Old Mate's Place is the reigning best bar in the country according to the people who would know — it was named Bar of the Year at the 2025 Australian Bar Awards, the night's headline prize. It sits at No. 3 on our national ranking: a hidden, multi-level cocktail bar in the Sydney CBD that pairs a grand library-style room with a lush greenhouse rooftop, and wins on the hardest thing to fake — being wonderful to spend an evening in.
There is a reason the industry, voting on its own, handed this bar its top honour. Where our No. 1 and No. 2 win on a singular idea executed flawlessly — Melbourne's Caretaker's Cottage on restraint, Maybe Sammy on glamour — Old Mate's Place wins on range and warmth. It set out to be the best all-rounder in Sydney, and by the measure that counts most in hospitality, it succeeded. This is the bar you can bring anyone to, on almost any occasion, and know they will have a great time.
Why it's Australia's No. 3 bar
The anchor is the award. At the 2025 Australian Bar Awards, held during Sydney Bar Week in September, Old Mate's Place took Bar of the Year — not a category prize for a single specialism, but the overall best-bar honour, voted by an industry that drinks in these rooms for a living. That is the most credible domestic endorsement a bar can receive, and it is why Old Mate's Place ranks directly behind our two globally listed venues rather than further down.
We place it at No. 3 rather than higher because our top two carry international recognition on The World's 50 Best Bars, a stage Old Mate's Place has not reached in the same way. But the gap is narrow, and on the specific question of "where would I most want to actually spend a Friday night," a strong case puts Old Mate's Place first outright. It is the definition of a great all-rounder: not the most specialised, not the most famous globally, but perhaps the most reliably enjoyable room in the city.
Two bars in one hidden address
Old Mate's Place is genuinely hidden, which is half the charm. It occupies the upper reaches of 199 Clarence Street in the CBD — Level 4, reached by lift and a flight of stairs — and part of the pleasure is the slight sense of discovery on the way up, the feeling that you are being let in on something. What you find at the top is effectively two bars sharing one soul.
The indoor room is a fantasy of a grand old library: arched bookshelves framed by fernery, a chandelier hanging over the bar, candlelit leather booths, and old family photographs of the owners on the walls that give the whole place a personal, lived-in warmth. It is a speakeasy in feel without the tired speakeasy clichés — intimate, bookish, romantic. Then, through and up, is the rooftop: a lush, greenhouse-inspired terrace planted with greenery and set improbably among the surrounding skyscrapers, a little pocket of treehouse calm in the middle of the city. The dual-space design means the bar has an answer for every night and every weather. Cold and cosy? Take a booth in the library. Warm Sydney evening? Head for the plants and the open sky. Few bars anywhere give you two settings this distinct under one roof, and being able to move between them across an evening is a large part of why a visit feels so complete.
The people behind the bar
Old Mate's Place opened in 2018, the work of three friends who had known each other since they were teenagers: Andres and Gabrielle Walters and Daniel Noble. Between them they brought experience from some of Sydney's most respected bars, and they came in with an unusually clear thesis. Rather than open yet another single-focus venue — a dedicated gin bar, a rum bar, a cocktail-only room — they set out to build the best all-rounder in the city: a place with the drinks credentials of a serious cocktail bar but the easy, come-as-you-are welcome of a great local. The name, they have said, was chosen long before the bar itself, a decade in the making.
That founding idea explains everything about how the bar feels. The all-rounder philosophy is why the drinks are ambitious without being alienating, why the crowd is broad and unpretentious, and why the hospitality is the warm, generous kind that turns first-timers into regulars. Winning Bar of the Year is the industry's way of confirming that the original vision landed. The same team has since expanded their footprint — their basement rum bar Old Loves won Rum Bar of the Year at the same 2025 awards — proof that this is a group with a real command of what makes a room work.
The drinks
The cocktail programme matches the all-rounder brief: inventive and well-made, but never so precious that ordering feels like an exam. Because the bar deliberately refuses a single specialism, the list has room to roam across styles and spirits, and the kitchen and bar lean on interesting, sometimes unexpected ingredients — the sort of citrus and botanical touches that keep a familiar template feeling fresh. The point is not to dazzle you with technique for its own sake; it is to make delicious, characterful drinks that suit the room and the mood. If you want a perfect classic, you can have one; if you want the bartender to surprise you, they will.
That balance — serious skill delivered without ceremony — is exactly the tone the whole bar strikes, and it is why the drinks work equally well for a cocktail obsessive and for a friend who "doesn't really drink cocktails." The best approach is to tell the bartender what you tend to like and let them steer, because the menu evolves and their read on the current list will always beat a static recommendation.
Who drinks here, and when to go
The crowd is as broad as the bar intends: after-work groups, dates, cocktail enthusiasts, out-of-towners and industry folk, all mixed together in a way that keeps the energy warm rather than exclusive. That breadth is a feature, not a dilution — it is what an all-rounder is supposed to do. For the rooftop in particular, a fine-weather evening is the prize, so if you are chasing the greenhouse terrace, aim for a warm night and get in early, because that space is popular and finite. The indoor library, by contrast, comes into its own on a cool or wet night when a candlelit booth is exactly where you want to be. Either way, earlier in the evening is calmer; later on weekends the place fills with the buzz you would expect of the city's Bar of the Year.
What to order
Put yourself in the bartender's hands. Because Old Mate's Place is a deliberate all-rounder with a rotating list, the smartest order is a short conversation: name a base spirit or a flavour you love, say whether you want something classic or something adventurous, and let them build to it. If you would rather anchor to something concrete, start with a well-made classic to gauge the house style, then follow the staff's steer for your second. Pair the drinks with whatever bar snacks are on offer, settle into your chosen space, and plan to stay a while — this is a bar that rewards lingering far more than ticking off a checklist.
The pleasure of the climb
One of the underrated joys of Old Mate's Place is simply getting there. Unlike a street-level bar you can glance into from the footpath, this one asks you to make a small journey — into 199 Clarence Street, up via the lift, then the final flight of stairs — and that short ascent does something to the experience. It builds a little anticipation, filters out the casual passer-by, and delivers you into the room with the pleasant sense of having been let in on a secret. Hidden and elevated bars trade on exactly this feeling, and Old Mate's Place uses it well: by the time you emerge into the candlelit library or step out onto the rooftop, the city has been left behind and the night has properly begun. It is a small piece of theatre, entirely free, and it primes you to enjoy everything that follows.
Where it sits in Sydney's story
Old Mate's Place also matters as a marker of how far Sydney's bar scene has travelled. After years constrained by some of the country's tightest nightlife rules, the city has undergone a genuine revival, and the venues leading it are exactly this kind of room: independent, characterful, hospitality-first, and unafraid to be ambitious without being exclusive. That a bar built on being a warm, welcoming all-rounder could be voted the best in the country is itself a statement about where Sydney drinking has arrived — a move away from velvet-rope exclusivity and toward the idea that the best bar is the one that looks after everyone. Old Mate's Place is both a beneficiary and a standard-bearer of that shift, which is part of why its Bar of the Year win resonated so widely across the industry. It is not just a great night out; it is a snapshot of a city rediscovering how good its bars can be.
The neighbourhood and where to go next
Old Mate's Place sits in the heart of the Sydney CBD, within easy walking distance of many of the city's best rooms, which makes it a natural hub for a night out. For contrast, walk to Maybe Sammy in The Rocks for full 1950s glamour, or descend into Ramblin' Rascal Tavern for the city's best bartenders'-bar energy — three very different moods within a short stroll. For a deep cut, seek out the same team's rum den, or head to the inner west for Cantina OK! and Bar Planet. Our full Sydney bar guide lays out the routes, and the national best bars in Australia ranking shows where Old Mate's Place sits against the rest of the country.
Planning your visit
Old Mate's Place is on Level 4 of 199 Clarence Street, Sydney NSW 2000, in the CBD — take the lift and then the stairs to reach it; the small sense of a climb is part of the experience. It is well served by public transport, close to Town Hall and Wynyard stations and an easy walk from much of the city centre. Bookings are a good idea, particularly if you have your heart set on the rooftop on a warm weekend night, when demand is high and the terrace is finite; earlier in the week and early in the evening, walk-ins are more feasible. As with any rooftop-inclusive venue, keep an eye on the weather, since it shapes which of the two spaces will be at its best.
On price, Old Mate's Place sits in the $$$ range typical of Sydney's better cocktail bars — fair for the quality and the setting, and comfortably worth it for a special evening, though not a budget night out. There is no strict dress code; the bar's whole ethos is welcoming rather than exclusive, so come as you would to a nice bar rather than a black-tie event. Above all, give yourself time. The joy of the country's Bar of the Year is not a single knockout drink but the accumulation of a whole evening — the climb, the library, the rooftop, the easy service — and that is best enjoyed unhurried.
A decade in the making
Part of what gives Old Mate's Place its unusual coherence is how long the idea gestated. The three founders — Andres and Gabrielle Walters and Daniel Noble — have said the name and the concept existed for close to a decade before the doors opened, a shared ambition carried through years of working across some of Sydney's most respected bars. That long incubation shows. This is not a venue thrown together to chase a trend; it is the considered execution of a vision three friends had been refining since they were teenagers, and the confidence of that clarity runs through every decision, from the dual-space layout to the deliberately broad, welcoming tone. Bars built on a clear founding idea tend to age well, because there is a north star to steer by when choices get hard, and Old Mate's Place has that in abundance.
The team has since proven the point by expanding thoughtfully rather than opportunistically. Their basement rum bar, Old Loves, won Rum Bar of the Year at the same 2025 Australian Bar Awards — a completely different room with a completely different specialism, and yet unmistakably the work of the same hands. Building one award-winning bar can be luck; building two, in different categories, is a signature. It marks this group as one of the most capable operators in the country, and it deepens the case for taking Old Mate's Place seriously as more than a one-off success.
The drinks in more depth
Because Old Mate's Place deliberately refuses a single specialism, its cocktail programme has an unusual freedom to roam. The list moves across styles and spirits rather than committing to one lane, and the bartenders reach for interesting, sometimes unexpected ingredients — the kind of citrus and botanical touches that keep a familiar template feeling alive — without ever sliding into novelty for its own sake. The through-line is drinkability: these are cocktails engineered to be enjoyed rather than merely admired, which is exactly right for a bar whose whole thesis is broad appeal. A serious cocktail enthusiast will find plenty to reward close attention, while a guest who "doesn't really drink cocktails" can be handed something delicious and unintimidating with equal ease. That range within a single, coherent house style is genuinely hard to pull off, and it is a big part of why the room works for so many different kinds of night. As ever, the best move is to tell the bartender what you gravitate toward and let the current list and their judgement do the rest.
Why the all-rounder is the hardest bar to build
It is worth pausing on how difficult Old Mate's Place's achievement actually is. A specialist bar has an easier path to acclaim: pick a lane — agave, whisky, martinis, natural wine — go deep, and a devoted audience and an awards category tend to follow. The all-rounder has no such shortcut. It has to be good enough at everything to satisfy the cocktail obsessive while remaining warm and unintimidating enough for the friend who just wants a nice drink, and it has to do that consistently, across two very different spaces, night after night. Get the balance slightly wrong and an all-rounder becomes a jack of all trades and master of none. That Old Mate's Place threaded this needle so well that the industry named it Bar of the Year over every specialist in the country tells you how rare and hard-won its particular kind of excellence is. It is the bar equivalent of a decathlete beating the sprint specialists — and it is precisely why we rate it as highly as we do.
The rooftop, the library, and reading the weather
Because Old Mate's Place is really two bars, a little planning turns a good visit into a great one. The greenhouse rooftop is the prize on a warm, clear Sydney evening — an open-air pocket of greenery high above the CBD, and one of the best places in the city to watch dusk settle over the skyline. But it is finite and weather-dependent, so on a busy fine-weather night it goes fast; arriving early or booking is the way to secure it. The indoor library, meanwhile, is not a consolation prize but a destination in its own right, and it comes into its own exactly when the rooftop doesn't: a wet or cold night, when a candlelit leather booth beneath the arched bookshelves is the coziest seat in town. The smart move is to let the forecast guide your timing, and ideally to experience both across an evening — start with a drink among the plants, then retreat downstairs as the night cools. Few bars reward this kind of two-act visit as fully.
The verdict
Old Mate's Place won Bar of the Year because it understood, from the very first sketch of the idea, that the best bar is not the most specialised or the most famous but the one that most reliably gives people a great night. Its two contrasting spaces, its inventive-but-unintimidating drinks and its genuinely warm hospitality add up to a room that works for almost anyone, almost any night — the definition of an all-rounder done at the highest level. It ranks No. 3 in Australia and, on the simple question of where you would most like to be at 9pm on a Friday, it is very hard to beat. Find the door on Clarence Street, make the climb, and see why the industry gave it the top prize.