The Top 34 Places to Drink Near Sala

Jacketed bartenders with accents spanning small Slovakian towns to big Italian cities set the tone at this cocktail bar in The Rocks. The hospitality runs flamboyant, the kind where staff practically compete for your affection and the host seats everyone like a penthouse guest. Named one of the World's 50 Best Bars, Maybe Sammy drinks from a European hotel-bar playbook that Sydney had no idea it was missing.

1. Difford's Guide 5 stars · Difford's Guide
2. 50 Best #42 · The World's 50 Best Bars
3. The Pinnacle Guide 1 Pin

1. 50 Best Best Bar Design Award 2025 · The World's 50 Best Bars

1. 50 Best Best Bar Design Award 2025 · The World's 50 Best Bars

1. The Pinnacle Guide 1 Pin
2. Spirited Awards 2026 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best International Hotel Bar – APAC
3. Difford's Guide Difford's Guide

1. Spirited Awards 2026 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best International Bar Team – APAC

A mezcal cocktail bar wedged into a Council Place garage so small it might have previously housed a single hatchback. Cantina OK is the opposite of Sydney's big-shoulder waterfront bars, the ones that eye your footwear suspiciously. Sandals, cowboy hats, and ball gowns all get waved through here, and the agave list runs deep enough that you'll stop pretending you know what you want and just ask.

1. Difford's Guide 5 stars · Difford's Guide

1. Difford's Guide 4.5 stars · Difford's Guide

A basement at the end of an alley off Clarence Street, the kind of door you'd walk past twice before finding. Inside, 456 bottles of mostly single malts climb a seven-tier back-bar that basically functions as wallpaper. It's a whisky-forward cocktail bar, serious without being solemn, and the queue outside on any given night suggests the city has quietly figured out where the door is.

1. Difford's Guide 4.5 stars · Difford's Guide

1. The Pinnacle Guide 1 Pin

A spiral staircase drops you into a basement rum bar done up with faded wallpaper, plantation chairs, and tropical plants, all of it named for Julio Lobo, the sugar king of Havana who lost everything to Castro. The CBD address is quietly absurd, tucked next to an unassuming Chinese restaurant on Clarence Street, but downstairs the Caribbean fantasy holds. The list leans deep into rum, and the room rewards lingering.

1. Difford's Guide 4 stars · Difford's Guide

1. Difford's Guide 4 stars · Difford's Guide

1. Difford's Guide 4 stars · Difford's Guide

A 4am license is already reason enough, but Palmer and Co earns it. Tucked into an arched brick basement down a back alley, this Prohibition-era cocktail bar from the Merivale group goes all-in on the speakeasy concept: floor mosaics, period glassware, aged mirrors, and enough taxidermy to make the late Mr. Palmer feel at home. The kind of place where staying until closing time is less a decision than a natural consequence.

1. Difford's Guide 4 stars · Difford's Guide

1. Difford's Guide 4 stars · Difford's Guide

1. Difford's Guide 4.5 stars · Difford's Guide

Frozen margaritas for ten dollars in the Surry Hills sun is a strong opening argument. Tio's Cerveceria is a Mexican-leaning bar in the neighborhood's easy-going pocket, with an outdoor setup that earns its keep on a warm afternoon. The mezcal list runs deep, the Michelada is built with enough red pepper to qualify as a wellness decision, and the whole place has the loose, no-fuss energy of somewhere that has quietly figured out exactly what it wants to be.

1. Difford's Guide 5 stars · Difford's Guide

Tucked into a laneway between downtown Sydney and Surry Hills, Alberto's Lounge is a late-night wine bar that has made a home in a stretch of city the city forgot, all carparks and gloomy office blocks. The room fills fast, queues forming by six on Fridays, so a booking is less optional than it sounds. Walk-ins aren't turned away, but patience helps. The kind of place you stay longer than planned.

1. Difford's Guide 4.5 stars · Difford's Guide

1. Difford's Guide 5 stars · Difford's Guide

1. Difford's Guide Difford's Guide

1. Difford's Guide 4 stars · Difford's Guide

1. Difford's Guide 4.5 stars · Difford's Guide

1. Difford's Guide Difford's Guide

1. Spirited Awards 2026 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best New International Cocktail Bar – APAC

1. Difford's Guide Difford's Guide

1. The Pinnacle Guide 1 Pin

The centrepiece is a long juniper-blue bar that keeps your eyes on the bartenders and nowhere else, which is exactly the point. Eileen's is the Sydney cocktail bar from Australian gin brand Four Pillars, and it sidesteps the usual branded-venue trap of feeling like a pop-up in disguise. The room is minimal and deliberate, the drinks list built around their own spirits. Expect gin in most of its forms, done with more care than novelty.

1. Difford's Guide 4.5 stars · Difford's Guide

Red velvet curtains and Victorian mahogany panelling inside what was once a Greek restaurant: LOW 302 is a Darlinghurst neighbourhood bar that layers its charm on thick without feeling like it's trying. Local bands play a few nights a week, craft beers and a short cocktail list cover the classics, and the scavenged furniture gives the whole room the feeling of a very well-curated skip.

1. Difford's Guide 4 stars · Difford's Guide

A cocktail bar in Darlinghurst where the drinks arrive with a bit of performance baked in, not just poured. The menu moves between classics and quietly tweaked versions of classics, the kind of place where the bartender knows why a recipe changed in 1947 and will tell you if you ask. A devoted local crowd has kept it busy for years, which is its own kind of argument.

1. Difford's Guide 4 stars · Difford's Guide

A cocktail bar in Potts Point where the menu leans on classic riffs and the room leans on black leather, cabinets of cocktail ephemera, and a rock 'n' roll soundtrack. Liquid nitrogen turns up in a few of the drinks, including a martini shaken with the cold stuff. The nitrogen trolley that once made tableside rounds now sits marooned in the middle of the room, a victim of local legislation, which is perhaps the most interesting piece of bar furniture in Sydney.

1. Difford's Guide 4 stars · Difford's Guide

Dark red banquettes, ceiling fans, black-and-white photos on the walls, and a vintage football table set the tone at this elegantly retro cocktail bar above Porteño in Surry Hills. Named for tango legend Carlos Gardel, it leans hard into its Argentine identity with a six-page all-Argentine wine list, more than twenty available by the glass. Bar snacks keep things light if the asado downstairs feels like a commitment.

1. Difford's Guide 4 stars · Difford's Guide

Velvet in every direction and a semi-covered terrace that lets you smoke while pretending you're in Manhattan: Hemmesphere is a cocktail bar that has been setting the Sydney standard since before most of its regulars knew what a coupe glass was. It started as a members-only room, dropped the velvet rope without dropping the velvet, and now just lets anyone in to enjoy well-made drinks and the kind of room that makes you order a second.

1. Difford's Guide 4 stars · Difford's Guide

1. Difford's Guide 3.5 stars · Difford's Guide

1. Difford's Guide Difford's Guide

1. Difford's Guide Difford's Guide