Qtique Old Fashioned Cocktail
Photograph: Daniel Boud

Hotel Bar Guide

Outstanding Australian bars, their bartenders and their twists on classic cocktails.
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There are some amazing bars and ace hospitality talents tucked away in our city's finest hotels, so Time Out set out to discover the best hotel bars in Sydney.

Drink here

The Bar
Bars

The Bar

There is an art to the perfect bar snack, and when it comes to suppertime nothing beats a real club sandwich. We’re talking a double-decker sarnie with...
Zeta Bar
Bars

Zeta Bar

  • 4 out of 5 stars
Zeta Bar is all clean lines, high ceilings and expanses of glass, which, in a city chock full of cupboard-sized bars and basement drinking dens is a breath of...
Sokyo Lounge
Bars

Sokyo Lounge

  • 5 out of 5 stars
  • price 2 of 4
It may be a bar and restaurant in the foyer of a hotel, beneath a casino, but you can feel miles away from anywhere drinking at Sokyo Lounge. Kicking back in a...
Gilt Lounge
Bars

Gilt Lounge

  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • price 1 of 4
For centuries, the hotel bar has been the place to go when you want to drink the classics, and it’s as true today as it was when the Savoy in London was...
Grain Bar
Bars

Grain Bar

  • 4 out of 5 stars
Having a taste for fine Scotch, elegant Japanese whiskies and American drams doesn’t come cheap, unless you’re spending your Monday nights at Grain Bar below...
Marble Bar
Bars

Marble Bar

  • 3 out of 5 stars
  • price 2 of 4
Did you know that Marble Bar is 123 years old? It was originally located at Tattersall’s, and in 1973 they moved it to its underground spot on George...
Blu Bar on 36
Bars

Blu Bar on 36

  • 3 out of 5 stars
  • price 3 of 4
We all know we live in one of the most beautiful harbourfront cities in the world, but sometimes it takes riding up to the 36th floor of a famous hotel for...
Supper Club
Bars

Supper Club

If you ever want to feel like a celebrity for an evening, the rooftop bar at the InterContinental Hotel is the place to do it. What was originally reserved as...
Stingray Bar & Lounge
Bars

Stingray Bar & Lounge

Slotted neatly into the ground floor of the QT Hotel Gold Coast, Stingray was one of the early success stories in a fragile renaissance that’s happening along...
Lucky's Speakeasy
Bars

Lucky's Speakeasy

If you’re looking for a place to soothe wounds won in a day-long battle with bureaucracy, it’s hard to go past Lucky’s Speakeasy. Or rather, it is easy to go...

Meet the bartenders

Flavio Tripepi, Zeta Bar - Hilton Sydney
Bars

Flavio Tripepi, Zeta Bar - Hilton Sydney

“The moment we open the doors is my favourite,” says Flavio Tripepi. “That moment when you are expecting a busy night and you want to be ready for it. I find...
Andrew MacLeod, Grain Bar
Bars

Andrew MacLeod, Grain Bar

Andrew MacLeod well remembers the moment when he fell in love with the bartending game. “I worked in a cocktail bar in Nottingham in the UK. A guest said he...
Jay Tuncer Tokmak, Marble Bar
Bars

Jay Tuncer Tokmak, Marble Bar

Wine and cheese are a classic combo, but cocktails and cheese? Marble Bar’s Jay Tuncer Tokmak is putting a twist on the Bloody Mary that’s more logical than it...
Zikra Armeda, Sokyo Lounge
Bars

Zikra Armeda, Sokyo Lounge

The best bartenders are much more than impatient pourers of drinks who give you your change on a saucer. Zikra Armeda, for one, works on building a rapport...
Alex Clark, Gilt Lounge
Bars

Alex Clark, Gilt Lounge

Drinks, chat, being social and hospitable: “It’s in my blood,” says Alex Clark, who is eight months into his job behind the bar at Gilt Lounge. “My folks...
Andrew Mae, The Bar
Bars

Andrew Mae, The Bar

Andrew Mae sees his bartending job as the latest in a line of creative pursuits, including his studies in architecture. “Mixing cocktails is a great form of...
John Toubia, Supper Club
Bars

John Toubia, Supper Club

Up on level 31 of the InterContinental, the lights are dim, the views are stunning and the tunes are great. For six months, this impressive place has been John...
Art Palomata, Blu Bar on 36
Bars

Art Palomata, Blu Bar on 36

“There are so many things to love about being a bartender,” says Art Palomata, who has been mixing and pouring up on the 36th floor of the...
Jeff Clifford, Stingray Gold Coast
Bars

Jeff Clifford, Stingray Gold Coast

Venue manager Jeff Clifford has worked at Stingray Bar & Lounge in Surfers Paradise for nearly three years. A Gold Coast hotspot where patrons hit the dance...

How to make the drinks

The Truffle with Vlad
Bars

The Truffle with Vlad

Ingredients •15ml white truffle fat-washed Belvedere vodka •40ml Belvedere Vodka  •5ml Laphroaig 10yo  •Miniature truss tomatoes, frozen •Thin sliced...
The Reuben Mary
Bars

The Reuben Mary

Ingredients •45ml pastrami fat-washed Bulleit Bourbon  •10ml pickle brine  •15ml Russian dressing mix  •130ml tomato juice •Strip of pastrami, a celery...
The Grain Geisha
Bars

The Grain Geisha

Ingredients •60ml Suntory Hakushu 12yo whisky •60ml beetroot juice •45ml lemon juice •30ml egg white •15ml sugar syrup •15ml chocolate chilli reduction...
The Squealing Throw Down
Bars

The Squealing Throw Down

Ingredients •50ml chorizo fat-washed Mezcal Amores  •30ml Heinz Big Red tomato soup  •30ml pineapple juice  •15ml lemon juice  •15ml Worcestershire...
QTique Old Fashioned
Bars

QTique Old Fashioned

Ingredients •45ml Herradura Reposado tequila, smoked with palo santo wood chips •15ml Amaro Montenegro  •2 dashes Bittermens Burlesque bitters  •10ml...
The Salcha
Bars

The Salcha

Ingredients •50ml Gin Mare gin  •40ml gazpacho (see below) •10ml lemon juice  •2 bar spoons mango chilli chutney  •Goat’s cheese foam (see below) •Basil...
The Suppai Saiyan
Bars

The Suppai Saiyan

Ingredients •40ml Hakushu 12yo Single Malt Whisky •20ml Miyagikyo Single Malt Whisky •1 tbspn Japanese marmalade •15ml simple syrup •30ml blend of...
The Scarlet Affair
Bars

The Scarlet Affair

Ingredients •90ml tomato mix (see below)  •30ml sake  •15ml Yellow Chartreuse  •15ml plum pisco  •15ml house syrup: honey, cinnamon, cloves,...
The Weekend Away
Bars

The Weekend Away

Ingredients •45ml Ron de Jeremy spiced rum  •45ml Wairau River Sauvignon Blanc  •45ml fresh pressed pineapple juice  •15ml housemade lemongrass...
The Beat Down Tonic
Bars

The Beat Down Tonic

Ingredients •10 leaves of mint  •1 tspn Pernod Ricard  •50ml Tanqueray 10 Gin  •20ml Campari  •Raspberry syrup  •40ml white grapefruit juice  •Dash of...