The ground floor is the main drinking den, filled with paintings and an after-work CBD crowd downing beers and wines, but it’s the Dome lounge on the first floor that impresses me – or, more specifically, some of the cocktails on offer there.

To be honest, I wasn’t expecting much and so when the barman suggested a Peruvian pisco sour (which is yet to go on the menu, but I’ve been told it will be soon), I was expecting the same disappointment I usually have when ordering this South American drink that hails from Chile and Peru.

Instead, however, I’m served a fantastic drink. The pisco sour is traditionally made with pisco, a South American spirit made from grapes, lemon juice, sugar and egg whites, but this version uses a dark Peruvian plum brandy instead as well as gomme syrup and a few drops of bitters splashed onto the foam. The result is spicy and has a great balance of sweetness and sourness to it. For $12, which is the price of all the cocktails here, it’s also great value.

The Dome Lounge is tucked away at one end of the first floor next to the restaurant. The building is heritage listed and has some grand features, including the dome in the middle of the high ceiling (hence the bar’s name) as well as a glass tiled floor near the restaurant. The decor, meanwhile, is colourful, from the walls covered with paintings right down to the brightly-coloured armchairs.

The crowd tonight is largely young, with a lot of female office types, and the soundsystem is playing folk and world music.

My dining companion sticks to her peach bellini (which is good as far as bellinis go, although I’ve never been a fan myself) while I then order the Vesper martini and some tapas.

Both the dips and the lamb and fennel meatballs (served with tzatziki) are good, but it’s the spinach and cheese empadillas that stand out – nice, fresh spinach and cheese piling out of flaky pastry.

The Vesper martini, made with Bombay gin, belvedere vodka and lillet blanc, is almost as good as the Pisco sour. It’s so smooth you can barely taste the alcohol in it and is served stirred rather than shaken (even though it’s named after a martini that James Bond invented in Ian Fleming’s Casino Royale).

Those after an even less alcoholic-tasting drink, however, might prefer the vanilla rhubarb sour, which tastes like it sounds – strong flavours of rhubarb, vanilla and sour mix (it’s made with Absolut vanilla vodka, licor 43 and rhubarb). However, if I do come back to the Arthouse then it would definitely for the Pisco Sour – and, being a dirty old perve, perhaps Dr Sketchy’s.

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Arthouse, 275 Pitt Street, Sydney. See the Arthouse website or phone 9284 1200.

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However, you don’t go to The Clare for the service. Instead, the attraction lies it being one of the few Sydney bars that plays cool indie and rock music, has old retro sofas and armchairs, artworks (some of which are actually decent) on the walls, a pinball and Street Fighter machine, a pool table, gig posters lining the bar counter, and an overall vibe that is dim and cool and bohemian in an art student/I-don’t-give-a-crap kind of way that just shies short of pretension. In other words, instead of being shiny and new and sterile, this has a comfortable, lived-in feel about it.

Smokers can retire to the graffiti-strewn back alley (complete with beer kegs that serve as seats), and other features of interest include an old-fashioned (and broken) weighing machine lurking near the antiquated men’s bathroom, a pokie room that’s largely out of sight and out of mind for most punters, as well as some art deco features from the pub’s past (this is especially noticeable with the ceiling: if you look up, you’ll see the oval arc in the middle of the room that indicates the pub used to have one of those great curved middle bars designed for the six o’clock swill).

As for the sustenance on offer: well, I’d suggest sticking to the beers (a decent range is on tap) and spirits, and the food options are limited to pies as well as a vending machine with crisps and chocolate.

The Clare might not win any design or cocktail awards but if you just want a casual place to hang out and don’t care if the sofas lack adequate ergonomic back support, this might be the pub for you.

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The Clare, 20 Broadway, Ultimo (opposite UTS). Phone 9211 2839.

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What I loved was the simplicity. He’d get a tumbler glass, fill it with a whole lime that was quartered, add sugar and mint and then muddle them thoroughly until they became pulp, fill the glass with crushed ice (which was crushed by him wrapping the ice in cloth and pounding it with his muddling stick) and then pour rum freely until the glass was full. Then he’d slap the glass into a shaker, shake, and pour everything back into the glass.

The result was perfect in my eyes but this isn’t the traditional mojito recipe. Hailing from Cuba, mojitos are traditionally served in tall glasses, served with soda water (some claim the soda should be added before the rum, others say after the rum), and have less lime in them (yet again recipes vary – it’s common for some people to only use lime juice rather than muddled limes). The ice is usually not crushed but the mint leaves (with the stalks left on to add flavour) are – but only enough to release flavour so that the leaves don’t get torn to smithereens. As for sugar: some use syrup, others go for powdered or granular (some claim that the granular sugar helps act as an abrasive to help release the mint’s goodness during muddling). Lastly, the Cuban mojito is stirred gently rather than shaken.

Personally, I still prefer the short, soda-water-free version I had in Barcelona (although I like the idea of muddling the lime quarters first until they become pulp, then adding the sugar and mint and gently muddling again so the leaves don’t fall apart). Even though I’ve had good traditional mojitos made with soda water, I find that bars often put too much soda water in them (and I don’t think the soda water should be added to the top) which detracts from the full hit of the lime.

Incidentally, the Barcelona-style mojito I mentioned above is closer to Brazil’s caipirinha in terms of how it’s made. The main differences are that the caipirinha doesn’t have the mint and uses cachaca (a Brazilian sugar cane spirit similar to rum but, in my opinion, a lot rougher – although this depends upon the brand you use) as the spirit.

You then have the caipiroska, which is made with vodka instead of cachaca. Yet despite having many caipiroskas and caipirinhas, including in Brazil, I’ve got to say my heart still belongs to my bastardized Barcelona mojito. Then again, I’m biased – just the smell of freshly cut lime triggers a sense memory that takes me instantly back to that tiny hole-in-a-wall bar where my love affair not just with mojitos but cocktails in general had begun.

If you have any mojito tips or experiences then feel free to leave a comment below:

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It’s a Saturday night and I’m here with the Boxing Belle, a friend whose fists are as deadly as her looks. The bar is right near the street entrance and when we ask for the drinks menu we see that there are just two paragraphs for cocktails. The first says that you can mix your own cocktails and lists some spirits and a range of ingredients (mainly fruity), and the second simply says Classics. Ok, maybe it’s more of a word than a paragraph.

Seeing fresh mint leaves and limes on the counter we decide to order mojitos from a statuesque blonde who turns out to be the owner and she makes them exactly the way I like them: the limes are muddled thoroughly and are served in short glasses, so the rum isn’t diluted by soda water. At $13 each, they’re also good value for money.

We head upstairs where there’s an outside deck with a few flowers and wooden paneling – as far as smoking areas go, it’s better than average – but it’s the top level that makes this bar interesting to me. With the aforementioned chesterfields (to me, a couple of chesterfields help make a bar), fireplace and the odd piece of art, this is a great alternative to the usual Newtown haunts.

We find ourselves sitting near a couple who volunteer that the scampi here is excellent, but we opt for the mezze plate, which has artichokes, marinated mushrooms, stuffed tomatoes, chorizo and dips. I’m not a huge fan of antipasto – I order it because I don’t want to get hit by the Boxing Belle, who insists – but the dips are great.

We then order a round of gin martinis, which would be well made if they were served chilled rather than just cold (this might make me sound like a snob, but a martini has to be chilled to taste good).

Martinis aside, however, this is still my favourite new bar in Newtown. The service is fantastic, they have a great range of bottled beers (including Fat Yak and Little Creatures) and the music (which ranges from hip hop to brit pop while I’m there) adds to the atmosphere without being too loud. In short, I’ll definitely be going back.

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Corridor, 153a King Street, Newtown. Open every day. See the Corridor Facebook page for more information.

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Tucked away at the back of the Kirketon, there’s no sign outside that a bar exists: in fact, even when you enter the building you’d have no idea a speakeasy-style bar lies in the back, so I’m assuming Eau-de-Vie will be relying on word of mouth.

I’m here on a Friday night after a date has gone sour, so I’m hoping a few cocktails might perk me up. As such I order the Highlander sazerac, which unlike traditional sazeracs doesn’t have any bitters, rye whiskey or absinthe, but is instead made with Johnny Walker Black that’s infused with raisins and cloves (the bottle is filled more than half way with raisins), pastis, Coings (a French liqueur made from quince) and a dash of sugar.

The result is beautiful and feels as soothing as a sazerac should – in fact, it’s slightly sweeter and gentler to drink than a standard sazerac while the raisin flavour gives it a unique note.

Talking of notes, the background jazz here is quiet and moody, which suits the darker décor – there are red candles, an art deco lamp, a grandfather clock, an olde worlde globe and a banquette at the back that you can imagine gentlemen in double breasted suits and fedoras sitting on (although in reality two young women are currently sitting on it instead).

But enough with the whimsy.

I follow up the sazerac by ordering the Crusta Reserva, another interpretation of a classic that’s made with Pampero rum (crustas are usually made with brandy or cognac), maraschino liqueur and lemon and pineapple juice that’s served in a sugar-rimmed cup. This is a subtle cocktail that’s not as fruity as it sounds and the addition of an orange peel adds to the aroma. As a crusta-style cocktail it works well – having said that, however, I’ve never had a crusta cocktail anywhere that’s blown me away (I should probably stop ordering them).

Aside from the cocktails, the main attraction here is the service – I was greeted warmly as I walked in and the bartender is exceptionally friendly and professional (which alone makes this bar better than most in Sydney). If you’re after an intimate space where the cocktails and service are considered more important than attitude, you’d be hard pressed to match Eau-de-Vie.

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Eau-de-Vie. 229 Darlinghurst Road, Darlinghurst. Open seven days a week – see the Eau-de-Vie website for more details

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The idea behind Name This Bar is that customers are meant to suggest names in either the visitors’ book, on the Name This Bar website and, judging from the graffiti, on the bar’s walls. In an attempt to actually conduct some journalism we valiantly ask the bartender how the name search is going and find out that apparently some patrons think the bar should remain as “Name This Bar” – a view that we agree with.

Names aside, the bar has an ad hoc feel to it. The concrete floor is bare, there are barrels doubling as tables and sofas that look like they came from a garage sale. According to the Kiwi friend who accompanies me, the bar is trying too hard to look like it’s not trying.

“It’s just an excuse to not pay much for furniture,” he grumbles, although he admits he likes the art and graffiti on the walls.

I like the service, which is not only friendly now but also when I came in a week ago for a quick beer – plus I’m also impressed that they have a sidecar on their cocktail menu.

Made with Remy Martin cognac, Cointreau and lemon juice, the sidecar is served in a sugar-rimmed martini glass and although the Kiwi casts aspersions on my masculinity as I sip it, this is (as I sternly remind the kiwi) a masculine drink that even Hemingway was partial to. Furthermore, this rendition is well made – quite frankly, I wasn’t expecting to get a good cocktail here at all.

Ambient dance music is playing quietly enough for conversation and overall I’d say this is a pleasant place for a drink, even though it’s not exactly the type of bar you’d take a date or someone you’d want to impress. There’s also food available, most notably home-made dim sims and dumplings (although I’ve yet to try them).

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Name this bar, 197 Oxford Street, Darlinghurst. See the Name this Bar website

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At that point I learnt three key things:

1. I’m not James Bond
2. Not to order cocktails on planes
3. A poorly made martini can taste disastrous.

It took me years after that before I fell in love with martinis again, mainly after I had a great one at the Gin Palace in Melbourne, but even so I just couldn’t make them at home. I consulted books and websites, bought enough gin and vermouth to become a 1920s bootlegger and yet every martini I made didn’t taste a whole lot better than my first airplane-made one.

Yet when a friend of mine recently brought me a giant duty free bottle of Christies gin from New Zealand (a brilliant gin that’s made with the native NZ botanicals horopito and kawakawa. Unfortunately, however, I can’t find it anywhere in Sydney) I tried something new out of desperation – and it worked.

Actually, I tried something old: I went back to the original recipe for a dry martini of using two parts gin to one part dry vermouth – and now I’m obsessed again.

These days the 2 to 1 ratio isn’t dry at all, considering how little vermouth most people put in their drinks – sometimes when I order a martini I’m simply served gin in a glass with a mere hint of vermouth, which can work ok if they’re using fantastic gin but still, to me, defeats the purpose.

The other gripe I have with martinis I order elsewhere is the quality of olives used, so I take delight in using great olives that are stuffed with anchovies (an idea which I shamelessly stole from the Gin Palace’s 1951 martini). Incidentally, the 1951 martini also uses the trick of rinsing Cointreau around the inside of the glass first, but I’m still not sophisticated enough to do that at home.

Another thing to remember, of course, is to chill the martini glass first by filling it with ice. Also, if you do shake your gin and vermouth (and remember to add lots of ice to the shaker as well) then double strain it as you pour it into the glass so you don’t have ice shards floating on the surface (although I’m usually too lazy to do this).

As for whether martinis should be shaken or stirred: most people in the know seem to believe gin martinis should be stirred, not shaken, but as a hypochondriac who believes everything I read, I prefer to shake mine after reading this article in the British Medical Journal.

For those too lazy to follow the link, the gist is that the boffins discovered that shaken gin martinis are healthier for you than stirred ones, since they’re better at deactivating hydrogen peroxide – which apparently is a good thing. I myself like the fact that it makes sure the drink is ice cold, although a knowledgeable bartender friend of mine assures me you can get equally cold martinis by stirring.

The BMJ article also talks a bit about James Bond, who – especially in the movies – popularised the idea of vodka martinis, which I personally don’t approve of (when writing an article about martinis I feel it’s de rigeur to sound like a snob). Even though vodka purists tell me different vodkas have different tastes and mouth feels – and I’m sure they’re right – there’s something fantastic about a great gin’s botanical goodness that to me is an essential part of a martini (I think the next gin I’m going to buy myself will be Hendricks).

But, as I said, I’m no expert. If you have any martini tips or experiences then feel free to leave a comment below:

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Then again, the decor of this Italian-influenced restaurant is quirky to say the least. There are man-sized flowers lurking about (well, dwarf-sized, anyway), brightly coloured sofas and chairs in eccentric shapes, a gilt-edged mirror, lamps that look like tree branches, flashing lights underneath the liquor bottles and red plastic sinks in the bathroom that make me think of kindergarten. And keep in mind that all of this is housed in an old warehouse, complete with timber beams, that you access through an old stone archway and moss-covered steps from Argyle Street.

I’m here with a female dining companion (I’ll call her the FDC from now on) and we sit at one of the small tables near the bar. I order the negroni (Campari, Martini Rosso and Bombay Sapphire gin, stirred over ice with orange peel) and she orders the Bay Harbour Breeze (Absolut raspberry vodka shaken with pink grapefruit, lime and cranberry juice).

Scolding me for going for a classic cocktail, the FDC claims I ought be more adventurous but I made the right decision. The negroni is fantastic – to me, a well made negroni holds its own against any cocktail – whereas the Bay Harbour Breeze is, as the FDC admits, a sweet chick drink that tastes a bit like a lollypop (then again, I’m not a fan of raspberry flavoured vodka).

The bartender then suggests a drink that he just invented and which he describes as a mojito-inspired cocktail made from Jack Daniels. To be honest this sounds ghastly to me but I agree to try it out of politeness and morbid curiosity – and to my surprise I love it. Made with muddled limes, mint, Jack Daniels and a splash of Cointreau, it definitely deserves to go on the menu (I hereby propose they call it the Jackito).

Unfortunately, however, my love of the new cocktail only encourages the FDC into berating me even more for usually sticking with classic drinks and to prove it she orders the green tea martini (vodka, apple schnapps, apple juice and green tea) in defiance.

I must admit the green tea martini is better than I’d have thought – in fact, if you like flavoured martinis then I’d actually recommend this, since it has a gentle flavour that’s neither too sweet nor too … well, tea tasting – but I still snobbily believe the FDC doesn’t appreciate classic cocktails.

We also order two entrees (there’s no bar menu), namely the pan-fried scallops with roasted capsicum purée as well as the hiramasa kingfish with stir fried vegetable cannelloni, and when they arrive we take them out to the balcony. While the bar area is nice – aside from the tables you can also perch at the bar counter – to me it’s the balcony that really stands out. There’s a clear view of the Harbour Bridge as well as of the streets below, and it surprises me that, on a Friday night, we have the balcony all to ourselves.

The hiramasa kingfish is good but it’s the scallops that stand out: fresh, juicy and cooked just right. In the past I’ve had great fresh pasta here and I decide that if I ever go back to bel mondo again, I’d probably order the scallops as well as a pasta dish. And, of course, a couple of Jackitos.

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Bel Mondo, Gloucester Walk, The Rocks, Sydney. Phone 9241 3700 or see the Bel Mondo website. Open Monday to Saturday from 6pm to late.

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“I’m just going in to Ching-a-lings for a beer,” I respond.

He peers at me closely.

“Have you been here before?” he asks suspiciously, not that I can see what difference my previous attendance would make.

“Yes, of course,” I bluff.

He looks at me again, as if assessing whether or not I’ll lower the tone of the establishment, before waving me in.

When I’m up there it’s warm (why are so many new bars skimping on the air-con?) but a breeze is thankfully blowing in from the large open windows that look out onto Oxford Street. Funk is playing on the sound system while a number of bedraggled looking hipsters in 80s-style clothes lounge around. Even though it’s a Saturday the main bar is half empty but the outside smoking veranda is absolutely packed. I’d describe what it looks like but there’s nothing to say: it’s just plain wooden (or chipboard) surfaces with lots of people exhaling.

It’s not just the décor that’s Spartan: the menu is too. There are no cocktails or bar food here, and so most people just drink beer or spirits.

To be honest I’m not sure if I like Ching-a-lings. I certainly like the idea of rebelling against the overblown bars that Sydney has made an art of creating and on paper this ought to be a cool place to hang out in (as I finish my first beer the DJ puts on Marvin Gaye, which is a huge tick in the bar’s favour), but … I don’t feel any magic and I certainly don’t feel wooed. But perhaps it’s early days.

PS: For those who like trivia, Ching a lings is the name of a largely Puerto Rican motorbike gang from the Bronx that rose to prominence in the 70s and Missy Elliot had a song called Ching-a-ling. We don’t know if the song was named after the gang: after analysing the video clip in detail, the only part we understood was the line “show me your moneymaker”. We also learnt some new dance moves.

But we digress.

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Ching-a-lings, Level 1, 133 Oxford Street, Darlinghurst. Open Thursday to Saturday from 6pm to 1am, and Sunday from 5pm to 10pm.

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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.

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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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