The Auswine Forum

I'll be in Sydney for a few days in early Nov, staying with a few work colleagues who aren't interested in the high end restaurants. Any recommendations for mid to lower range $$$ restaurants with a BYO option? Any style of food is fine, as long as it is good food! We'll be staying near Central station, but are happy to eat anywhere downtown. Places that take a reservation would be great, as we will be a good sized group. Any suggestions would be appreciated!

Il baretto on Bourke St in Surry hills is good, close to central (10 min walk) BYO but no bookings.
Get there just before opening at 6pm and you will get a big table no problems.
Any later and you will need to wait for the first eaters to finish but turnover is usually quick.

Rubyos in Newtown
http://www.rubyos.com.au/

Lindas on King in Newtown
http://www.lindasonkingst.com.au/

Via Napoli Surry Hills (loud and fun)
http://www.vianapolipizzeria.com.au/

Xage Vietnamese (does byo for wine and beer)
http://www.xage.com.au/

Don't forget Golden Century !! BYO (or any vintage of Grange you may desire from their list) from lunch until 4am , good food, ignore the mixed service issues and just enjoy. http://www.goldencentury.com.au/

Fix St James and The Devonshire are slightly more pricey but well worth a look, think the latter isn't BYO on weekends, so always best to check policy first. Bistrode in this category as well.

Spice I am.
The Surry Hills restaurant is the original, and considered one of Sydney's best Thai.
5 min walk from Central. Can get very busy, so expect to have a drink next door while u wait for a table.

Bondi has two of the best BYOs - Sean Panorama which over looks Bondi Beach. It does two seatings but if you get to your table on time has good food. My preferred option is Brown Sugar which is 100m back from the beach but fantastic Mod Aus with French twist. I eat here on average once a month as it is BYO 6 days a week (closed on Mondays). If you are from for the first time, Bondi is a must see.

For seriously good Italian pizza, Pompei's also in Bondi is a must and good for large crowds with outside seating on a warm summers night.

Depending on your budget, Tetsuyas is BYO. It is still one of the top 5 restaurants in Sydney though not quite at its peak compared to 10 years ago.

And finally probably the most overlooked BYO is the Larder on the W Wharf. It has awesome views of the harbour and the city sky line. Again great for large groups and an essential experience on a warm summer's night in Sydney.

rooman wrote:Bondi has two of the best BYOs - Sean Panorama which over looks Bondi Beach. It does two seatings but if you get to your table on time has good food. My preferred option is Brown Sugar which is 100m back from the beach but fantastic Mod Aus with French twist. I eat here on average once a month as it is BYO 6 days a week (closed on Mondays). If you are from for the first time, Bondi is a must see.

For seriously good Italian pizza, Pompei's also in Bondi is a must and good for large crowds with outside seating on a warm summers night.

Depending on your budget, Tetsuyas is BYO. It is still one of the top 5 restaurants in Sydney though not quite at its peak compared to 10 years ago.

And finally probably the most overlooked BYO is the Larder on the W Wharf. It has awesome views of the harbour and the city sky line. Again great for large groups and an essential experience on a warm summer's night in Sydney.

larder is closed atm

rooman wrote:Bondi has two of the best BYOs - Sean Panorama which over looks Bondi Beach. It does two seatings but if you get to your table on time has good food. My preferred option is Brown Sugar which is 100m back from the beach but fantastic Mod Aus with French twist. I eat here on average once a month as it is BYO 6 days a week (closed on Mondays). If you are from for the first time, Bondi is a must see.

For seriously good Italian pizza, Pompei's also in Bondi is a must and good for large crowds with outside seating on a warm summers night.

Depending on your budget, Tetsuyas is BYO. It is still one of the top 5 restaurants in Sydney though not quite at its peak compared to 10 years ago.

And finally probably the most overlooked BYO is the Larder on the W Wharf. It has awesome views of the harbour and the city sky line. Again great for large groups and an essential experience on a warm summer's night in Sydney.

I love Seans - magic service and food
is it only one bottle byo ?

Tetsuyas I will never go to again
bad attitude and me and a friend on different occasions have had wine "disappear"

michel wrote:

rooman wrote:Bondi has two of the best BYOs - Sean Panorama which over looks Bondi Beach. It does two seatings but if you get to your table on time has good food. My preferred option is Brown Sugar which is 100m back from the beach but fantastic Mod Aus with French twist. I eat here on average once a month as it is BYO 6 days a week (closed on Mondays). If you are from for the first time, Bondi is a must see.

For seriously good Italian pizza, Pompei's also in Bondi is a must and good for large crowds with outside seating on a warm summers night.

Depending on your budget, Tetsuyas is BYO. It is still one of the top 5 restaurants in Sydney though not quite at its peak compared to 10 years ago.

And finally probably the most overlooked BYO is the Larder on the W Wharf. It has awesome views of the harbour and the city sky line. Again great for large groups and an essential experience on a warm summer's night in Sydney.

larder is closed atm

That's a bugger. We had the Barolo evening there a couple of months ago. i see however that Ottos is doing BYO lunches so there's a bit of silver lining in the dark cloud over the Larder.

Many thanks for all your suggestions, much appreciated! I'll look at websites of all the suggestions to get a better sense of what they offer.

michel wrote:

rooman wrote:Bondi has two of the best BYOs - Sean Panorama which over looks Bondi Beach. It does two seatings but if you get to your table on time has good food. My preferred option is Brown Sugar which is 100m back from the beach but fantastic Mod Aus with French twist. I eat here on average once a month as it is BYO 6 days a week (closed on Mondays). If you are from for the first time, Bondi is a must see.

For seriously good Italian pizza, Pompei's also in Bondi is a must and good for large crowds with outside seating on a warm summers night.

Depending on your budget, Tetsuyas is BYO. It is still one of the top 5 restaurants in Sydney though not quite at its peak compared to 10 years ago.

And finally probably the most overlooked BYO is the Larder on the W Wharf. It has awesome views of the harbour and the city sky line. Again great for large groups and an essential experience on a warm summer's night in Sydney.

I love Seans - magic service and food
is it only one bottle byo ?

Tetsuyas I will never go to again
bad attitude and me and a friend on different occasions have had wine "disappear"

I was at Sean's in March 2015 and we took a stack of high end bottles with no issues.

BYO'd at Guillaume after asking nicely when booking.. $40pb...

I'd love to hang with people who are suggesting some of these restaurants as being in their Mid/Lower Range restaurants

dave vino wrote:I'd love to hang with people who are suggesting some of these restaurants as being in their Mid/Lower Range restaurants

Hahaha woops... I didn't read the title.

As for Mid range - Ripples (any of them) do BYO and I enjoy dining there.

deejay81 wrote:BYO'd at Guillaume after asking nicely when booking.. $40pb...

Were they easy bout it? Like was it a simple "can i byo please" or did you have to justify bringing a premium bottle?

VINH NGUYEN wrote:

deejay81 wrote:BYO'd at Guillaume after asking nicely when booking.. $40pb...

Were they easy bout it? Like was it a simple "can i byo please" or did you have to justify bringing a premium bottle?

He must have asked really nicely as they charged us $50 p/bot. Great food and service. I reckon if you say you're a wine buff and have a few special bottles you'd like to bring and are happy to pay 40 or 50 per bott for byo, you should be OK.

Anyway, decending down the price ladder to mid-range, Glebe Point Diner will do BYO if you ask, only a short light rail journey from Central and always delivers. Better suited to groups of 8 or less though. http://www.glebepointdiner.com.au/

VINH NGUYEN wrote:Were they easy bout it? Like was it a simple "can i byo please" or did you have to justify bringing a premium bottle?

They weren't too easy on it. It was wife's B'day and a couple of premium bottles of birth year wines. They said $40 pb but also had to order one from the wine list.

I've tried the wine pairing to their dego menu before and I wasn't impressed which is why I wanted to bring my own. They've got 2 pairings you can choose from, new world focused and old world focused, neither were crash hot - the wines, and the pairings.

deejay81 wrote:

VINH NGUYEN wrote:Were they easy bout it? Like was it a simple "can i byo please" or did you have to justify bringing a premium bottle?

They weren't too easy on it. It was wife's B'day and a couple of premium bottles of birth year wines. They said $40 pb but also had to order one from the wine list.

I've tried the wine pairing to their dego menu before and I wasn't impressed which is why I wanted to bring my own. They've got 2 pairings you can choose from, new world focused and old world focused, neither were crash hot - the wines, and the pairings.

Ahh ok, so just like every other fine dine establishment in Syd, pay the corkage and say its a special occasion with special bottles and they'll usually let you byo haha

Couple of other Options in the mid-$, not too far from Central:

Brio (Pyrmont)
La Pesa (East Sydney) - BYO Tue-Wed
Verde (Darlinghurst) -BYO Mon-Wed, no sparkling wine

Last I heard Brio might have stopped doing BYO, but reckon you could ask nicely and be fine. Great casual place if so for a group of 10 or so.

TiggerK wrote:Last I heard Brio might have stopped doing BYO, but reckon you could ask nicely and be fine. Great casual place if so for a group of 10 or so.

And incidentally our tasting group hasn't been back since, shame a lot of restaurants don't get it. We'd spend $600-$700 a night (which for that place is a lot).

Yeah unless they are filling up on week nights you think they would keep doing it. I wonder if the margins Leaving now food vs booze means they are better off being 2/3 full and licensed as opposed to full and BYO....

Also Macleay Street Bistro in Potts Point. We did an offline recently where the food was not great but when i have gone with a smaller number and jsut ordered off the menu, the food has been fine.

dave vino wrote:

TiggerK wrote:Last I heard Brio might have stopped doing BYO, but reckon you could ask nicely and be fine. Great casual place if so for a group of 10 or so.

And incidentally our tasting group hasn't been back since, shame a lot of restaurants don't get it. We'd spend $600-$700 a night (which for that place is a lot).

It does amaze me how many restaurants would rather retain empty early in the week than let in a large group who wish to do an offline tasting. I get they don't want people turning up with 2 Buck Chuck but if it is explained it is a wine tasting group who will come with special wines, they are mad.

Thanks for all the suggestions, we ended up going to Mamak, a Malaysian restaurant on Goulburn Street near our hotel. Very good food, very good value and very reasonable BYO charge ($8/bottle I think). They didn't have great glassware, the turnover is pretty quick, it was rather loud, but it suited the group well as we were happy to have time to do other things. It wouldn't be a great place for a serious wine dinner, but everybody in our non-wine geeky group loved the food and fun atmosphere.

Hi guys,

Sorry to bump an old thread, but I'm looking to head to Il Baretto tomorrow night with a small group of about 6- I believe they still do BYO

Any tips for what time to arrive to ensure we get a table? I will call the restaurant later as well!

Asa

If you like Japanese, Yachiyo in either Mosman or Darlinghurst was fantastic.
[url]https://yachiyo.com.au/[/url]

It's run by Japanese, not Korean's pretending to be Japanese., and most of their customer base are Japanese.

Can't remember the price for BYO but whatever it was, (prob around $10 pb) when food is so good, who cares?

The $65 tasting menu was brilliant.

I'd say its too small for our regular offlines but I highly recommend for a couple to a small group.

Sadly Bar Reggio is closed at present following a recent fire in the kitchen.

Meat and Wine at Barangaroo charges $30pb which I can live with. The private room makes it a good place for a smaller gathering.

Il Barretto we usually go to on a weekend so we always go at 6pm on the dot to ensure no wait for a table.
But mid week, on a cold Sydney day I reckon you will get a table straight up until around 6.30pm easily.
Even if you don’t, a lot of the 6pm opening tables will eat and move on rather quickly, and they also own a bar just down the road where you can go and have a drink while you wait and they will call you when the next table is ready.
Haven’t been there for a while but the duck rage was always great, as is the Rotolo, but that’s not always on the menu.
Have fun!