Best for BYO: Huon Hooke's top picks
Despite tight margins, BYO restaurants are thriving. Here are some favourites.
Diners love BYO restaurants. Some friends of mine think it's rude to bring your own wine to a restaurant that has a wine list. Well no: some wine lists are pathetic. I don't want to eat great food and spend the evening regretting I had nothing decent to drink with it. Life is too short for that.
I keep lists of good BYO restaurants. Most of the places on the list are cheap 'n' cheerful. That's because the more expensive the restaurant, the better the wine list and the less likely they are to encourage BYO. Also, many inexpensive Thai, Vietnamese, Japanese and other Asian restaurants have great food but their wine list is either non-existent or regrettable.
Many licensed restaurants appear to survive on their profits from high mark-ups on liquor much the same way the state of NSW survives on digging up coal and taxing gambling. Mostly, they don't want you bringing your own booze because they lose the opportunity to slug you 100 to 150 per cent on cost price. However, despite this era of knife-edge restaurant profitability and apparent dependence on grog profits, BYO is still alive and well. Quite a lot of decent eateries have BYO midweek. You can check online or in the SMH Good Food Guide.
What is not recommended is taking along a cheap or commonly available wine, or a wine that is likely to be already in the restaurant's cellar. Your bottles need to be something out of the ordinary, otherwise it can seem disrespectful. Don't show up with your half-used goon of fruity gordo, for example, and expect a smile from the waiter.
Here's my current list, and apologies if it's Inner West-centric. I give away my secret. We will come to other places.
Grappa, Leichhardt: my favourite local Italian (corkage $4.50).
La Disfida, Haberfield, great pizza and very good Italian wine list (corkage $5).
Home Thai, CBD, for the dinky-di Thai experience ($4 a head).
Booth Street Bistro, Annandale (Tuesday, Wednesday and Sunday $10 a bottle).
Spice I Am, Surry Hills - terrific food and no corkage but you need to like cramped spaces.
Oscillate Wildly, Newtown (Tuesdays, $10 corkage). More than deserving of its one chef's hat. Food is amazing.
Kepos Street Kitchen, Redfern, delicious food and totally BYO (corkage $8).
Sean's Panaroma, North Bondi (but $25 a bottle corkage).
Tetsuya's, CBD - for the Big Occasion, and corkage is high.
And here is a range of other good BYOs that my trusted spies recommend:
The Devonshire, Surry Hills (Tuesday to Thursday, $10 corkage): Editor of the Good Food Guide Joanna Savill's ''perfect BYO''.
Fix St James, CBD, ($15 corkage). It's a nice surprise that this temple to all things vinous allows BYO, especially as it has a smart wine list.
Osteria di Russo & Russo, Enmore - excellent contemporary Italian ($15 corkage).
Ume, Surry Hills, Tuesday to Thursday dinner and Friday to Saturday lunch ($10 corkage). Superb Japanese food and an interesting drinks list, but you could buy and beer or sake and then open your own wine.
Rosso Pomodoro, Balmain, a dedicated BYO with no corkage.
Mamak, Haymarket, hugely popular, excellent Malaysian fare ($2 a person corkage).
Wilbur's Place, Potts Point, great prices, fabulous neighbourhood eatery ($9.50 corkage per bottle).
Fat Fish, Annandale, with a big advantage being next to one of Sydney's best wine shops, Annandale Cellars. Tip re glassware: you might like to BYO Riedels as well.
Then there's Bar Reggio, Darlinghurst ($2), Fu Manchu, Darlinghurst ($8) and Nourishing Quarter ($3 a person), which our restaurant critic Terry Durack recommends as a quirky Asian/vego in Redfern. And Bistrode CBD: restaurant reviewer Phillip Putnam says this is an example of a restaurant with a terrific wine list, but allows you to BYO (''and $10 a bottle corkage is very, very fair'').
Nilgiri's in St Leonards and Bayleaf in Crows Nest - two Indian restaurants where you can experiment (try rich reds like grenache, shiraz or GSM from Barossa or McLaren Vale).
