Peg Leg Pyrmont

It's a Sunday night and both of the bearded bartenders working at Peg Leg are wearing seafaring hats and nautical shirts. This kind of carry-on behind the bar is usually more than enough to make me do an about-face in search of the nearest pub with staff dressed in jeans and rugby jerseys, not the kind of costume slapped together under duress for Halloween. But, not tonight.

I lumber inside Pyrmont's newest boozer for three reasons. First and foremost, it's raining with the force of ten thousand thundering typhoons and the venue, with its flickering candles, cosy booths and long, elegant bar looks potentially warm and definitely dry. Secondly, I'm deliriously hungry and there's smells coming from the kitchen that need investigating, and thirdly, I've heard the blokes with the silly hats – co-owners Collin Perrillo​ and Manuel Alvarez – are veterans of London's Milk & Honey, the Soho bar common to many "World's Best" lists. It's fallen out of favour with global cocktail wonks of late, but one can usually trust any graduates of the joint to make you something first-class (see also David Hobbs at Surry Hills' Dead Ringer).

The well-mannered chaps don't disappoint. The cocktails are vaguely maritime themed which means gin-based drinks for the officers and rummy concoctions for the rest. The Motley Crew ($18) sees an enamel Pusser's Navy Rum cup (that, good golly, I wish I owned) filled with a mountain of ice, Pampero Especial rum, apricot brandy, lemon, pineapple juice and a Spice Trade syrup of cinnamon, pepper, demerara sugar and cloves. It's balanced and refreshing and the kind of thing I could enjoy a few of next time I'm here, perched against one of the giant open windows facing Pyrmont Bridge Road on a summer afternoon, and not in clothes sopping wet from the cold November rain.   

Better elixirs for drenched sneakers are found in the "Kindred Spirits" section of the drinks list where the boys flex their skill in pre-prohibition-style, whisky-heavy cocktails. The big hitter of the bunch is The Stingray ($22) where smoky Talisker 10 is blended with Lagavulin 16, port, and minty Creme de Menthe Pastille, pulling its weight to highlight the herbal, grassy and seaweedy notes of the two whiskies.

There's also a short and smart collection of craft beers and global wines if you feel like a Stable Hill "Cremello" Chardonnay ($10/$48) with your meal instead of lashings of rum.

Putting to one side a seafood platter ($36) with prawns, oysters and smoked salmon, the dinner menu reads like it could be lifted from the Cowra Country Comfort. Vegetable pot pie; rice-and-cheese-stuffed capsicum; fish and chips with tartare sauce. There's nothing wrong with this if the food is tastes delicious, and, by Jove, it bloody well does.

Hoops of lightly crumbed salt-and-pepper squid are fresh and tender ($12), seven seas away from those frozen calamari quoits native to RSLs. $20, meanwhile, gets you a Sunday roast special of hot lamb and gravy, fluffy spuds, roasted cauliflower, carrots, broccoli and two little Yorkies that sit on the spongier side of the pudding scale.

You might have last visited the 150 year-old space Peg Leg occupies when chef Jared Ingersoll​ popped up here with his Barrel and Beast meat church; however long before that, Perillo says, it was the site of the original Pyrmont Bridge Hotel. It's fantastic to see the place in form again, especially when Pyrmont has been in dire need of a quality small bar for a long time. Silly hats or no silly hats, I know where I'll be having my after-work beer and whisky from now on.

THE LOW-DOWN
Go for… a hearty feed
Stay for... an even heartier cocktail
Drink… The Motley Crew
And… the guys are also open for breakfast and Sensory Lab coffee