Grandfathers, Sydney

There was always going to be a moment where Sydney circled back to this. Not Chinese food specifically, but the feeling of it. The rooms, the noise, the slightly chaotic, always on energy that used to define whole pockets of the city and has slowly been designed out of it.

Grandfathers lands squarely in that gap, and it’s clear this isn’t about easing you in gently. The room is already moving, dark, tight, full with tables close enough that you’re pulled into the rhythm of it whether you mean to be or not, staff decked out in red jackets, weaving through with purpose, plates landing and disappearing before you’ve quite caught up. This is not the place for a quiet get together. In the old Long Chim site in Angel Place, the homecoming roost of Australia's Thai Master David Thompson, its alive with blue neon lit fish tanks, zig zag carpet and moon shaped light fixtures suspended in seemingly random positions, although absolutely nothing is is random or left to chance.

It helps that the team behind it have done it before so well. This is the same group responsible for Clam Bar, Pellegrino 2000 and Neptune’s Grotto, restaurants that arrived fully formed and immediately felt as if they should have always been there. With Mikey Clift directing the kitchen team, they’ve shifted their attention to Chinese cooking but kept the same instinct for building places people actually want to be in. I booked for 7pm and within ten minutes had already decided I wasn’t leaving early.

The menu seems familiar at first. Dumplings, barbecue, seafood, fried rice, the kind of ordering muscle memory Sydney diners know well, but it doesn’t lean on nostalgia in the way you expect. Instead, it sharpens it. The flavours draw mostly from Guandong and Sichuan cuisines and feel dialled up just enough. Cleaner, brighter, occasionally louder without tipping into excess.

There’s a restraint here that’s increasingly rare. A sense that nothing has been overthought even as everything lands exactly where it should. The daily dim sum arrive precise and intact, and utterly superb, while cold dishes carry heat and acid to cut cleanly through the table. Larger plates do what they’re meant to do. They anchor the meal then disappear quickly as everyone reaches back in. At some point we ordered another round of dumplings we didn’t need, which felt like the correct decision, even for just 2 of us.

Twice cooked pork jowl and crispy skin pigeon are impeccably done and are stand outs for us, while the offally good Husband and Wife salad is loaded with crispy tripe and veal tongue.

It would be easy to overstate the food, but that’s not really the point and Grandfathers seems to know it. What matters more is the way the room behaves and the drinks play a quiet but central role in that. Overseen by industry stalwart Charles Leong, with group head Somm, Darcy Lyne the list is as imaginative as it is absolutely on point. You start with one, then another follows without much discussion, and before long we've shifted from dinner into something looser, more open ended. I had every intention of leaving after two drinks and didn’t. So many choices of off dry Spaetlese Rieslings, crispy Kabinett and some well thought red options left us spoiled for decisions. Thankfully, we didn't have to, the floor staff as well versed and respectful not trying to sell us the most expensive but the best option.

What Grandfathers restores isn’t just a style of cooking but a way of going out that Sydney has been missing. Its a place where dinner isn’t a fixed event with a clear end point, but something that gathers pace as it goes. It’s loud, it’s a little expensive and it doesn’t make much effort to accommodate everyone, which is precisely why it works.

Grandfathers feels like something the city forgot how to do and then, almost suddenly, remembered.

Grandfathers is in Angel Place, Sydney. NSW

https://www.grandfathers.com/

Mon to Wed midday–3pm, 5pm–11pm

Thu to Sat midday–3pm, 5pm–1am

Sun midday–3pm, 5pm–11pm