Time Out Sydney Food & Drink Awards 2025: Cheap Eat Nominees

We’ve always thought of Malaysian as the comfort food of Asia. You’ve got rich, coconut-creamy, flavour-packed curries and soups. Charred skewers of meat with moreish peanut sauce. Melt-in-your-mouth Hainan chicken with flavourful, stock-soaked rice. At Albee’s, a popular Malaysian eatery in Campsie, you’ll find all of this and lots more on the seemingly never-ending menu. It’s a whole 37 pages jam-packed with colourful photos of food that make you want to lick the pictures. The worst part is you’ll want to order it all (at least the prices are affordable, by Sydney standards, so you can go to town).

Growing up, sisters Rowena and Kate Chansiri used to eat a beef noodle soup made by their mum using their grandmother’s recipe. It’s a traditional street-food dish that’s slurped in Chinatowns all over Thailand, and now, they are serving it at their new unassuming eatery on 47 Cooper Street in Surry Hills. They are honouring their grandmother in another way, too. The name of their diner, “Ama” (pronounced ah–maa), means grandmother in Thai.

Derrel’s is named after Brendan King’s grandfather, Derrel. The young chef says his nanna never cooked while he was growing up, and instead he remembers Derrel in the kitchen, preparing spiced tandoori wings and kick-arse pork vindaloo. King went on to sharpen his knife skills at Baba’s Place in Marrickville, a venue that’s big on celebrating Sydney’s suburban multicultural cuisine. The fact that this casual, colourful eatery is an ode to his grandfather, and inspired by his time growing up in an Anglo-Indian household, feels like a natural, delicious progression.

The décor at Island Dreams is unique and (while we don't like to overuse the word), the food at Island Dreams is extremely unique – it’s the only restaurant in Sydney serving the cuisine of the Cocos (Keeling) Islands. This isn’t surprising, given that the islands – situated off Australia's northwest coast – have a population of just 600 people. They have been a part of this country since 1955, but their cuisine has a distinctly Malay character. Island Dreams is run by Alimah and her husband, Aman, using recipes handed down to them for generations, and this history is evident in the authenticity of the flavours and the respect they show for their ingredients.

We see the colour first. Bright, cobalt-blue and beautiful, Bondi Road’s Mexican cantina is painted the exact same shade as Frida Kahlo’s former home in Mexico City. You can’t miss it. And after eating here, one thing’s for certain – you sure as hell won’t want to. Named after the Spanish word for “mummy”, Mami’s was opened in late 2023 by Mexican-born owners Erendira and Juan Perez, who wanted to create a home-style eatery where families and friends could pop in for an affordable and yum feed. Inside is indeed homey and low-key – much of the furniture has been upcycled from things the couple found on the side of the road – but it feels cosy and welcoming. And, holy guacamole, the tacos are good.

Peranakan restaurants aren’t common in Australia – in part, because Peranakan food is so labour-intensive to prepare. The authentic preparation of the rempah, a complex blend of spices that serves as the foundation for each of the cuisine’s different dishes, can involve hours of chopping and hand-grinding. But the effort shows in the flavours. The cuisine of Peranakan culture is most commonly referred to as ‘Nonya’, and essentially, it combines Chinese cooking techniques with Malay spices. Sam, the 80-year-old restaurateur, tells us he moved from Singapore to Sydney 50 years ago, but that he and his wife, Agnes, only opened the restaurant when they were in their early seventies. He says he wanted to bring Sydney an authentic Nonya restaurant because he couldn’t find the cuisine of his childhood here.