Who Says a Sydney Lunch Special Has to Taste Like a Compromise?

It is now 12:40pm on a Tuesday, and George Street is doing what it does every lunch hour, getting frantic. Lanyards from office jobs fly past food courts. There is someone who has to hold both their laptop bag and their coffee. They are all trying to squeeze in forty-five minutes of something that compromises their tastes.

Except at one corner of Haymarket, that story doesn't hold up. Make yourself comfortable in the bistro and enjoy the best pub meals in Sydney that will make your creativity at its best level. 

The Pub That Decided Lunch Deserved Better

Buried within a heritage building on George Street, the venue that takes a dual personality at night, a thriving bar with cocktails and DJs, transforms itself into something else altogether during the day, something far more quiet and, quite frankly, much more intriguing. This is where Sita, the in-house Thai bistro, serves its lunch service from Monday to Friday. But unlike most pub kitchens where lunch service comes as an afterthought, Sita's lunch offerings come with the same standard as its dinner service.

This standard carries a name: Chef Pacharin "Air" Jantrakool. Air doesn't come as a hired chef hopping through the kitchens of various pubs; she has spent over thirty years refining her Thai cookery skills, having worked at Sydney's famous restaurant Sailors Thai for fifteen years with none other than the famous chef David Thompson. Her career also spans various other restaurants such as Chon Thai, Betel Leaf, Tapioca, and Noble Canteen, but her style of cooking dates back even farther than that, originating from Chiang Mai where she grew up cooking for a big family before she started cooking in a restaurant.

As Air himself once stated, "Sita isn’t just a restaurant; Sita is a love letter to the food that my mother used to cook." Every single dish in the menu is prepared with passion and dedication, just as if Air himself were making meals for his family.

This is what makes every single lunch special so special that loyal clients of the Mountbatten Hotel come here to enjoy their lunch break rather than eat at some cheap food court nearby.

What Makes a Lunch Special "Special"

Lunch places aren't hard to come by around Haymarket. But a restaurant with an attitude to give their full attention to a weekday lunch menu at full-service standards of curry pastes, freshly ground herbs, stir-fries  that's something Sita offers.

Sita is neither the most affordable choice nor an expensive restaurant; it's simply good Thai food cooked the right way and served according to a proper lunch schedule.

Sita is open from 11:30am to 3pm, Mondays to Fridays and its lunch menu is created from the same ingredients as the regular menu.

A Quick Look: Lunch vs. Evening at a Glance

	Sita Lunch Specials	Sita Dinner	Cherries Happy Hour
Days	Monday–Friday	Monday–Sunday	Daily
Hours	11:30am–3pm	4pm–9:30pm	Evenings, nightly
Style	Quick, weekday Thai plates	Full à la carte Thai menu	Cocktails, beer & wine deals
Best for	Solo lunches, work breaks	Groups, shared plates	After-work drinks, live DJs
Location	701 George St, Haymarket	701 George St, Haymarket	701 George St, Haymarket

More Than One Good Dish: The Full Food Menu Haymarket Sydney Has Been Missing

Lunch is merely an introduction. The full food menu in Haymarket, Sydney offered at Sita includes aromatic curries, delicious stir fries, and dishes made in the traditional style of Thai cuisine where food is served in a way to be shared from across the table rather than individually plated.

Available seven days a week, the restaurant does not slow down after serving lunch. Instead, the same attention to quality of ingredients and technique continues right through into dinner time is a statement that speaks volumes for a kitchen that knows how to do things right regardless of the time of day.

So, Is It One of the Best Pub Meals in Sydney?

That's a reasonable point, but it's also a highly competitive one. There is no shortage of pubs in Sydney. But what it hasn't had, until now, is a pub that isn't defined by its parma and chips formula. Here's a pub that has definitely not gone down that route and instead allowed itself to be defined by the skills of a chef trained in Chiang Mai. Added to the happy hours that Cherries put on nightly right next door, this really is a place that deserves to make it in Haymarket day and night.

The Takeaway

Lunch breaks should not be about having to choose among the three. Not at Sita. Thirty-five years of Thai cooking expertise condensed into one meal that is meant to be enjoyed fast and then remembered even after the plate is empty.

That alone makes the trip down George Street from Haymarket worthwhile.

Ready to try it yourself? View the full Sita menu or drop by for lunch, open Monday to Friday from 11:30am.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. What are the lunch special hours at Sita, Mountbatten Hotel? 

Sita's lunch specials run Monday to Friday, from 11:30am to 3pm, at the Mountbatten Hotel on George Street, Haymarket.

2. What kind of food is on the lunch menu? 

The lunch menu features traditional Thai dishes fragrant curries, fresh stir-fries, and shareable plates drawn from the same menu philosophy as the full dinner service.

3. Who is the chef behind the food menu at Haymarket's Mountbatten Hotel? 

Chef Pacharin "Air" Jantrakool leads the kitchen. She has over 35 years of experience in Thai cuisine, including 15 years at Sailors Thai alongside chef David Thompson.

4. Is Sita open for dinner as well as lunch? 

Yes. Sita operates seven days a week, with dinner service running from 4pm to 9:30pm, in addition to weekday lunch specials in Haymarket.

5. Where is the venue located, and is there anything else on offer? 

The bistro is located at 701 George Street, Haymarket, inside a heritage pub. The same building also houses Cherries, offering daily happy hour, cocktails, and nightly DJs.