First Look: Martinis Reign at Bar Planet’s Slick New CBD Bar

The invitation at Bar Bridge is simple: descend the stairs to the CBD basement for a sexy, classic Martini served by suited-up bartenders. It’s an easy proposition from the Mucho team, and one they’ve dialled in at Newtown’s Bar Planet and the Martini-fied Bar Herbs. Here though, the ’Tinis are dryer and the service a bit more serious.

“The Bar Planet Martini is a bit softer, a bit sillier,” creative director Jeremy Blackmore says. “Here it’s going to be more dry Martinis – still fun but slightly more serious, more boozy, icy cold. Delicious.”

Bartenders are bow-tied, with black waistcoats over white button-ups – making for slick scenes as they pour and stir, then ferry drinks to the booths. “We take everything really seriously, but there’s always that element of silliness.”

The space will be familiar to Sydney drinkers – it was most recently the “porn chic” Double Deuce. The bones are still there – the cosy booths lining the walls, and the bar stretching across the space – but it’s moodier, with a lick of black paint and new pendant lights dressed in red frills. Ripe for the three-part “extra dry” Martini menu.

There’s a house Martini, a citrusy number and another with the spice of kimchi. “They’re all a bit more classic in style, filtered through with modern ideas and ingredients,” says Blackmore.

The Bridge Martini has a base split between Hickson House’s “straight up and down” London Dry Gin and Bridge’s own vodka spiked with plum and sumac notes, with Blackmore’s own creation Tres Sec subbing in for vermouth.

 “It’s an old technique they use in Canada to make ice wine,” he says. The team freezes a champagne-style wine overnight, before defrosting it over a sieve. “The result is a liquid similar in acidity, sweetness and alcohol to vermouth, with a really dry, really bracing almost champagne-y flavour to it. I had a vision of a really dry Martini – I wanted it super dry, super crisp, the flavours of the spirits to really sing in there, so this is just to boost it up.”

The Citron Martini has got the gin-vodka split too – this time with Four Pillars’ yuzu gin and Mucho’s house-distilled citrus vodka – plus lillet blanc. Then there’s the out-there Kimchi Martini.

“I was shocked at how good it was the first time I tried it,” Blackmore says. “I tried so many weird, inventive ways to make this, but it turned out the best way was to blend up a tub of kimchi then strain the juice out. There’s enough of the sourness, saltiness, brininess that it weirdly feels familiar when you drink it.”

Mucho’s trademark brown bags of popcorn – hot, out of this world, moreish and always on the house – are this time revved up with nori salt. They’re an ace Martini snack, or alongside the rotating monthly special or your choice from the five-part Bar Bridge signature cocktail list. From 4pm till 6pm, a happy hour stars $13 Bridge Martinis and $7 Angel Oro lagers.

Bar Bridge is part one of Mucho’s newcomers for the year, with Enmore’s Super 44 opening in the coming months.

Bar Bridge
6 Bridge Street, Sydney

Hours:
Tue & Wed 4pm–midnight
Thu to Sat 4pm–2am

@barbridgebar
muchogroup.com.au/barbridge