Sydney Fish Market

You can smell the Sydney Fish Market before you can see it, but it’s not a pong, it smells like sea spray and prawns on a barbeque, probably because just outside the doors of the main market one of the stores has a grill going selling seafood kebabs.
Once inside you’re assaulted by a whole range of smells and the air is thick with noise. It’s a busy atmosphere. The open fronted shops are lined along a central corridor with their glassed in counters facing on to each other and almost brimming over with the shiny white, orange and silvery bounty of the waters just outside the mouth of Sydney Harbour. There are supposedly 100 different kinds of marine life on sale (including octopus, shark and Balmain Bugs—a delicious Sydney shellfish) and most of the stores will sell it to you raw or cooked. You can also buy freshly prepared sushi, oysters, lobster and batted everything.

Obviously, the next bit is the highlight: you can sit out on rows of picnic tables with bright plastic umbrellas along the docks and watch the boats come in with more delicacies while you enjoy some of the best seafood you will ever taste. There’s also a bottle shop on site to pick up your sauvignon blanc or sparkling white and a fruit and veg market where you can get your fresh lemon and avocado. On the picnic deck, you’ll be dining with the sea gulls and pelicans, but if you’d prefer something more flashy you can dine on site at Doyles, a branch of one of Sydney’s classic fish restaurants (and home of the best take away fish and chips I have ever had—the batter is perfectly light and crisp). Either way, the view is great, and the food is phenomenal and reasonably priced. You have never tasted a prawn until you’ve had one from the Sydney Fish Market—promise.
The busiest time for the Fish Market is Christmas Eve as half of Sydney stocks up for the Australian Christmas tradition of a seafood Christmas dinner, so you need to get there early to get the choice haul, however on most days you won’t have any problem picking up what you need and you’ll usually be able to choose from five or six different stores. My stomach is rumbling just thinking about it. This is truly one of the best and most quintessential Sydney experiences you can have.