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The waiter recommends a $135 Negroni and it turns out they’re not kidding.
“You won’t get one like this anywhere else,” they say.
So Bobbie’s is a little fancy. It’s a plush refuge from the hectic New South Head Road that screeches through Double Bay. Through a curtained doorway, soft table lamps flick off marble surfaces and gold leaf trimmings. Mixologists judder shakers in bow ties and all-white uniforms. Somewhere pictures are sketched into cocktail foam.
The co-owner has something of a name around these parts. Neil Perry – who also owns Bobbie’s next-door neighbours Margaret, Next Door, Baker Bleu and Song Bird – has risen to celebrity status in Sydney’s hospo scene since opening the OG Rockpool back in the eighties. For his first foray into the bar world, Perry has also joined forces with his wife, Samantha, and longtime friends Linden Pride and Nathalie Hudson, known for their acclaimed Dante bars in New York and L.A.
Bobbie’s is named after Pride’s late grandfather – disc jockey and broadcaster Bob Rogers – who is credited with introducing Top 40 hits to Australian radio in the late fifties and eventually became the nation’s longest-serving radio announcer. The life and times of Rogers are lovingly captured on coasters, menus and reservation cards, in frames on the bathroom walls, and across a playful mural that stretches the length of the 90-seat venue.
Despite the three-figure Negroni, Bobbie’s is a Martini bar at heart
Its eight editions are printed on the first page of the menu. On the whole, they’re a softer breed than the standard tipple, reading like a collection of perfect gateway drugs.
The Tuxedo No. 3, for one, goes down like juice with a splash of sweet manzanilla, orange bitters and a wedge of iced passionfruit. The white chocolate Espresso Martini is basically dessert: a shallow chalice of semi-sweet Don Julio reposado tequila, Mr Black coffee liqueur, chocolate bitters and a thick lid of shaved white chocolate.
At the other end of the scale, the Dirty Martini is gently saline, mixing olive oil washed Absolut Elyx vodka, Noilly Prat French vermouth and elderflower. It’s served with a bit of ceremony, too, the Nick & Nora glass arriving on a tray engraved with Bobbie’s name and a side of three plump Cerignola olives on ice. You also get your own personal dropper of extra virgin olive oil – which is also used to fat wash the cocktail’s vodka – to dot at your leisure.
Then there’s Bobbie’s eponymous Martini, sitting at the top of the menu, recognisable for the whole pickled onion that hangs at the centre of the glass and glows like a planet. This one’s a bit of everything – juicy with clarified green apple, sharp through doses of Dolin Blanc and Noilly Prat vermouths, and, of course, a shade briny.
Elsewhere on the menu, there are lists dedicated to aperitivi, dolci and highballs. The Buttercup Highball arrives in head-to-toe disguise, a $30 cocktail with all the extravagance of a glass of fizzy water. But it just so happens to be one of the best drinks on the menu, combining Tanqueray 10 gin, tonic, yuzu, white chocolate and salted butter for the most indulgent soda you’ve ever had.
After talking the waiter down from the $135 Negroni (which, if you’re wondering, features a trio of 1970s vintage gin, Campari and vermouth), they recommend a house-favourite: the chocolate Old Fashioned. This one’s a blend of cacao-washed Woodford bourbon, Pedro Ximénez and Palo Cortado sherries, and chocolate bitters. Arranged with a curl of orange peel and a choc-topped chunk of ice, it’s a softer, sweeter spin on the original.
If you’re not here for the cocktails, there’s a 50-label wine list and a tome of spirits – all of which date from the late 1960s and 1970s and sourced from private collections in the UK and US.
With Neil Perry in the building, it’s no surprise that Bobbie’s bar snacks are an elevated affair, opening with a $460 caviar service
You can pick from small plates like freshly shucked Sydney rock oysters and New Zealand king salmon pastrami, or dig into jazzed-up takes on a bunch of home comforts, such as a ham and gruyere toastie with sweet mustard pickle; chicken Waldorf finger sandwiches; and beef bolognese with fontina jaffle.
It turns out Bobbie’s is the bar we didn’t know we needed. Only a few months out of the blocks, maybe the highest compliment you can pay is that Perry’s new joint already feels like a decades-old institution, flaunting mid-century glamour, a flock of loyal locals and some of the best drinks in town.
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