5 Best Indian Restaurants in Sydney (2026)

The Spice Room sits inside the Quay Building near the Opera House, serving what it calls stunning Indian cuisine with a menu built around tandoor classics, curries, and shareable appetisers. It's open seven days, with lunch service Tuesday through Sunday and dinner every night, and it also takes pickup and takeaway orders through its own site. The location does a lot of the marketing on its own, but the kitchen backs it up.

Masala Kitchen World Square is the CBD branch of a small local group, tucked inside the World Square shopping centre on Pitt Street. It bills itself as modern Indian, hand-crafted curries and tandoor dishes alongside a gin bar and happy hour, open seven days with a dedicated weekday lunch menu. It's the highest-volume restaurant on this page by review count.

Malabar South Indian Restaurant, established in 2003 in Darlinghurst, is led by Chef Mohammed Sali from Kerala and focuses on traditional South Indian dishes, from fish curry to lamb korma, with a soundproofed dining room that seats up to 150. It offers BYO wine with a modest corkage fee, a detail regulars mention often.

Foreign Return, on Crown Street in Surry Hills, is an Indian restaurant and cocktail bar built around regional Indian recipes reimagined with modern technique, alongside an Indian-inspired drinks list. It has a large upstairs seating area for bigger groups and leans into presentation as much as flavour, per its own site copy.

The Grand Palace, in a basement space on George Street, runs a buffet-style Indian menu with a dedicated vegetarian and vegan section alongside meat dishes like lamb shank masala and biryani. It's a straightforward, value-focused spot rather than a fine-dining destination, and reviewers repeatedly mention its banquet pricing.