Go to town
Art, culture, cocktails: nightlife is returning to the Sydney CBD after a dark period, writes Alistair Jones
“We're just getting back to things,” says Mary Jane, our cheerful volunteer guide at the Art Gallery of NSW, which has resumed operating until 9pm on Wednesdays.
Crowds are still thin and the man in black behind the counter rolls his eyes at the memory of pre-COVID times when there were bands playing, chairs set up for lively discussions and a lot of milling about.
Things will surely heat up again as Sydney by night revives, a process already under way. And with overseas trips off the agenda, I'm pretending to be a traveller having an overnight stopover in the city, even though I live in Bondi.
Mary Jane begins her 'highlights of the collection' tour among the gold-framed overload of grand old oil paintings in the James Fairfax Gallery.
I usually avoid these rooms, despite their undoubted gems, because the sameness starts to blur. But with the parquetry squeaking beneath our sensible footwear, Mary Jane's enthusiasm brings individual paintings to life, zeroing in on detail, finding thematic connections, offering anecdotes about the artists' lives and more.
Much of the enjoyment comes from being able to gaze at leisure at actual works with texture and brushstrokes, instead of digital copies on a screen at home.
Other institutions are joining the nightlife during March with free admission, including the Museum of Contemporary Art at Circular Quay, open until 9pm on Fridays, and the renovated Museum of Sydney, similarly open on Thursday nights, with the latter featuring guest DJs.
But I'm also up for a different nocturnal culture — cocktails with a friend at Employees Only, a basement haunt that's the local outpost of a downtown New York 'speakeasy' consistently featured among the world's best bars.
'Psychic' is written in red neon at the top of Barrack St to lure us down the stairs, past the option of a Tarot reading, into a well-kept club that's seductively unpretentious. There's a smattering of art on the walls and service is smooth. It could be a home away from home, if your household budget runs to $23 cocktails — a fairly standard price, of course, in Sydney. Or you could drink beer.
Elvis is crooning Suspicious Minds on the sound system as our amiable bartender — make that mixologist — whips up a pair of convincing margaritas that slide down all too easily. Cocktail masterclasses are held here once a month. And on Friday and Saturday nights, burlesque dancers do a star turn on top of the bar.
We're tempted to settle in but dinner awaits elsewhere. It's probably the alcohol but the empty street outside seems more charming than before. And dangling from heritage-style street lamps are giant badges with pop slogans, like things to pin on a denim jacket during the 1970s, if it came in a Godzilla-size. It's an installation by Adam Norton, one of four new laneway works commissioned by the City of Sydney.
We head for the more lively Angel Place where China Diner is doing a brisk al fresco trade. Plate glass, white tablecloths and liveried waiters remind me of brasseries in London and Paris, or at least the idea of them because neither of those cities has a climate as conducive to eating outdoors as Sydney's.
Bird song twitters from an assortment of cages strung overhead — a 2009 artwork called Forgotten Songs by Michael Thomas Hill, featuring the calls of 50 bird species that used to inhabit the central city area before European arrival. It's eerily enchanting.
Al fresco dining in Sydney is about to get a boost from a simplification of the council regulations covering pavement trading.
But we're dining indoors tonight at popular Mr Wong, which appears in Bridge Lane like a movie set for a romanticised idea of old Canton, spread across a stripped-back two-storey warehouse.
There's a showbiz sensibility in the way Merivale Group outlets make the venue as much a part of the experience as the food. We expect a Jackie Chan character to be chased up the stairs, or for cleavers to come flying from the open kitchen. And despite the vastness of Mr Wong, dining feels intimate around our immediate space. A neat trick.
So bring on the Chinese duck, preceded by some yum cha favourites — the prawn toast is particularly good — and some stir-fries. There are more than 80 dishes on offer and we match ours with a French rosé. The beverage choices are extensive.
Retro soul music is blaring from the kitchen as it's time to leave. Taxis appear as if by magic and I'm dropped back at my hotel after an international journey without leaving my hometown.
Alistair Jones was a guest of Destination NSW.
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