Time Out Food & Drink Awards 2023: Best Cocktail Bar Nominees

In the basement of a heritage warehouse in Sydney’s CBD you’ll find a Sicilian-inspired cocktail bar named for the ill-fated wife of Michael Corleone in Francis Ford Coppola's 1972 mobster masterpiece, The Godfather. But don’t let that put you off. For those of us who have been lying about having seen The Godfather their whole lives, good news. Every page of the drinks menu will run you through the storyline (spoilers lie within, but it’s literally been 50 years) so you can impress your date with cinematic knowledge while sipping on a Letter Never Sent, a standout concoction of wheat vodka, honey liquor, pineapple, clove, housemade almond syrup and fresh nutmeg, shaken and served over ice.

A cocktail that makes you cough doesn’t sound like a good time, but hear us out. When the Eau de Vie bartender brings over our Smokey Rob Roy, he pours a mix of Talisker and Highland whiskies, Diplomatico Mantuano rum, sweet vermouth and orange bitters from a beaker into a glass over a cloud of wood smoke. The smoke dances in and above the glass for for at least a minute. It’s mesmerising. When the haze has subsided, we lift the glass to our lips, but we’ve jumped the gun and our mouth fills with a tasty yet cough-provoking vapour. It also provokes a giggle. We'll wait.

Housed in a historic 1940's pub (formally the Rose Hotel) on Oxford Street, El Primo Sanchez is fun in every sense of the word. At night, the ceiling flickers with neon-rainbow lights like the ones from your school disco. As well as the tangerine room, there’s a cobalt-blue room, a similar shade to the colour of Frida Kahlo’s house that we stayed a block from in Mexico City. Bartenders look dapper in canary-yellow blazers. One of our cocktails is made from tortillas. And there’s a button you can press for tequila in the karaoke room. So yes, El Primo Sanchez is definitely fun. But it’s got a lot more going for it, too.

There are plenty of bars with views out over Sydney – but there are few that offer up almost 360-degree vistas, where you can lap up the Harbour Bridge, the city skyline, the beginnings of the Parramatta River and even Barangaroo below. Henry Deane serves up a feast for the eyes, and anyone who has the pleasure of whiling away a sparkling afternoon followed by a sunset here – like we have – feels actually on top of the world.

Sydney’s CBD is full of bars. Irish- and English-style pubs, American-style sports bars, Japanese whiskey bars, German beer cafés, Spanish tapas bars and, now, hundreds of little wine bars like those you might find in Italy. Sky Bar – which sits at the peak of the multi-tiered venue Shell House – brings a little bit of New York to Sydney. And it's a showstopper.