Cents and sensibility

By Kate Duthie
August 17, 2004

Adults only: eat, drink and relax in swish surroundings. Photo: Domino Postiglione

The spotlight is on a grown-up space in the money-making end of town.

Mint Bar and Dining
62 BRIDGE STREET, CITY. TEL: 9240 1210
Open Mon-Fri noon-late, Sat 5pm-late
Crowd Grown-up
Vibe Swish
Highs The decor
Lows The tasting plate
Drinks Wine from $5.50, beer from $4.50, cocktails $13.

Being a grown-up's great, isn't it? You can dress as you like, eat a whole chocolate cake for dinner and you no longer have to call your mum into the bathroom to show off your ablution.

Yes, adulthood brings many advantages, including the chance to explore Sydney's myriad bars. The problem with being a grown-up of the over-30 variety is that often the bars are full of grown-ups more in the 18 to 25 range, who like very loud young people's music, mushroom clouds of cigarette smoke and socialising with their friends via SMS.

So it's a breath of fresh air when one finds a bar that is full of other grown-ups enjoying a night out against a background of relaxing decor, music and service. A bar that really is a bar and not the waiting area for a restaurant. A bar where it's what you drink rather than the speed with which you drink it that matters.

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So I felt terribly adult visiting Mint, a fancy new place in the financial bit of the city, tucked under a corner of the super-swish InterContinental Hotel. The entrance would be easy to miss but for the Batman-like searchlight spelling out the bar's name on the carpet at the entrance.

Inside is a long narrow space with the dining room along the left wall and bar seating along the right under grand arched windows. A clever row of glass columns, creating the illusion of a mirror, divides the two areas. At the far end, up some stairs, is another bar; through a door, there is a large lounge area suitable for big groups, with yet another bar.

Very glam, silver cylindrical lampshades hang from the ceiling around glass chandeliers. The furniture is the sort you'd like in your grown-up home; square olive green leather chairs and high stools up against cool white counters.

It's a Friday night so it's busy but not packed with a smart, well-heeled office crowd. The rear lounge has a party atmosphere; in the more subdued front area, I take a stool and scan the drinks list. Among the original-sounding drinks, I spot a Brazilian Wax and a Landing Strip. There are champagne and frozen cocktails and, for teetotallers, forgeries.

As a grown-up interested in good nutrition, I figure the Paradiso is more health drink than cocktail. It's a long stick drink made with passionfruit, lychee, mandarin, oh, and vodka. It's very fruity, very strong and very more-ish and just the thing for washing down the milk bread with taramasalata I've ordered along with olives on spaghetti skewers.

I think it best to order another nutritious drink with the well-presented but hit-and-miss Mint tasting plate. Oxtail may seem peculiar among finger food but is delicious, the oysters with blueberry granita and the red peppers with goat's cheese are less memorable, but the corn fritters are plump and fresh.

A third drink has me very relaxed in a grown-up way, but the adult in me knows a fourth could mean making a toilet inspection of my own, so I head home to defrost a black cherry cheesecake that will almost certainly need neatening up after that first slice.