Sydney’s best food bars

by Leon Gettler

Food bars have come a long way. No longer the greasy spoon places, they are serving up terrific bar food, anything from vodka and thyme cured scotch fillet, to pickled octopus, nduja and piquillo peppers and pulled pork toastie with slaw. And the drinks served up from the bar can be fantastic.

They are now attracting creative chefs who really know how to serve it up.

Where are the best? The Daily Telegraph is a good place to start with its run down. Here’s the paper’s list.

1. Busby Bar, 55 Riley St, Woolloomooloo, 9326 9055, rileystgarage.com.au 
   
   The bar and private dining room bar and under Riley St Garage will serve everything from  aperitifs, digestives and whiskey to plates of oysters, imported cheeses and charcuterie, The late night desserts are recommended too.
   
   
2. Salts Meat Cheese 68 Bay St, Ultimo, 9690 1065, saltmeatscheese.com.au
   
   Think of New York-style burgers in southern Italian street-style food.
   
   
3. Lazy Suzie 78 Stanley St, Darlinghurst, 7901 0396
   
   A Malaysian hawker-style street food restaurant and bar in Stanley St, Darlinghurst. There you can get bar dishes such as “pie tee’, pastry cups filled with braised shitake, yam bean, carrot and mud crab or fried chicken wings. They also serve up  belacan, with citrussy calamansi dipping sauce. And then there are the Asian-inspired mocktails and cocktails.
   
   
4. Hunter Gatherer Greenwood Plaza Rooftop, 36 Blue St, North Sydney, 9964 9766
   
   The latest bar and eatery bought to you by the owners of The Corner House in Bondi and Panama House with head chef Paul “Mick” Micklewright offering a rotating menu that include Bannock-burn free-range chicken with olives, lemon, confit garlic, thyme and verjus as mains and lighter dishes such as spiced eggplant, haloumi and tomato salad with parsley and chickpeas or roast bone marrow served with onion jam and a toasted baguette.
   And for those who want something regional, there’s plenty on offer too.
   
   
5. Rhonda’s Terrigal 3-5 Kurrawyba Ave, Terrigal, 4385 3100
   
   A place where you can get everything from La Boqueria chorizo with eschallot and Pedro Ximenez sherry reduction to saganaki, ouzo flambe king prawns with tomato, chilli and fetta. Or if you want, there’s woodfired, paprika-rubbed grain-fed beef tenderloin with polenta cubes and salsa verde con aguacate.
   
   
6. Balcony Bar & Oyster Co, Byron Bay Cnr of Lawson and Johnson streets, Byron Bay, 6680 9666, balcony.com.au
   
   Bought to you by chef Sean Connolly, from The Morrion in George St to team and hotelier Fraser Short. Specialties of the house include chicken lollipops with chilli and molasses dip, crab and lettuce tacos, peel ‘n’ eat Yamba prawns with tomato blush mayonnaise and a raw plate of tuna, kingfish, petuna ocean trout, organic soy, wasabi.

5^th April 2016