Introducing Myffy Rigby’s monthly bar review, kicking off with the PS40 crew’s new bar, Silver’s Motel, which brings club-lounge energy and high-end drinks to the inner west.
If it’s been a minute since your last Enmore Road bar crawl, it’s time to get reacquainted. Perhaps you’ve already enjoyed a Dark 𝄒n𝄒 Stormy at Jacoby’s Tiki Bar, an Army and Navy at Fortunate Son and a dark beer and sport at The Magpie. But have you tried the bite-sized lasagne at Vineria Luisa, elbowed your way through Deadwax, ordered a Margarita with a chilli oil float at Bar Demo or worked your way through the Whiskey Sour menu at Silver’s Motel?
Welcome to Michael Chiem (see also: CBD boozy soda fountain, PS40) and Tynan Sidhu’s new-wave-meets-old-school cocktail lounge. That Sour list was a last-minute addition after the bartenders realised they’d stocked the back bar with a broad-ranging, 350-strong whisky collection, listed it nowhere and needed to alert customers it existed as something to drink, not just for decoration.
The Marigold Rush sees marigold flowers gently bruised in a mortar and pestle combined with bourbon, a lick of honey and a splash of amaro Montenegro, all shaken with fresh lemon juice. It’s extremely whisky-forward, and holds a little more alcohol heat than I like in a Sour, but the flavour works.
You don’t come to eat (unless you’re happy to make a meal of the $3 Old Bay flavoured potato chips), but you do come for cocktails with a strong culinary bent. It’s a drinks-making style that bridges perfumery, kitchen and bar. Orange blossom and marigold, cacao nibs and spices galore find their way into the drinks. Sounds like a menu of Dickensian Christmas cocktails, but tastes like Right Now.
Look at the fiery pop of toasted pink peppercorns, providing the top note in the viscous Rhubarb Marg, tempered by rhubarb liqueur and poached rhubarb syrup on a base of tequila. Deeply flavourful and beautifully balanced.
The idea behind the name and feel was born from Sidhu and Chiem’s obsession with the Aussie roadside motels of the 𝄒70s and 𝄒80s – those places you’d stop on long trips where the walls were wood veneer, and the tables were filled with people that looked like they hadn’t shifted since the mid-1960s. As someone who spent a lot of time in those venues as a kid, I think they’ve created something even better. If anything, the deeply buffed wood, elevated booths, shelves of good vinyl and pristine 𝄒80s hi-fi equipment along with wall-mounted whiskies of the week gives Laurel Canyon over Alstonville Settlers.
Through the pointy end of the week, the place fills up with off-duty desk jockeys ordering whisky and house pilsners (the Silver’s Service, care of Marrickville craft brewery, Grifter). At 8.30pm on a Saturday, there’s a beautiful buzz in the room backed by Donna Summer, Nile Rodgers, Chic and The Commodores. Come post-service Saturday, Sunday and Monday, word is the place comes alive with off-duty hospitality workers, there until the doors close at 2am.
Make a night of knocking back Old Pals (the team are more than happy to make off-menu classics) or sit on an Ice Magic Old Fashioned. Yes, Ice Magic. The same stuff you begged your parents to buy at the supermarket as a special treat, but they never did. Watch bartenders squiggle the chocolate sauce over a perfect ice cube and drop it into a glass of caramelised whey, vanilla bean and cacao nib-washed bourbon. It’s a flavour bomb, and a drink to nurse.
Unlike the Midori splice (icy clouds of Malibu-infused Coco Lopez coconut cream, cold-pressed pineapple juice and coconut vodka in one half of a hurricane glass and Midori, melon and pineapple sorbet in the other). The most fun you’re likely to have in a glass in 2025.
If alcohol isn’t your jam, there are some non-alcoholic cocktails weaved into the list – look for the Kumquat Club and the Bees & Flowers.
No matter what your flavour, this is a venue that serves equal measures of fun and excellent drinks-making. The only thing missing from the bar is years of elbows. And they’re sure to come.
Three more listening bars to try close by
Deadwax
Despite the name, there’s no empty space in this bar, with groovers and grooves spilling out onto Enmore Road from early till late. Find the bar, run by bartender friends Conor O’Brien, Dan Teh and chef Davyd Blacksmith, on the old Enmore Country Club site, and drop by for a pastrami sandwich and a martini.
182 Enmore Road, Enmore
Ante
It’s a bar with snacks, or a restaurant with drinks. It all depends how you look at it. Most importantly, it has one of the finest collections of funk, hip hop, soul and sake you’ll find in one small bar in one patch of the inner west. Don’t snooze on the tartare, or the whisky highballs.
146 King Street, Newtown
Bar Demo
What do you get when you combine a couple of ex-Double Deuce bartenders, snug booths and free-wheeling vinyl? This bar, offering mini Pina Coladas and an impressive natural(ish) wine list. Loiter with a Margarita with a chilli oil float. Zoinks.
85 Enmore Road, Newtown
Good Food reviews are booked anonymously and paid independently. A restaurant can’t pay for a review or inclusion in the Good Food Guide.
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Myffy Rigby is the former editor of the Good Food Guide.