Frisk Small Bar

Westwinds. Tanqueray. Sipsmith. The Botanist.

Gin lovers, now that I have your attention I want you to take you on an exotic journey through the back streets of Northbridge to a little joint which will unceremoniously rip out your heart and leave you with a permanent ear worm of the theme song from Casablanca.

Of all the gin joints in all the world and … I've finally found mine.

Imagine if you will, an intimate little den where candlelight flickers behind the bar on a lineup of shimmering bottles of the world's very best tipples made from juniper berries.

Add the seductive sound of the tinkling of ice as your gin-based martini is stirred, then imagine the smooth hand feel of the wide-brimmed glass as you raise it to your mouth and get the first whiff of the floral, earthy, spicy bouquet of Hendrick's. You sigh.

But there's more to this decadent ritual which was carried out in Frisk bar every Thursday night during Eat Drink Perth.

There's the added high of sinking your teeth into fleshy green olives and getting a second hit of gin with a hint of vermouth as you feel the day's woes float away. And there's brine. Lots of brine. And not just in the glasses of those who like their guilty pleasures dirty.

In between sips of your $20 martini – stirred, not shaken -- there's semi-sweet mouthfuls of the ocean with half a dozen Streaky Bay oysters which are part of the special deal running on Thursday nights. Note: the offer finished on April 23 but it was so popular that management are considering taking it up regularly.

Oysters and martinis? Shouldn't that be Chablis and oysters or champagne and oysters? Not when you're on the Roger Sterling diet, like I've been since a marathon session of binge-watching Mad Men.

Sterling, the sleazy advertising account exec can polish off three martinis and throw a dozen oysters down his hatch in one lunchtime session. And watching him doing it has given me a strong thirst for martinis.

Those at Frisk, where affable bar tender Gillian Kady mixes the drinks and regularly holds court as she shares her knowledge on spirits, were obviously thinking along the same lines.

The place was packed out with the after work crew by about 7pm with punters wolfing down their oysters with martinis made from Haymans, Hendrick's or Bombay Sapphire. Considering the martinis are normally priced at $19.00 it's not a bad offer.

Along with the more popular global brands there are also enough gins from small batch Australian and West Australian distilleries to make things even more interesting.

It's been four years since Frisk morphed from a café into a serious-about-spirits small bar and it's a no brainer to see why it works so effectively.

For a start, Kady knows her stuff. She operates on the premise that she serves "people not spirits" and she'll tell them all the same favourite story about how James Bond had it all wrong when he asked for his martini to be shaken.

She has a regular following of booze bandits seeking out rare bottles of white spirits like gin, vodka and rum as well as those who are partial to the honey-coloured, smokey peaty whiskies. Or indeed, anything that they can stare at longingly in a tumbler.
But with Kady's taste in music no one will be doing that for too long.

On this busy night the soundtrack was the Beatles and a selection of what she calls rock'n'roll, as crowd spilled outside onto the street where tables and chairs can accommodate 40.

Unlike Sterling we managed to get through only two dry martinis – one with Haymans (and a twist of lemon) and one with Hendrick's (olives). Both were excellent and, with only a hint of Vermouth being swirled around the glass with the ice, both were much lighter and cleaner than the martinis of old which had equal parts of both.

The big test was how they went with the oysters. Well, the drink didn't overpower them like I thought it would. There was a creamy earthiness to the oysters, which were served natural with lemon wedges – and tabasco for those who wanted it – so the martini acted like a very cleansing finish.

We also ordered a platter of food, just to see what the tiniest kitchen in the whole world could produce. And, as it turns out, not much. Five jars of assorted offerings revealed stock standard mouthfuls of feta cubes, cheddar, pickled Japanese squid and mushrooms.

But, I wouldn't bother with the food. Go for the drinks, the vibe, the oysters and the friendlies bar tender in the world. Yes Louis, forget Mad Men, I think is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.