Terminus Hotel

The Terminus Hotel sat empty for 33 years before David Mathlin and Binu Katari reopened it in 2018. The 1841 building traded first as the Pyrmont Hotel, through a run of name changes, before settling on the Terminus around 1900. The 18-month restoration with Luchetti Krelle and heritage architect Garry Stanley kept the emerald-green tiles, pressed-metal ceiling, decorative archway and vine-dappled sandstone courtyard. Head chef Bektas Ozcan, formerly of Efendy and Chiswick, runs a Mediterranean-Turkish kitchen — 24-hour slow-roasted lamb shoulder, sumac-cured calamari, Turkish burek. Terminus Lager is the house beer. Upstairs, Vera's is the cocktail lounge.

Dogs are welcome in the courtyard. After three decades of silence, it's the kind of Pyrmont restoration where dogs are part of the reopening.