This new bar was featured in the October issue of Australian Bartender magazine
Bench Wine Bar
Shop 4, 503-511 King St
Newtown, Sydney
Newtown – perhaps Sydney’s inner-city Bohemian heart – has all but avoided the cool wave of new bars opening up in recent months. The team behind Bench Wine Bar are not letting this stand however having recently opened their doors to a strong reception. Joining the likes of Corridor and the Moose, local identity Robyn Thomas, the venue’s founder, decided to convert an underused dining space into a bar.
Built by hand from the ground up, Thomas describes the look and feel as “industrial chic”, with builder’s lamps and angle ground steel surfaces completing the look. Thomas also owns the neighbouring Pizza Picasso and food is delivered from to Bench through a hole in the wall. Thomas wants to create, “a haven of soft jazz, mood lighting and classic cocktails, offering innovative food and a smattering of accessibly priced Australian and New Zealand wine”.
While it’s got the moniker of a wine bar, cocktails are well within the pack of tricks that bartender Robert Long can offer, but if it’s a glass of the fermented grape juice you’re craving then there are a few standouts; 2010 La Zona Arneis from King Valley and the Barossa’s voluptuous 2010 Tscharke ‘Girl Talk’ Sauvignin (this is the trickly little varietal that’s been posing as Albarino for a number of years. Brews include McLaren Vale’s resinous and hoppy Vale-Ale and the popular and sessionable Little Creatures Bright Ale