The area
Everything hand-picked in CBD — directory rooms and related guides.
A fourth-floor hideaway on Clarence St with a plant-filled room and a rooftop terrace. Take the lift, find a booth, and settle in — walk-ins always welcome, bookings capped at eight.
Down the stairs and through the door: low light, blues on the speakers and one of the world's great whisky back bars. No bookings — walk in seven days, order pretzels, ask the staff for a story.
Behind the silver door of a working barber shop on York St sits a bar holding more than 700 gins. Order a martini, or take a flight of four and travel the world in small serves.
A laneway cocktail bar off Kent St with a dark, theatrical streak — absinthe flights, live music nights and a happy hour that runs 4-6pm every day.
An old-world Italian cocktail bar and steakhouse beneath the CBD. Negronis and amaro at the wood-panelled bar, one cut of steak in the dining room, and phones stay in your pocket.
In Sydney's CBD, finding the door is half the point: take a fourth-floor lift, head down basement stairs or slip behind a barber shop's silver door. Old Mate's Place, The Baxter Inn, The Barber Shop and Papa Gede's Bar turn an evening around Clarence, York and Kent streets into a small discovery trail. For the final stop, head north to The Rocks, where Tailor Room sits inside the historic Argyle Stores.
