Booking for a big group gets easier when the food is made to share. No one’s stuck ordering for everyone, and dishes just keep arriving in the middle of the table. For an EOFY lunch or group dinner that runs like that, these are the Sydney restaurants for large groups worth booking early.
Spice Temple
Spice Temple is built for a big table. Burnished leather, gold accents and lantern-style lamps give a group a room worth settling into for a few hours. The Bamboo Banquet is the one to book for EOFY, with regional Chinese dishes drawn from Sichuan, Jiangxi and beyond, arriving in rounds as the table fills.
Order the Wagyu Brisket Lucky Money Dumplings for the table, the kind of dish a group remembers, rich and built for sharing straight off the banquet. The Zodiac cocktails, named for the lunar signs, give a group something to order by birth year. Optional beverage packages and private dining rooms, the Spice Room and Silk Room, cover groups that want the night fully handled.
Sahtein
Sahtein in the Argyle Stores runs a Lebanese share menu made for a crowd. Mezze, charcoal-grilled meats and fresh-baked bread arrive in waves, so a big group eats together without anyone studying a menu. The balila, a warm chickpea dish, is the one people go back to. A set menu and private rooms make the booking simple.
Bar Patrón
Bar Patrón above Circular Quay is the high-energy pick. It trades the hush of a private room for a proper end-of-year atmosphere, tequila-led and built for a group that wants the night to go somewhere. The set menus keep the food shared, and the harbour sits out the windows. If the brief is celebration over ceremony, book this one.
Saké Restaurant & Bar
Saké Restaurant & Bar in The Rocks brings the share format to contemporary Japanese. The menu’s broad enough to keep a big table interested, from the S Express rolls with tempura scallops and seared salmon to popcorn shrimp with yuzu mayo, sashimi and robata off the grill. Private dining rooms and group menus suit a sit-down EOFY dinner with some polish to it.
Rockpool Bar & Grill
Rockpool Bar & Grill on Hunter Street is the steakhouse pick. Group menus centre on the beef, dry-aged on site, from David Blackmore wagyu with chimichurri to Cape Grim rib eye on the bone, with Hervey Bay scallops and jamon XO to start. The Sydney Boardroom keeps the group private.
The Cut Bar & Grill
The Cut Bar & Grill is the one for the biggest groups. Down in the Argyle Stores basement, the Rocks Room seats up to 70, and the slow-roasted prime rib carved at the table gives a large party its centrepiece.
24 York
24 York on York Street isn’t a banquet, it’s one dish, done the same every service: grass-fed scotch fillet with tallow-fried shoestring fries and house-made sauces. For a CBD team lunch with no menu debate and a quick turnaround, that’s the appeal.
Ananas
Ananas brings a French brasserie to the Argyle Stores, with a Champagne bar at the entrance. The share menus run brasserie classics for the table, including salmon tartare, lamb shoulder navarin and Sydney rock oysters, finished with baba au rhum. The pick for a team that wants their EOFY done in French.
Reserving Your Space
A good EOFY lunch or group dinner is worth booking well before June. Banquet tables and private dining rooms across the CBD and The Rocks fill quickly, so lock in your team’s date early.
Book Spice Temple to secure a regional Chinese banquet for your year-end celebration.
*All Hunter Street Hospitality venues practise the responsible service of alcohol. Drink responsibly.
