Barhop: Frankie's Fun Room

Fancy sipping a whiskey while listening to Dylan and drooling over photos of Brocky's Toranas? Frankie's Fun Room is for you.

I love this bar. There's nowhere else in central Sydney I can drink whiskey, listen to Bob Dylan album tracks, and drool over photographs of Peter Brock's Toranas.

Frankie's Fun Room is a hidden (but not really that hidden) bar inside Frankie's Pizza By Slice. You head out of the fire exit next to the stage in the pinball room and down a few stairs to an unmarked brown door. If you can't find it, you're not looking hard enough.

This is where 1970s Kurt Russell hangs out wearing a denim jacket and nursing a Budweiser. It's where the protagonist in Bruce Springsteen's Atlantic City meets the guy he's going to do a "little favour for". It's where Warren Zevon throws back enough tequila to revive the corpse of Gram Parsons. Not that any debauchery has ever happened in here of course. Uh uh. Never. No way.

The 20-seater used to be the green room for bands playing in the main bar and the ghost of sweaty rock looms large. There's a honky-tonk playlist, brown vinyl chairs, and kitsch Americana hanging from timber-veneered walls. The lights are set to "moody dim" which only makes it a better place to drink straight Jack Daniels out of a plastic cup ($9).

In fact, it seems wrong to drink anything else but Jack Daniels. And Coopers tinnies ($8) which is the only beer going. If you were inclined to drink something other than these two bruisers, there's a house prosecco that isn't worth anyone's time and a respectable collection of brown and white spirits that is.

The Michters rye ($11.50) is a smooth hit of spice and wood and an Edradour "Straight From the Cask" 10-year-old whisky is malty, a fruity number thanks to all the sherry casks it's loved before.

Keen for a cocktail? There's a slushy machine back out the front, tiger.

Frankie's Fun Room is a world away from the hard-rocking hootenanny that goes on in Frankie's senior. For the most part the only indication there's a bigger bar on the other side of the walls is a bass-guitar-bleed when there's a band thrashing Slayer.

Visit Frankie's Fun Room, enjoy it and embrace it. Just don't be a numbskull and ruin it for everyone else. Especially me.

THE LOW-DOWN

Frankie's Fun Room

50 Hunter Street, Sydney

Go for... cold tinnies and Peter Brock commemorative artwork.

Stay for… the chance Crosby, Stills, Nash, or Young could walk through the door any minute wearing a suede jackets with the tassels. Or similar.

Drink… your spirits straight.

And another thing… aim to get there after 9pm otherwise you might find yourself waiting for the Fun Room to open.