Newtown & the Inner West
Redfern shelters a cluster of offbeat hangouts for misfits, creatives, queers and subcultural scallywags, and the Tit is one of the best. A sexy, super…
Must-see nightlife in Sydney
Surry Hills & Darlinghurst
With no sign or street number on the door and entry via a shady back lane (look for the white door before Bikram Yoga on Foley St), this subterranean…
Surry Hills & Darlinghurst
Take the door marked 'restrooms' at the back of the main bar at the Kirketon Hotel and enter this sophisticated, black-walled speakeasy, where a team of…
Newtown & the Inner West
With a friendly, 30-plus local crowd, this is an excellent bar with street-side seating, local live music and a relaxing backyard area if you don't fancy…
Sydney
There's a kick to Paddington's weekend nightlife, and this bar-restaurant is a key player. Drinks and service are excellent, while chickens spinning on…
City Centre & Haymarket
Credited with boosting energy, detoxifying, and assisting concentration, Matcha‑ya’s bright-green matcha powder is sourced direct from Japan. But the…
Newtown & the Inner West
The art deco Imperial is legendary as the starting point for The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. This old, late-opening LGBTIQ+ favourite…
Newtown & the Inner West
This historic corner pub has had a smart makeover and is all exposed brick and hanging garden these days, but the place still has plenty of old-time charm…
Sydney
This spacious art deco pub is casual and unpretentious, and a fine place to sink a few craft beers, sip some Australian wines or join in nightly events…
Newtown & the Inner West
You know you're in Alexandria when you're sitting in the middle of an industrial estate, staring at a tall corrugated metal wall, but there are plants and…
Newtown & the Inner West
This late opener is famous for its Wednesdays with Birdcage, one of Sydney's key lesbian nights. Over the weekend it features live music and DJs taking up…
Newtown & the Inner West
Band posters and paper lanterns decorate the black walls of this groovy little bar. Expect mellow bluesy/country/rocky sounds and cocktails based around…
Sydney
This enormous, rambling, rowdy complex packs in the backpackers for live music, open-mic nights, comedy and big-screen sports in the beaut beer garden,…
Surry Hills & Darlinghurst
All Sydney's small bars seem to be dark, candlelit speakeasies with a dash of gangster chic, so it's refreshing to find this light, bright cocktail spot…
Newtown & the Inner West
The latest from the team behind Earl's Juke Joint, this is another nondescript facade that opens into a fantasy world you wouldn’t guess from the street…
Darling Harbour & Pyrmont
Standing like a guardian of tradition at the entrance to Pyrmont, this solid centenarian pub is a bastion of no-frills Sydney drinking culture. With an…
City Centre & Haymarket
Built for a staggering £32,000 in 1893 as part of the Adams Hotel on Pitt St, this ornate underground bar is one of the best places in town for putting on…
Surry Hills & Darlinghurst
Once a small corner pub, until it expanded into two neighbouring houses, the Dolphin's striking designer makeover means it deliberately looks like the…
Sydney
This classic old Australian pub once stood virtually alone, wide verandah providing the shade for contemplating another slow-paced north-of-the-harbour…
Darling Harbour & Pyrmont
Roomy industrial decor, book-lined walls, killer cocktails (the espresso martini is legendary) and great deals at happy hour (4pm to 7pm Tuesday to Friday…
Sydney
This dingy, small, graffiti-strewn bar deliberately plays up its downbeat location at a corner of a multistorey carpark. The drinks, however, are very…
Manly
This two-level bar-restaurant is an atmospheric spot for a great night-time cocktail – if you can read the menu in the low-lit speakeasy ambience. Sweet…
Darling Harbour & Pyrmont
Welcome to the pleasuredome: a three-level, 2100-capacity timber-and-glass ‘prow’ that’s home to a dance floor, countless bars, outdoor balconies and…
Newtown & the Inner West
The Bank didn't always sport the artful heritage-wood look that it has now, but it has consistently been a Newtown classic in its central railway-side…
Surry Hills & Darlinghurst
Something of a locals' lounge room, the Darlo’s triangular retro space is a magnet for urban bohemians, fluoro-clad ditch diggers and architects with a…
Newtown & the Inner West
A curious semi-underground layout, offbeat decor and an appealingly louche ambience have put this spot firmly on many Inner Westies' favourites list. DJs…
Surry Hills & Darlinghurst
Coffee is a serious business in Sydney, and this corridor's dark industrial decor and cell-block lighting cage combines with cartoon-noir wall…
Surry Hills & Darlinghurst
Sardined into a Darlinghurst terrace, this cute wine bar offers a small but well-curated selection of beverages, with punchy rosemary negroni as the house…
Kings Cross & Potts Point
Once the dank domain of burly sailors and salty ne’er-do-wells, the Tilbury now sparkles. An upmarket crowd of Potts Pointers and yachties populate the…
Surry Hills & Darlinghurst
A stalwart of the Oxford St LGBTIQ+ strip, Stonewall has three levels of bars and dance floors. Cabaret, karaoke and quiz nights spice things up; there's…
City Centre & Haymarket
A self-consciously hip member of Sydney's speakeasy brigade, this 'legitimate importer of bracing tonics and fortifying liquid' attracts a cashed-up,…
City Centre & Haymarket
The cocktails at this 47th-floor revolving bar aren't cheap, but they're still substantially cheaper than admission to Sydney Tower – and it's…
Circular Quay & The Rocks
This historic and invigorated Millers Point pub preserves its tea-coloured tiles, faded brick and nostalgia-tinted downstairs bar. On top of the venerable…
Newtown & the Inner West
What Chippendale does best is a real feeling of neighbourhood despite its proximity to central Sydney. This backstreet pub takes food and drink seriously…
Surry Hills & Darlinghurst
Beautifully situated in the leafy grounds of a historic water reservoir, behind the Pieno restaurant, this oasis serves dozens of wines by the glass to…
Newtown & the Inner West
There's something rather magical about the baroque, Italianate courtyard out the back of this pub, a great venue on a sunny afternoon or for candlelit…
City Centre & Haymarket
Billing itself as a 'retrosexual haven of cosmopolitan kitsch and faded granny glamour', Grandma's hits the mark. A stag's head greets you on the stairs…
Kings Cross & Potts Point
With origami in mind rather than the construction that is so rapidly gentrifying the Cross, Crane is a likeably different creature. The visual highlight…
Newtown & the Inner West
Hidden away by the bulk of the Broadway shopping centre, this small microbrewery has hanging tankards and the industrial paraphernalia of kettle, mash tun…
City Centre & Haymarket
Seemingly designed for one-time grungsters turned stockbrokers, this pleasant covered rooftop bar – it gains substantially when they retract the roof on…
