Cantina OK
Sydney’s smallest bar transports you to Mexico and back again in a CBD laneway
AT THE END of a service alley, a step back from the CBD bustle, gold light spills out onto the asphalt. There’s a scent of lime in the air, the sound of Boston shakers, and just a hint of danger. Welcome to Cantina OK, the standing-room-only bar that since February of 2019 has plied Sydney with good, clean, sort-of illicit fun, fuelled by mezcal and backed up by one of the sharpest bar teams in the city. This is owners Alex Dowd and Jeremy Blackmore and group operations manager Alex “Happy” Gilmour’s follow-up to Tio’s Cerveceria. Here, the focus – and dimensions – are tighter, and the trio have licence to sate their insatiable thirst for agave-based liquor with frequent buying trips to the far reaches of Mexico. Cantina takes you straight to the grindstones and the pit ovens, in everything from the striking travelbook-style menu to staff who’ve been schooled by Gilmour then have consolidated the knowledge by going straight to the source. If you ask, the team will run through the multifarious species of agave, how they’re aged in glass or cowhide, then regale you with tales of Oaxacan mezcaleros harvesting under full moons and suitcases of bottles smuggled through customs. They’ll pour shot glasses (for sipping, mind) of the wicked, wild and beautiful stuff – some grassy, some floral, some burning, most smoky – and temper it with plates of mango or dragonfruit, perhaps, sprinkled with spicy salt and served with a lime cheek. They also shake a mean Margarita. Made with a 50-50 mix of tequila and mezcal poured into a coupe kissed with flaked salt over ice shaved by a hand-cranked Nepalese ice machine, it’s bracingly sour, ultra-refreshing and dangerously drinkable. The other three cocktails include a sour based on chamomile and pineapple, and the Fizz OK, a horchata-like drink made with añejo tequila and rice syrup. A daily special, meanwhile, brings a little improv to proceedings. Add a roster of craft beers and natural wines, and this is a bar for all comers. One to settle into for a mezcal schooling, or to visit at the start and the end of the night, to jostle for elbow room, trade quips with the crew and feel some risk creeping back into a city that could use it. OK? That’s not even the start of it. àCouncil Pl, Sydney 2000. cantinaok.com.au. Daily 4pm-2am.