Located underneath the delightful fine diner Fred’s, Charlie Parker’s is the perfect place to hide away on a cold and wet Sydney evening. 

In 2019, the 157-year-old Australian Youth Hotel became The Glebe Hotel. It scored a new pub menu, a lush courtyard and a cushy private space. 

A bootery, a boarding house and an opium den. These are just a few of the past lives of 77–79 George Street, but The Doss House is the latest moniker for this heritage-listed building — and this time round it’s all about on whisky. 

Named after the fellow who would go on to become King William IV, The Duke of Clarence is a particularly ambitious venture — it’s an 1800s-style British tavern, somewhere Charles Dickens might have penned Great Expectations over a couple of ales and a pork pie. 

Boasting the warmth and history of an old English pub — all dark woods and shadowy corners — The Lord Dudley is a perfect place to hide away this winter. 

A reliable local, the Crix has all the comfort and familiarity you need for a cosy winter’s night. It’s a beautiful old pub, boasting wooden floors and wall tiles, a laidback atmosphere and plenty of character behind the bar. 

The easily missed and almost unmarked Gothic doors on Falcon Street hide a darkened entryway to one of the city’s most exciting hidden playgrounds. 

As Sydney’s oldest “continually licensed” pub (if we disqualify The Fortune of War for being demolished and rebuilt), this Australian monument is a great place to stare into the flames with a pint in hand and contemplate a long history of similarly-minded beer aficionados taking shelter from the cold. 

A Dowling Street stalwart, Woolloomooloo’s Old Fitz may have undergone a relaunch in 2019, but it’s still an old pub at heart. 

In 2020, The Duke of Enmore was given a major revamp from the team behind The Oxford Tavern and The Taphouse. The new-look Inner West drinking hole now packs in patrons for gigs, tasty wood-fired eats and pickleback shots.