Midrange
Phillips Foote
Select your steak or fish from the display, and cook it yourself on the large BBQ grills in the courtyard. Add some salad, grab a beer from the bar and you are all set. If the steak isn't cooked to your liking, complain to the chef.
Pancakes on the Rocks
A Rocks institution since 1975, serving mouth-watering pancakes stacked high. This restaurant can still draw queues that go right along the stairs, and have waiters that hand out menus to the people in the queue. The popularity likely as much due to the scene, as to the food, and certainly popular with the teenage crowd.
Löwenbräu Keller
Corner playfair and argyle streets, +61 2 9247 7785, (http://www.lowenbrau.com.au/). an authentic bavarian german restaurant located in a convict-built cellar. has a good vibe, usually with a combination of a visitor and local crowd, and usually a few noisy groups. serves steins of a variety of beers in the german genre. if you want a sensible credit card bill at the end of the night, be careful not to get carried away with how many steins you have. they may taste good, and go down easily, but you'll be left with one serious bill to add to your headaches the next morning.
La Renaissance Patisserie Francaise
47 argyle st, +61 2 9241 4878 (http://www.larenaissance....). a sweet little cake shop serving the finest handmade cakes, pastries, savouries and chocolates in the rocks. also does teas and coffees.
Sailors Thai
One of the Thai restaurants owned by David Thompson, probably one of the best Thai chefs in the world. Sydney Thai is unique, combining Thai flavours and spices with the quality ingredients available in Australia. The canteen upstairs is casual with a long shared table, but there is a more formal restaurant downstairs. Also has a branch in Potts Point 71a Macleay St.
Top end
Rockpool
Neil Perry operated restaurant. Fine dining in the Rocks since 1989, sophisticated seafood with an Asian fusion influence, winner of the prestigious
Pier
Quay
Quay has won the Good Food Guide Restaurant of the Year several times and has truly spectacular food, service and views of the Harbour Bridge and Opera House. The cuisine is Modern Australian and the produce used is top quality.
There is a choice of restaurants and bars, and you will read good and bad reviews of most of them. The rule seems to be that you can expect to pay a premium to eat at The Rocks. They all tend to get very busy at times, and have high staff turnover, so your experiences will vary. It is difficult to go dismally wrong choosing a nice restaurant for a night out in the Rocks. On the other hand, deciding that 11pm on a Friday night is a good time for a pizza at Zia Pinas is unlikely to be a rewarding experience, either for the food, ambience, service or value for money.
There are a few restaurants which cater almost exclusively to the tourist crowds Many of these fill by the coach load, and are otherwise quiet. These places are usually apparent by the menu or the style, and are usually easily avoided if you aren't after that experience. Most restaurants in The Rocks draw a mix of locals and visitors.
Nowhere in the district is far from a restaurant or cafe, but there are a couple of distinct restaurant precincts. Campbells Cove is a small waterfront precinct, between the International Passenger Terminal and the Park Hyatt, usually recognised by the one or two tall ships at the wharf there. It is a pretty spot, with boardwalks and sandstone. There are a few fancy restaurants surrounding the precinct including the Italian Village and the Imperial Peking. At International Passenger Terminal there are a strip of restaurants and bars, including the famous seafood restaurant Doyles, and the fine dining Pier.
Just about every pub in The Rocks will serve some sort of food, usually for only a subset of their opening hours. For pubs like the Lord Nelson and the Australian, food is a speciality.
Budget
There aren't many cheap or takeaway options to choose from. If you are there during the markets, there are usually a few reasonable cheap options from the market stalls. Otherwise, there is a Subway, and little fast food cluster in Playfair St, if you need to feed the kids quickly and cheaply.