Three-Michelin-star chef to headline a suite of luxury restaurants at Darling Harbour

Darling Harbour’s Harbourside centre may have been better known for its hard-boiled lollies and rusted-on restaurants than imported culinary stars, but the tide has turned at the complex, which is currently undergoing a $2 billion redevelopment. Hong Kong-born glamour restaurant Mott 32 and Brasserie Astoria from Swede Bjorn Frantzén – the only chef in the world to hold three Michelin stars across three separate restaurants – will both open there next year.

Mott 32’s signature 42-day-aged applewood-roasted Peking duck and luxurious interiors have put it on the road to international expansion from Singapore to Seoul, while Brasserie Astoria, which calls itself an “international power brasserie” leans in on retro glamour, and has a flambe trolley roving the dining room.

In good news for a city that in recent years has lost yum cha institutions including Marigold and Zilver (now in Chatswood), Mott 32 co-founder Matt Reid confirmed the 290-seat restaurant will serve dim sum. Don’t expect trolleys or stacked baskets because “every piece is cooked a la minute”. The cooking time of the quail egg in the siu mai, for example, is so precise that it uses cooking methods inspired by molecular gastronomists.

“We like to disrupt, we like to innovate, there’s an obsession with flavour,” Reid says. Mott 32 has been quietly scouting Sydney sites for a few years and previously came close to opening in the CBD. When the Harbourside site popped up, Reid canvased different opinions. “When I spoke to people here, they said no … that’s not the place to go.”

But having seen the plans for the precinct’s redevelopment, Reid jumped at the opportunity. The $2 billion replacement will incorporate 280 luxury apartments and 25 additional retailers, 90 per cent of which will be food and beverage operators. Reid says the development will have the necessary critical mass to succeed as a dining destination. The success of the new Sydney Fish Market nearby offers more encouraging signs.

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Representatives for Frantzén’s operation weren’t available to comment on the opening of Brasserie Astoria, a branch of which is also opening next year in Perth. But the location at Harbourside is notable given Én by Björn Frantzén is already due to open in the middle of next year at Crown Sydney, on the Barangaroo waterfront nearby. Mott 32 also has a Crown connection, and is slated to open at its Southbank premises in Melbourne in 2027.

Reid remains bullish enough to commit to one more restaurant at Harbourside, Avio Mare, which like Mott 32 and Brasserie Astoria sits under his overarching Steelhead Hospitality platform. Expect food that takes inspiration from the Tyrrhenian, Ionian, Adriatic and Aegean seas, cooked over an open fire. “The parallel here is Firedoor,” Reid says.

Apart from all its restaurants sharing a dark and moody theme, Reid said the new Australian branches of Mott 32 will have their own identity. 32 Mott Street was the address of the first Chinese grocer in New York City, but the group takes wider design inspiration from China and expat Chinese communities forged around the world.

Mott 32 Sydney, Brasserie Astoria and Avio Mare will open in spring 2027.