At this self-proclaimed “five-star dive bar”, hidden down a hard-to-find staircase, no-nonsense beers and serious cocktails live happily in highbrow-lowbrow harmony.
Success is hardly a given in the Emerald City’s highly competitive cocktail bar scene, but it was pretty much guaranteed from the start for Ramblin’ Rascal. The thing is, expectations run high when Charlie Lehmann, Sebastian Soto and Dardan Shervashidze – three of the most respected bartenders in town, fresh from stints at benchmarks such as Frankie’s and The Baxter Inn – announce plans to open their own venture. And when that venture turns out to be a self-proclaimed “five-star dive bar” with a penchant for Cognac in the heart of the CBD, folks show up.
This is a bar with an answer to every question you throw at it, where no-nonsense beers and serious cocktails live happily in highbrow-lowbrow harmony, backed by some of the most affable owner-operators in the game. The list of awards it has picked up in its near decade-long lifespan speaks for itself, and so, too, does the impressive calibre of young talent that has graduated from behind its bar. There are no servicing trends or bowing to fads, just the promise of excellent drinks made by people who care, where comfort is king and the outside world feels far away.
