Balcony Bar – Sydney CBD
The folks on Erskine Street sure take the naming of their bars literally. When Sydney’s first small bar (according to the new licensing laws) opened up there they called it Small Bar and now that a new bar has opened up next door with its most obvious quality being the two balconies overlooking the freeway and Erskine Street, they called it Balcony Bar.
Well, you can never accuse them of being misleading.
Even though Balcony Bar is run by different people to Small Bar it does have a similar feel, both in terms of layout and decor. There’s wooden floors, sofas, a cosy and yet pared-back vibe (the most outrageous element is the gold chandelier that looks like it came from a sci fi film), and when I’m there funk music is playing while the crowd is a mix of suits as well as some who look like they’re itching to get back to Newtown.
I go there on a Thursday night with a friend of mine who I’ve previously referred to as being like Dorothy Parker without the suicidal tendencies. I’d like to call her DP for short, but that might conjure up unfortunate sexual connotations, so from now on I’ll call her Dorothy. Or Dot.
Anyway, Dot and I find out there’s a $10 mojito special on Thursdays (Update: although I could have sworn I went on a Thursday, I have been told that it may delusional as their mojito special only runs on Wednesdays. In my defence, if you drink for a living then your memory is bound to be flawed), so we order two of them and are pleasantly surprised – in fact, they’re possibly the best mojitos you can get in this city for $10 each, and I’m a mojito snob. Made with good white rum, freshly muddled limes and mint, the mojitos are served in tall glasses and yet don’t have too much soda water in them (which is my usual complaint with cheap mojitos that are served in long rather than short glasses).
I then order an Old Fashioned cocktail while Dot grabs the Cadillac Margarita as well as some meatballs and tempura zucchini flowers – and while the cocktails are fantastic the food is a little disappointing.
The Old Fashioned (which is the favoured drink of Mad Men’s Don Draper) hits home: Woodford Reserve bourbon, sugar, bitters and cherry juice with a flared orange and a maraschino cherry that Dot snatches from my glass. I might look more like Hoggle from Labyrinth than the dapper Draper, but I do appreciate his drink. If you like your cocktails to taste more like spirits than fruit juice then this is for you.
The Cadillac Margarita differs from the usual margaritas by doubling down on the orange liqueurs: in addition to tequila and lime juice it has both Cointreau and Grand Marnier. I prefer less orange flavours in my margaritas but this is still a great drink.
And then we come to the food.
The meatballs with tomato chutney are tasty – but they’re also tiny and we only get four or five of them, making us feel a little short changed after $12. Ok, $12 isn’t exactly a lot, but the meal doesn’t look like much when it’s served up, even for tapas. The zucchini flowers stuffed with bocconcini, parmesan, pea puree and lemon are more disappointing: we only get two for $12 and they seem to be filled with more zucchini than bocconcini (and not all words that end in “ini” are equal, my friends). In fact, we struggle to taste any of the ingredients that appear in its menu description and neither Dot nor myself are all that thrilled.
The wine list, however, is good – after the cocktails we order a bottle of the Peter Lehmann riesling, which I recommend, followed by some Mt Eyre Shiraz. Furthermore, the service is great: from the time we entered to when we left, all the staff members we came in contact with were far more friendly than the Sydney norm. As such, while I’m too cheap to order food here again, I’ll definitely be back for the cocktails and the service.
Now it’s your turn – how do you rate this bar?
(6 votes, average: 2.50 out of 5)
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Balcony Bar, 46 Erskine Street, Sydney. Open Monday to Friday from 10am till midnight. On Saturday it’s open for private functions. See the Balcony Bar website for more information.
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First things first – mojiots are not $10 on a Thursday night. Having read the barzine review I turn up on a Thursday night and ask the bar tender whether it is $10 mojitos only to be informed that Wednesday night is $10 mojito night instead.
Secondly –do NOT let them seat you on a balcony. Immediately upon entry we are waylaid, told there are more seats upstairs then asked if we would like to sit on a balcony. Big mistake. Huge mistake. We are ushered onto a tiny balcony, the floor tilts at an alarming angle, the table is directly under an air conditioner, which increased the temperature another 10 degrees and drips. The bartender then wanders over and tells us, the balcony door needs to be shut as it is letting the air-conditioning out. The last cool breeze and the faint strains of music and bar life close with the door. We are three flights out, isolated, under a hot dripping air-conditioning.
Perhaps if we had been seated inside….BAD BAD BAD, very very BAD
Dear Lah: My apologies if the mojito special is on Wednesdays rather than Thursdays. I have no excuse other than a poor memory, a bad concept of time, and that my cat constantly wakes me up during the night, thus depriving me of much needed sleep, and … actually, I have no excuse.
I’m clutching at straws here.