The 3 Weeds is a people pleaser. It was the first Rozelle pub to go seriously upmarket with a well-regarded restaurant, a wine bar popular with the local P&Cs and a beautiful, sandstone fireplace to curl up by in winter. But Rozelle has a proud working class history so they were also careful to leave the public bar to do what it does best: serve beers, show sport and host a curry night on Tuesdays. If you’re holing up here we recommend you do so with a glass of the 3 Weeds lager. It’s contract brewed by Monteiths in New Zealand and it tastes like the cleanest Carlton you’ve ever had. They also have Stigl, Coopers, Little Creatures, Guinness and White Rabbit on tap, and round in the back bar there is Franziskaner, Lord Nelson and Old Speckled Hen on the rotating taps. Although they have one of those frustrating systems where you have to order your counter meal in a separate place to your drinks, persevere and get the chicken pot pie. We are big fans of a pub pie here at Time Out and this one is high on our list of favourites. A piping-hot terracotta pot filled with tender, well-seasoned breast meat, peas and mushrooms in fragrant gravy comes with a floating pastry lid. It’ll warm you up faster than a snuggie filled with hot-water bottles. If you just want to snack on something salty and delicious while you do beer curls order the fried chilli-salt whitebait. Unlike their cephalopodic cousins who appear on every bar snack menu in the city, these little fried fish come in generous serves and deliver a gratifying crunch with each bite. The nice thing about the 3 Weeds is that while it may well be a fancy pub, you don’t need to be fancy to drink there.
