Time Out Food & Drink Awards 2023: Best Innovation Nominees

Coyoacán Social is the new Mexico street food outfit that’s moved into a tangerine-orange shipping container in the wall next to the Commonwealth Bank building at Eveleigh. It’s the third restaurant from Plate It Forward, the social enterprise that already has Sydney favourites Colombo Social and Kabul Social to their name. This time, Plate it Forward’s founder Shaun Christie-David has teamed up with head chef Roman Cortes to create this homage to Mexican street food. The restaurant donates meals to people facing long-term unemployment and food insecurity in both Sydney and Mexico, including to the centre that helped Cortes himself overcome addiction in Mexico City. The organisation also works with local charities to create a safe space within the Redfern and South Eveleigh communities.

Eco-friendly bars aren’t an entirely new thing. Two years ago, Re – the brainchild of international bartending VIP, Matt Whiley, and Icebergs founder Maurice Terzini – landed with a bang in South Eveleigh, as the world’s first no-waste cocktail bar. Since then, some bars have waved a green flag and talked about their recycling efforts, but few have really walked the walk and adopted a holistic, sustainable model. Until Daintree Sydney. And trust us when we say this one’s not cutting any corners. Daintree Sydney opened in partnership with HalfCut, an environmental non-for-profit that raises funds to protect rainforests and wildlife. A huge 50 per cent of the bar’s profits go towards reforestation of Queensland's Daintree Rainforest.

There’s a golden egg that features in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. In the film, the magical object is used in the Triwizard Tournament, and Potter desperately wants to open it and discover what’s inside. We don’t want to give away any spoilers (though if you haven’t seen it yet, let’s face it, you probably won’t), but what he discovers changes the game. The scotch egg at Petermen – Josh and Julie Niland’s latest restaurant, on the North Shore – is not quite as shiny, but it's just as game-changing.

Renowned around the world for being a pioneer of the fin-to-tail seafood movement, Niland has long been championing the use of the whole fish. Not only for economical reasons, but for sustainable ones, too. Why use one fillet of fish when you can enjoy the whole thing? The meat world has known this for much longer, but thankfully the ocean world is starting to catch up, and it’s largely thanks to Niland.

At first glimpse, Re is like any other high-end bar: dimly lit with terrazzo tabletops, designer stools, patrons sipping cocktails from fancy glassware and sharing platters of cheese. But what you’re looking at is a bar built entirely on waste (and it’s much more impressive than that description might suggest). You won’t stumble across Re on a night out in the city, considering it’s hidden in a historic locomotive workshop in the recently restored South Eveleigh precinct. While the bar might not benefit from bustling foot traffic, this off-the-beaten-path spot has given hospitality trailblazers Matt Whiley (Scout) and Maurice Terzini (Icebergs Dining Room and Bar, Cicciabella) a blank canvas to build the world’s first permanent zero-waste bar.