Eco-friendly bars aren’t an entirely new thing. Two years ago, Re – the brainchild of international bartending VIP, Matt Whiley, and Icebergs founder Maurice Terzini – landed with a bang in South Eveleigh, as the world’s first no-waste cocktail bar. Since then, some bars have waved a green flag and talked about their recycling efforts, but few have really walked the walk and adopted a holistic, sustainable model. Until Daintree Sydney. And trust us when we say this one’s not cutting any corners.
Daintree Sydney calls itself “a small bar with a big purpose”. It’s small, all right – the inside
five-table fit-out is intimate, furnished with tables made from discarded mango tree
cuts and a rosewood bar top repurposed from work site waste. The slightly roomier outdoor
deck that faces the water (albeit one street back behind the Overseas Passenger
Terminal) holds two levels of seating under one of the oldest trees in the Rocks (or so we’re
told).
For the “big purpose”, the clue’s in the name: Daintree Sydney opened in partnership with
HalfCut, an environmental non-for-profit that raises funds to protect rainforests and wildlife.
A huge 50 per cent of the bar’s profits go towards reforestation of Queensland's Daintree Rainforest, which is Australia's largest – and the world's oldest.
Daintree Sydney’s owners, the Laidre Group, which opened the nearby maritime-themed rum bar the Keel in 2021, have cordoned off half of the bar’s premises to track their progress. Their aim is ambitious: save and seed more than one million trees across Australia through their collaboration with HalfCut, while the money will also support work with the Traditional Owners of the lowland Daintree. The team charts their journey by using a black-and-white, 11-panel artwork by local artist Felix Saw, which stretches across the walls of the bar, and will be coloured and finished for every 100,000 trees that are planted.
The sustainability theme flows all the way through the menu. The cocktail list features reworks of classic drinks, upgraded with seasonal native ingredients and fresh herbs and leaves grown on site.
There’s the Karkalla Collins, packed with river mint, cucumber juice, karkalla vodka and
spritzed Albariño. It’s a refreshing, zesty twist on the original, using the natural tartness of the karkalla (also known as beach banana), which grows on the sand dunes and cliff faces of the Australian coastline. The Gumnut Negroni, served over a hefty cube of ice and two gumnuts, is a sweet, nutty alternative to the classic Negroni, using gum leaf gin, house-made vermouth and Davidson plum aperitivo.
For a second round, try the Quandong Daiquiri and the Wattleseed Espresso. The Daiquiri
features the highly nutritious quandong, a native peach that stores twice as much vitamin C
as an orange, supplying a sharp tang to Daintree Sydney’s variation. The Wattleseed
Espresso is the strongest of the lot, combining Mr Black cold drip coffee liqueur, percolated
wattleseed, and Feels Illawarra Plum eau de vie (a type of brandy fermented and distilled
from the native fruit long considered one of the highest sources of antioxidants). The
wattleseed – a popular source of food that has been traditionally eaten by First Nations
peoples for thousands of years – adds a deep, chocolatey flavour to the drink, and the whole thing is flash-blended for a fluffy, foamy finish.
Alongside the cocktails is a wine and beer list that champions New South Wales producers
and highlights minimal intervention and natural wines. The menu lists every drink with the
‘distance travelled’ next to it, and the only international brands they stock are those that are
involved in genuine charitable and sustainable initiatives. For snacks, opt for the cassava
crackers – shareable shards of delicious, prawn cracker-esque chips made from the nutritious, starchy root vegetable cassava – over the regular bar nibbles.
The owners of Daintree Sydney are also planning to rewild the historic site’s garden, expand
their production of in-house drinks and start hosting live music and day festivals. Above all,
though, they want their latest opening to inspire social change and demonstrate a path
forward for sustainability within the hospitality industry.
And if more places like this start popping up, we’re all for it.