookout
The 1932 steel-arch coathanger spanning the harbour from Dawes Point to Milsons Point — walkable on the eastern footpath for free, climbable for a fee, and viewable from the SE Pylon Lookout's 200-step museum-and-deck combo. The walk across is a Sydney rite of passage.