The best suburban pubs are generally the kind of places where you know the schnitzel is reliable, the beer is cold, and nobody’s judging you for showing up in trackies on a Sunday.
However, Homebush’s Horse & Jockey Hotel has entered the chat with a much bigger idea: what if your neighbourhood pub became a dumpling destination? The plot twist: These dumplings are very, very good ones.
The woman behind this glorious pivot is chef Kim Udomdj – known to basically all of Sydney’s dumpling lovers as Missy K – and if that name rings a bell, it’s because she spent over three decades building a cult following at her much-loved Paddington restaurant, where her handmade dumplings and Peking duck spring rolls had people crossing suburbs for a booking. Since then she’s kept busy with Burger K, Bowl & Blend on the Gold Coast, and a very successful residency at Watsons Bay Hotel. Now she’s found a permanent home in, of all places, a heritage pub on Parramatta Road that’s been serving Homebush since 1941. Nobody saw this one coming, and honestly, that’s the fun of it.
The dumplings, though. Let’s talk about the dumplings.
Missy K has rolled out nine handmade varieties, folded fresh in-house daily, and she’s taken the concept of “pub comfort food” extremely literally – because these aren’t your standard pork and chive numbers (although don’t worry, those are there too). We’re talking Pork & Apple Cider, Beef & Stout, Lamb & Leek, Pork & Garlic Chive, and a very fancy Wild Mushroom, Truffle & Thyme – basically a Sunday roast that decided to have a very glamorous identity crisis and become a dumpling instead. It’s the kind of menu development that makes you wonder why nobody thought of “beer-battered flavours, but folded” sooner.
But the dumplings are just the opening act. The rest of the menu goes deep into pan-Asian territory with signature Dan Dan noodles, a Mala dry pot wok fry that means business, crab Rangoon, and Mie Goreng noodles — all while the Horse & Jockey holds firm on its pub classics, because nobody’s cancelling the schnitzels or The Boss Burger around here. It’s less a menu overhaul and more a very tasty diplomatic merger.
For the time-poor and lunch-break-limited, there’s also a new Express Lunch, running Monday to Friday from 11am–3pm – because Missy K clearly understands that not everyone can commit to a three-course dumpling odyssey on a Tuesday. Start with handmade pork dumplings (three for $8, six for $15), then pick from a chicken katsu bowl, Dan Dan noodles, or Pad See Ew, with mains from just $21. Somewhere, someone’s boss is wondering why lunch is suddenly taking an extra 15 minutes.
For Missy K, it’s not just about the food – it’s about the philosophy behind it. “Food has always been about bringing people together,” she says, tracing it back to learning to cook alongside family growing up in Thailand. It’s the kind of sentiment that could sound like a menu blurb cliche, except when you’ve spent three decades proving it by cooking for international students in your own home and building restaurants people genuinely fall in love with, you’ve earned the right to say it.
So yes – Homebush’s beloved local pub is still exactly that: a great spot for a cold beer and a feed with your mates. It’s just that now, that feed might come folded, hand-rolled, and stuffed with truffle and thyme, which honestly feels like exactly the kind of unexpected glow-up 2026 needed.
Horse & Jockey Hotel 70 Parramatta Rd, Homebush NSW 2140 Mon–Thurs: 11am–3pm / 5pm–9pm | Fri–Sat: 11am–9:30pm | Sun: 11am–9pm @horseandjockeyhomebush | @missykfood
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