Summer loving: Sydney turns up the heat with food, art and culture

Sure, it's a flashy global city, and any time of year offers it's own pleasures. But nothing compares to summer.

It's when thousands flock to the water to enjoy the world's most spectacular harbour and the city's famed beaches.

However, Sydney is always evolving and tempting visitors with new experiences. Here's five new highlights this summer.

You would struggle to find another art gallery in the world with a more stunning location.

For visitors stepping off a cruise ship, the Museum of Contemporary Art's sandstone-clad art deco building is among their first ports of call. It's a tranquil sanctuary among the buzz of Circular Quay.

This summer, the MCA is home to Julie Mehretu's invoking exhibition A Transcore of the Radical Imaginatory.

It's the first time Australian audiences have had the opportunity to view the Ethiopian-American artist's works that were created from deconstructing photographs through her lens of abstraction.

The result is an eclectic mix of street graffiti, Chinese ink painting, Japanese manga and Cubism.

Among Mehretu's 36 paintings from her experimental 2018-2024 period is the arresting Black Monolith. It began as photographs from a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville before it was warped and re-imagined in a chaotic collage of colour and shapes.

The historic Rocks precinct is often unfairly maligned as a tourist trap. There's plenty of tacky Australian merchandise and overpriced food along its atmospheric streets.

However, you won't find that at the reasonably priced Shuk.

Shuk has been a Bondi breakfast institution for many years and has recently expanded its reach.

Fluffy croissants and jam doughnuts lure you in from the street. At first glance, Shuk is a small and busy café before it opens into a quaint courtyard backing onto The Rocks' historic Nurses Walk.

Shuk brings together a mix of Israeli, Argentinian, and Mediterranean influences.

The most popular dish is the shakshuka. The beautifully rich and spiced tomato blends perfectly with the baked egg and optional chorizo or bacon.

Shuk's impressively long take on smashed avocado and Banacai - homemade toasted banana bread and acai, yoghurt, and granola - is also amazing.

Stepping through the Inti Punku (sun gate) in the final stretch of the Inca Trail to look down on Machu Picchu rates highly on many travellers' to-do lists.

But for those without the time and money to jet off to Peru, this summer the Australian Museum is providing a compelling introduction to the South American nation's rich history.

The Australian-first Machu Picchu and The Golden Empires of Peru tells the 3000-year story of the Chavin, Moche, Chimu, Nazca, Lambayeque, and Inca civilisations and their myths and ideologies before Spanish settlement.

Expect everything from stories of rebirth to human sacrifice.

The collection is on loan from Museo Larco in Lima, and features the stunning gold Chimu imperial burial regalia (dated 1100-1470) and Mochica Sacrifice Ceremony pottery vessel (AD 1-800), which is often described as the Inca's Rosetta Stone.

These days, visitors expect more from museums than artefacts, and that's delivered here as well, through the virtual reality tour of Machu Picchu.

With a VR headset and moving seat, you soar like an Andean condor with an Inca god over the UNESCO World Heritage-listed site.

Once your mind has had its fill of Inca culture, Callao is the perfect way to expand your tastebuds to Peruvian delicacies.

The Japanese-Peruvian restaurant is located in the heart of the uber-modern Barangaroo precinct, a stone's throw from Crown Towers.

Anybody that's visited Peru or Chile knows the South American neighbours are passionate about claiming ownership of the famed pisco sour.

I'm not declaring a winner, but Callao does an impressive pisco sour.

Ceviche (raw fish cooked in citrus juice) is arguably Peru's most famous dish, and there are plenty of delightful versions on the menu.

The scallop tiradito with avocado puree, salted green grape, almond, and coriander is fresh and vibrant, while the roasted cauliflower, served with a white sauce, saikyo miso and spiced pumpkin seed, is undoubtedly the tastiest makeover of the traditionally bland vegetable that I've experienced.

More than 130 events, 22 world premieres, 24 Australian exclusives, and 50 free events across January. The 49^th Sydney Festival is as impressive as it is ambitious.

"The hedonism and larrikinism of this city is the reason people love Sydney," festival director Olivia Ansell says.

Alongside international music star Rufus Wainwright and Australian singer Katie Noonan performing Jeff Buckley's Grace, there are some truly Sydney stories.

That includes the world premiere of the true crime play, A Model Murder, about the 1954 trial of Shirley Beiger, who shot her gangster boyfriend outside a Kings Cross nightclub.

The trial at Darlinghurst Courthouse was a major media event and returns to the same venue from January 4 to 19 with the audience sitting in the famed "peanut gallery."