TRAVEL + LEISURE / MARCH 2016
salon in the back). It will soon sell its own
products, including an aftershave tonic
blended with bay rum, cloves, and vanilla.
The art crowd has been flocking to the
neighbourhood, too. AtWhite Rabbitgallery
(whiterabbitcollection.org),owner Judith
Neilson shows contemporary Chinese art by
leading figures like Ai Weiwei. TheAmbush
art gallery(ambushgallery.com),inthe
gleaming Central Park building, highlights
work from local and international talent.
And cementing the neighbourhood’s cultural
reputation is Frank Gehry’s first Australian
creation, the paper-bag-esque Dr Chau Chak
Wing Building at the University of
Technology Sydney, which opened last year.
Visitors can check out the sculptural
stainless-steel staircase in the lobby and the
Level 2 café, with its acrylic cloud-shaped
lighting. The building’s slightly off-kilter
charm is a perfect emblem for this
neighbourhood on the verge.At the vanguard of the revival is the
Old Clare Hotel theoldclarehotel.com.au; (
doubles from US$205 ), which occupies a
1915 brewery and a 1930s pub. The owners
have taken great care to honour the
buildings’ impressive bones while
incorporating contemporary global
infl uences: Midcentury Danish furniture,
light fi xtures from a Lebanese design
studio , organic toiletries from New Zealand
brand Triumph & Disaster, a sexy rooftop
pool, and tongue-in-cheek Aussie touches
including black tote bags in the closets
printed with phrases like random crap.
The heart of the hotel is its restored
Art Deco pub, a cosy room with original
tiled walls, a curved bar, frosted saloon
doors, and dog-eared band posters from
the likes of the White Stripes and Tori
Amos. (There’s no longer live music at the
bar , but the stereo plays homegrown acts.)
The design quirks, such as a rotary phone
that plays recordings of poetry when the
receiver is lifted, haven’t alienated the
‘Chippo’ residents. On a late weekday
afternoon, two burly construction workers
in bright refl ective vests were at the bar
having an after-work schooner of beer.
The Old Clare is also home to one of the
CLOCKWISE: Long communal tables at
Automata, in the Old Clare; portraits
at the cutting-edge White Rabbit
Collection ; a public plaza in the
Central Park complex.city’s boldest and most talked-about new
restaurants, Automata automata.com.au; (
tasting menus from US$63 ), whose dining
room has long tables and antique
machinery collected from scrapyards.
Chef Clayton Wells’s menu includes what
many are calling ‘Sydney’s least
Instagrammable dish’: a sublime and
amorphous black mass of steamed hapuku
over roe emulsion draped with wilted nori.
A few blocks away is the much-awarded
Ester ester-restaurant.com.au; entrées (
US$13–US$64), a Chippendale pioneer that
serves wood-fi red comfort food in a
stylishly austere space. Try dishes like bone
marrow with sambal or a ‘sanga’
(Australian for sandwich ) made with blood
sausage. Nearby at LP’s Quality Meats
(lpsquality meats.com; entrées US$10–
US$32 ), the cavernous dining room has
moody lighting and terrazzo fl oors. Sample
chef Luke Powell’s grilled octopus with
chorizo, or the lamb belly stuff ed with
merguez—straight from the Southern Pride
Smoker he had shipped from Tennessee.
The tattooed brigades congregate at
Sterling Apothecary sterlingapothecary.(
com), a barbershop off ering old-fashioned
straight- razor shaves (there’s also a beauty