If you were going to spend the rest of your life at one bar and restaurant you’d need it to be the complete package. We’re talking amazing drinks, great service and cheese enough to kill a man. An ace steak wouldn’t hurt and if they could also have an impressive canned goods store that would last you through an apocalypse, that’d cap it off. In short, at Continental you’re looking at your future life partner, in venue form. And we’re sure that you and this deli-bar-bistro are going to be very happy together. How could you not? It’s an offshoot of the Porteño family, and now that Gardel’s has shut up shop in Redfern you’ve got Michael Nicolian running the bar here in Newtown, which means there are only delicious things going into the glasses. Or cans.
This is where you can get a perfectly chilled Martini in a tin, as well as a Manhattan and a Cosmopolitan – they’re bringing it back. Order a Bloody Mary if you’re struggling. They jazz it up with a little sherry, leave out all the gritty bits that get stuck in your teeth and garnish it with a lemon-and-pepper stuffed olive and an anchovy. Wines here don’t bother with the path well travelled – they cut a new flavour trail with local, biodynamic drops that will steal your heart away.
Yes, you’re here for the drinks, but if you can enter this Aladdin’s cave of treats that are the very opposite of clean eating, your willpower is superhuman. In the fridges are triple-cream Bries, melty washed rinds and sharp blues plus cured meats in every shape and size that pork comes in. They also tin their own seafood in-house for mixed plates of octopus, sardines and garfish, but if you’re in it for the sweet stuff, you need to order the tin of Neapolitan ice cream. The only people who don’t like this place are your wallet and your waistline. But that’s the price of true love, and it’s one we’re more than happy to keep paying so long as they keep the drinks coming.
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Time Out Awards
Time Out Awards2016Drinks Service Award
2017Bartender of the Year