Queen Chow

Enmore Road is Sydney's late-night spine, and this corner has been turned over to Cantonese cooking with a deliberately unbuttoned attitude. Behind it sits one of the city's larger hospitality groups, but the room reads as a neighbourhood Chinese diner rather than a corporate exercise: a former pub reworked for shared plates, cold beer and the kind of long, noisy table that the inner west does well. The kitchen takes its cues from the street food of Hong Kong and the yum cha canon, then loosens the collar. Barbecued ducks hang and are carved to order, live seafood comes from the tank, and the wok turns out the fried and tossed classics alongside a few dishes that wander off the expected track. It works at lunch, when trolleys and dumplings suit the daylight, and it works harder at night, when the pace picks up and the drinks list does real work. This is yum cha treated as a party rather than a ritual, pitched at a crowd that wants the flavours of a good Cantonese kitchen without the hush of a formal dining room. For Enmore, a few minutes from the CBD by train, it fits the street exactly.