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…
Tag: bars
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.
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.
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.
If you’ve been to Balmain recently, you’ll know that the blue collar crowd that once filled the terraced streets is merely a memory. This ritzy postcode with its sweeping city views is more ristretto than Nescafe but some of the vestiges of its proud working class roots are still on show. Mostly with its historic pubs (of which there are many!) and now, thanks to the Riversdale Group (the fellas behind Lo-Fi in Darlinghurst and more recently The Marlborough in Newtown), with a small bar called The Workers on Darling Street.
It feels as those every other week we’re writing about a new bar opening up in the heart of Sydney’s CBD. The latest bar to hit the CBD — The Lobo Plantation —promises plenty of good eats and most importantly, rum.
“Julius Lobo was a sugar baron who owned about 17 or 19 sugar mills in Cuba in the early 1900s,” said Jared Merlino (ex-Ivy Pool Club), one of the owners of the new venture. “So he sort of defined that era in Cuba when Americans were coming down during Prohibition. Then it came to an end when the revolution came through and kicked him off the island,” he said.
A touch of Americana has come to Adelaide in the guise of Jack Ruby. Not the putz who assassinated the guy who assassinated JFK — but a bar that takes it’s cues from the great culture of diner food in the States, from New Orleans to the Midwest, Texas and California.
Having worked his way around some of Perth’s best bars, this up and coming bartender is about to launch into the world of bar ownership for the very first time. Plans are well underway for his new bar, Choo Choo’s, to swing open the doors, so we though it was the right time to ask him a few questions about where he’s been and what he’s done so far.
Why someone hasn’t come up with this sooner is beyond us. Sure you could go out, have a cocktail, nibble on some entrees, get some mains and share a bottle of wine before moving onto the cheese plate — but why bother? Life is short, screw dessert; get me some cheese and booze.
Mike Enright is to open a new bar, called The Barber Shop, on York Street in Sydney’s CBD. Opening in the early July it’s a collaboration between Enright, Julian Train and Chris Mills, and will feature a classic barber shop with a bar out back.