Phoenix Hotel

Usually meeting at the pub after rugby, even if it’s just tag, builds the image in your mind of a mildly busy, kinda dark and poorly lit place with an incessant chatty background (I love it by the way, that was me loving it).
Not at all for The Phoenix, who rose from the ashes of the pub cliché into an elegant and well tended venue, with a good choice of beer and wine, a pub food menu that would make any Aussie happy and the nicest and most available staff I’ve seen south of Bali!
I won’t say much on the food aside that it was better than average and probably a three and a half star performance.
The venue deserves to be credited for its welcoming counter and decoration and I definitely recommend it to anyone in need of a pub night outside their neighbourhood!

The Phoenix Hotel a block back from Oxford Street in Woollahra is a nice little local pub. Actually even if you’re not a local it’s worth a visit.
It’s been renovated but to be honest it doesn’t really look like it but that is a real good thing. It actually reminds me of a bar I once visited in San Francisco. Although this place has a TAB area and a pokies room which I’ll admit, I didn’t notice in the SF bar!
So as you do in the states, me and my companion grabbed a stool and sat at the bar. And grabbed a drink of course. There’s a little cocktail menu if you feel adventurous or if your hungry a toasted sandwich menu to fill that void.
It might not sound like much but gee they were nice. So nice that after a couple more drinks we grabbed another each. There’s not a whole lot of ingredients to choose from but with some ham, salami, cheese, rocket, pickles and sun dried tomatoes I’m sure you’ll be able to come up with something worth trying.
After our few drinks and couple of toasted sandwiches the barman ‘rewarded’ us with a shot. I have no idea what it was but that too was nice. I’ll have to go back and find out. And maybe even grab myself another toasted sandwich!

My lasting memory of this Woollahra pub comes from my acting days. I was doing an advert for Barons Beer (they are based in the offices above the bar) that involved me driving up to the Phoenix in a ute, climbing out and walking through the front door and up to the bar wearing a fine selection of women’s clothing (high heels, stockings, pink hot pants and white halter neck top) in front of 2 cricket teams that were having their end-​of-​season drinks at the time. They turned out to be a good set of extras, and the convincing look of shock on their faces wasn’t because they were good actors!
Aside from playing host to struggling actors who will cross-​dress just to try and make it, not much else really happens there. They used to have poker on Thursdays that a friend of mine ran, but that finished when he moved away. It’s definitely a locals pub so don’t expect too much else happening, but I do like the fact that it is a rough-​round-​the-​edges pub in one of the most expensive areas in Sydney, and it’s a perfectly friendly place to have a drink, and can be a pleasant alternative to some of the overly uptight drinking holes this city has to offer.
Oh, and that ad never made it to air. Thank god!