Pink linen, bubbles and 14 ‘mirages’: AI ranked this Sydney bar most influential in the world – is it worth the hype?
Remember Tom Cruise and Bryan Brown gyrating in sync, flicking rum bottles and iced glasses in the air before a throng of permed and adoring city slickers?
Well, this isn’t exactly like a scene from Cocktail – there’s not a single perm in central Sydney in 2023. But the rest of the Maybe Sammy experience? It’s got the moves.
The Rocks venue has just been named the most influential bar in the world by the Top 500 Bars global ranking, which is crunched from big data – reviews, online search results and social media – using AI. As reasons to say cheers go, it’s on the algorithmy side, so Guardian Australia put it to the real-life test.
Tucked beneath a tower in The Rocks are pink banquettes, tropical wallpaper, a disco ball and, on a humid spring evening, pavement seating. It’s approachable and easy.
The barmen – and they are all men – wear powder-pink linen jackets with a red rose in the lapel. Rows of awards line the shelves next to spirit bottles. Last month, Maybe Sammy was voted best Australian bar for the fifth year running and No 15 on the prestigious World’s 50 Best Bars list, as judged by humans. And it’s nabbed many other gongs since opening in January 2019.
On Thursday evening, suited post-work parties, date-nighters and destination drinkers fill the tables.
“Be the high roller that you are. You’ve earned it!” the bar’s website tells me. I pat myself on the back and take a seat at the bar.
The cocktail menu is made up of 14 “mirages”, inspired by the bartenders’ moments throughout the year. I’m not sure what this means. I order a drink called You Don’t Win Friends With Salad ($24), a blend of Hendricks gin, Tio Pepe sherry, Empirical Spirits Helena, basil, watermelon and tomato soda topped with olive oil air. Hunter Gregory, the bar manager, tells me it’s a good choice.
Behind me, a drinks trolley is wheeled to a corner table where a couple with their adult daughter have ordered a martini. A scent is sprayed. An inexplicable bubble filled with dried ice wobbles up and out of a small urchin-shaped dish. It pops with a genie-like flourish.
My own drink is smoky and herby and cucumbery and fruity. There are tiny dots of balsamic reduction on the rim of the clay cup and I am confused and enchanted. It is delicious. There’s a constant clatter of shaking ice cubes and cheering.
Maybe Sammy takes its elegant Rat Pack theme seriously but tonight two Athenians are guest-bartending. They’re wearing silk, Rumble in the Jungle bowling shirts and making drinks called Ali Bomayes. They blast pink bubble guns as Mamma Mia plays at high volume. I recklessly order a Suicide Mouse ($24).
By now it’s 7.08pm and the queue of people waiting outside can see avalanches of bubbles and the odd fluoro flamingo light as they watch on. The local and Greek barmen are dancing together. Super Mario hats appear from somewhere and a waitress delivers warm pita bread ($8) and hummus ($6). It’s all being photographed and filmed by the patrons.
I wonder, as I untangle the bitter and sweet of my confection (which, by the way, includes blue cheese and lacto rhubarb in its ingredients), whether there’s a parallel to be drawn between bubbles, which are ephemeral and don’t ask too much of us, and social media.
Or perhaps it’s just bright, novel fun, accompanied by impeccable drinks and service.
You can add it to your reels if you like, or you can be there, doing a Mexican wave and getting carried away. For a moment, there’s no them and us – and, right now, that’s a wonderful thing. Then I look at the bartender and see a bank of phones staring his way.
