"BARS FIRE AND ICE"
Good Living, Sydney Morning Herald

The drinks are served with a splash of theatre and the setting is glamorous but the music is beige.

EARLY on a warm Thursday evening, the doors to the small French balcony upstairs at Verde are wide open, letting in the fresh air and providing a good vantage point to watch the bats in their twilight migration. The restaurant sits at the former site of Two Chefs, commanding a pleasantly cosmopolitan view of the Stanley Riley intersection in East Sydney. Above the restaurant, the bar is a stylish and inviting space of dark olive green and chocolate-hued leather. Enormous, clear, dome-shaped lightshades add contemporary element. Verde retains a few of the features of a converted terrace - small upstairs rooms, wooden trim, an elegant but inviting feel , a tiny upstairs courtyard - and the service is so warm it's as if we're visiting a friend's house. The bartender holds out his hand as we arrive and we introduce ourselves, vaguely confused.

There are more than 10 varieties each of exotic tequilas, vodkas and rums, a handful of beers and a short-ish but interesting cocktail list, from which I order a Floral Passion. It's not a bad perfume, as the name suggest, but a brightly hued cocktail of top-shelf Herradura Reposado tequila, elderflower cordial, fresh passionfruit pulp and sparkling wine over ice in a parfait glass. It's summery and delicious, although a little heavy on the crushed ice. Admittedly, I may be just jealous that I didn't order the Caribbean, as my companion does. Who doesn't love a little theatre with their cocktail? The Caribbean comes with a performance, pyrotechnics included. The bartender ignites a martini glass containing a dash of rum on the table in front of us.

"This is better in the dark," he concedes as the flames lick the sides of the glass. He extinguishes the flaming martini glass with a shaken mixture of Havana Club and Appleton rum and fruit juice. My companion pronounces it great. Several other people in the bar, who have been watching too, immediately order one.

We're hungry. Happily, the reasonably priced bar food options include a vegetarian section - a rarity in the Sydney bar food stakes. We try the buffalo mozzarella and tomato (moreishly superb; I could have eaten several plates of it), stuffed eggplant and the potato, parsley and parmesan fritters (tasty but more deep-fried than frittered); Plus a delicious plate of fried squid with chilli dust from the meaty menu. We sip, nibble, chat and watch the bats. Ah, Sydney.

Still, there's one side effect of the State Government's pending small bars legislation that I am particularly looking forward to: the scope for more personality in bard. Right now, even the good ones in Sydney - such as Verde - have beautiful luxe décor and a certain quota of classy wine, spirit and cocktail options. But when it comes to music - an integral part of a bar's atmosphere - they stick relentlessly to an inoffensive mean. It's the contemporary equivalent of elevator muzak, the smoothly generic, personality-free jazzy-house sound. With luck, soon we'll have bars as appealing and friendly as Verde with the music to match.