Last October we brought you the news that Perth’s Andy Freeman — award winning operator of Luxe Bar and member of this year’s Top 50 Most Influential List — was working on a new bar for Perth’s CBD, called Varnish on King. Well, they’ve now thrown open the doors and we thought we’d take a look at what’s on offer.
Venues
Venues
It looks like this is the month when the rum switch got flicked! From the team that brought you such bars as Lily Blacks and Mr Wow’s Emporium (see our December issue on that), comes a new bar that draws on all things Cuba, Los Barbudos…
It’s not often that tapas bars wholly embrace the San Sebastian style — you might get smaller portions, but the price rarely dips as small as what’s on your plate.
Prahran’s High Street has seen some drastic changes in the rebuild and refit of the Prahran Hotel. Owners Matt and Andy Mullins, Tom Birch, and Doug Maskiell of the Sand Hill Road Hospitality Group are behind the resurrection of the hotel, the centrepiece of which is the erection of a two storey high series of concrete cylinders.
“We trade as a third waver café by day and a bar by night,” said Dax Byrne (ex theloft, Bathers Pavillion), one of the owners of this new Melbourne bar and café. Third wave coffee is getting in to more and more coffee joints — that is, going beyond the espresso thing and into pourover coffee, filter coffees and all that. They take an approach to coffee that seeks to be only a step removed from the growers — an approach that we think will increasingly be applied by bars with respect to the spirits they stock.
Miss Peaches dives into the deep south for their delicious take on drinking food. There’s some talented bartenders on board in the space above the Hotel Marlborough in the increasingly bar-ified Newtown.
Ben Walsh has taken on a 510 square metre patch of dirt on Noosa’s main drag, Hastings Street. Miss Moneypenny’s is aiming to bring “something that is very different to what’s on offer in Noosa,” said Walsh.
Has a dish ever gained so celebrated a status so quickly? And has said dish been a burger? Sydney’s boozing and drinking set is known for being fickle; on to the next trend — be it a drink or burger — quicker than you can type 140 characters. But these are great…
Brought to you by owners Aaron Whitney and Andy Emans (of Melbourne’s Murmur fame), the delightfully hipster-looking menu lists its beer sections as “A little bit of Punch”, “Cidery Goodness”, “Drink it all Night”, and “The only light beer”. They even have a section devoted to longnecks, called “Just a couple”. Indeed.
The topless waitresses will be covering up, but the pole will stay. Influential Sydney pub group Drink & Dine are taking on the Oxford Tavern in Petersham.
Edison has definitely got the memo when it comes to good food to accompany your drinking — even though they’re all the way “up there” at Mona Vale on Sydney’s northern beaches. So while you’re sipping on a cocktail — you could take a dose of Penicillin, perhaps…
When the Newtown Hotel swung its doors open, after a major nine month renovation by new owners the Keystone Group, Newtown was just hitting its stride again as an entertaining, delicious destination.