Enmore Country Club

When you say “country club”, we think buttoned shirts, expanses of green lawn, and maybe a game of golf or a spot of tennis followed by a G&T. But the only recreational activities at Enmore Country Club are drinking, snacking and good chats.

This retro-tinged bar by Dan McBride and Dynn Szmulewicz – owners of Redfern’s Sunshine Inn and Glebe’s The Little Guy – works a treat for the area, which is notorious for “concrete cowboys” stomping down Enmore Road after a browse at Route 66 vintage. With wooden cladding, brass finishes and a room decorated with retro brown-and-maroon patterned wallpaper, the place looks somewhere between a dive bar and a classic country pub.

While the drinks are majority Aussie, a handful of fun international wines bolsters the menu. On the cocktail front, the team recommends the house-made cherry cola, spiked with the booze of your choice (but rum for the win). There’s also the bar’s take on a Long Island Iced Tea dubbed the Country Club Cooler. It mixes cherry-cola syrup, Australian gin, vodka, curacao, a little bit of tequila and white rum.

Fittingly, the short and sharp food menu stars two types of club sandwich, Enmore Country Club-style: “clucking” (chicken) and “not clucking” (tofu). Cheese plates and olives help round out the bar snacks.