Best Bars in Sydney: Rooftop Cocktails, Wine Bars, Dive Bars and the City's Finest Drinking Scene

Sydney's bar scene is one of the world's most awarded, with multiple Sydney venues appearing regularly in the World's 50 Best Bars list and the Australian Bar Awards consistently producing Sydney bars among the nation's top ranked. The combination of the CBD small bar culture (enabled by licensing reform from 2007 that permitted bars under 120 people without a venue meal requirement), the Surry Hills and Newtown neighbourhood bar culture, and the harbourside rooftop bar scene at Barangaroo and Circular Quay creates a bar landscape of exceptional variety.

Bulletin Place (10-14 Bulletin Place Sydney CBD) — Bulletin Place has appeared multiple times in the World's 50 Best Bars and is consistently regarded as one of Australia's finest cocktail bars, with the daily-changing cocktail menu based on the day's best available fruit, herbs, and produce creating a program of extraordinary freshness and creativity. The intimate 50-person room above the Circular Quay end of the CBD provides the city's most celebrated cocktail experience.

Maybe Sammy (115 Harrington Street The Rocks) — Maybe Sammy is Sydney's most glamorous cocktail bar, with the 1950s Italian Riviera aesthetic, the exceptionally skilled bar team, and the consistently excellent cocktail program earning it multiple World's 50 Best Bars appearances and a devoted following among Sydney's bar community. The Negroni variations and the theatrical garnish presentation are hallmarks of the Maybe Sammy experience.

Frankie's Pizza by the Slice (50 Hunter Street Sydney CBD) — Frankie's is Sydney's finest dive bar institution, with the metal and rock music programming, the excellent cheap pizza, the New York-Italian aesthetic, and the late-night licence creating a beloved mid-city refuge that is the anti-thesis of the cocktail bar culture above. The hidden lower-level bar provides a darker and louder alternative to the street-level pizza counter.

Surry Hills bar culture — the Crown Street and Reservoir Street, Surry Hills bar precincts provide Sydney's finest neighbourhood bar scene, with Tio's Cervecería (232 Crown Street), The Barber Shop (89 York Street, technically CBD), the Dolphin Hotel's wine bar, and the various Crown Street small bars creating the most active evening bar circuit in inner Sydney outside the CBD.

Barangaroo rooftop bars — the Barangaroo precinct's high-rise hotel rooftop bars (the Smoke Bar at Barangaroo, the Sydney fish market adjacent bars) provide the city's finest elevated harbour view bar experiences, with the Darling Harbour and Blue Mountains backdrop views from the upper floors of the Barangaroo hotel towers providing the most spectacular drinking setting in the city.

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