The old Rambutan site on Oxford Street has come alive again. And, just as in its previous incarnation, good food goes hand in hand with great drinking at Kaya Sydney. “It’s loosely based on an izakaya, which is a Japanese bar that serves good food,” said owner Tim Lackey.
Month: December 2012
Fresh from his successful launch of The Morrison, Fraser Short is casting his eye towards Sydney’s eastern suburbs with the recent purchase of the Watsons Bay Hotel.
With just two years bartending under her belt, Katherine placed an amazing third in the Bartender of the Year competition this year. Find out more about her meteoric rise and her other interests, or catch her at the Bowery.
The new bar from Tim Phillips, Adi Ruiz, and Robb Sloan, Bulletin Place, is taking shape. A small, intimate 50-seat number, the boys are keen totake that approach to their drinks too, doing away with a traditional back bar.
Butter in a cocktail you say? Well yeah. You’ve likely had a whole raw egg in a flip, tried a ‘fat washed’ spirit before or even warmed your cockles with a Hot Buttered Rum. Butter in a cocktails? It ain’t no thing – though it can take some experimentation to perfect.
David Chang, legendary chef behind New York’s celebrated Momofuku Noodle Bar and Sydney’s own three hat restaurant Momofuku Seiobo was recently in Sydney for the launch of The Bulleit Speak Easy Series and Bulleit rye. We got to have a chat with him about Americana, letting chefs serve customers, bourbon and who the hell would want to drink pickle juice.
With Sydney’s CBD basements slowly fllling up it was only a matter of time before bar owners started to look up, as the team at Keystone have now done. “It’s called the Rook,” said group director Paul Schulte, “it means a playful bird that hangs out up high.”
In 1682, rum was big business in the American colonies. So much so that, when faced with the imminent arrival of a “hundred or more” heretic Quakers, Puritan clergyman Cotton Mather thought he could sell them for rum. “Much spoil can be made by selling the whole lot to Barbadoes [sic],” he wrote, “where slaves fetch good prices in rum and sugar”. Such was the appeal of rum – the New England colonists were crazy for it.
Sydney’s northern CBD is witnessing a bibulous revival right now. Venues like the Morrison, Palmer & Co, and now, Grain Bar, have dragged the north stretch of George Street into the modern drinking world.
Happy Repeal Day! Toast the occasion with this classic, the Scofflaw, and be thankful the bars are open tonight.
Old Hawkie was the key attraction at the opening of this new Balmain bar on the site of the old trades and labourers hall from the 1890’s. Indeed the bar takes it cues from Balmain’s long history with the Labor party, and the images of Labor leaders of the past adorn the ceiling.
Aromatic bitters: it is a trickier category for tastings than most, and requires a little more experience as bartender than do other drinks categories. Just as well we were at the Hazy Rose, in Darlinghurst. We sourced a surprise for this the issue, with the Hazy Rose crew among the first bartenders in Australia to get their hands on the Dale DeGroff Pimento Bitters.