The Bat & Ball Hotel

Pub overhauls can be perilous. Anyone can rustle up some droll retro refs and tell themselves they’ve built something that will squeeze on the nostalgia synapses. But getting it right means zero skimping on three essential ingredients: functionality, restraint and heart. 

The first should be easy. You can’t lean so hard into the “concept” that you lose sight of the fact that a pub, above all, needs to be a good place to sink a beer with your mates. The second is about knowing where to find the balance between the old bones of the original and its bright new makeover. But the third is perhaps the hardest to nail of all. A good redone pub needs to give you the sense that the people who polished it up truly care about the details and have put lots of love into it, along with elbow grease. Twee? Great. Cookie-cutter twee? Not so great. 

The Bat & Ball – which many inner-city Sydney residents may remember as a classic old-man pub, and others may recall as the occasional home of messy house and techno parties in the early 2000s – has got it right. Under the stewardship of the team from Enmore Country Club and Glebe’s The Little Guy, the mission-brown panelling is faithfully restored. The Australiana is kitsch but considered. The high tops are high, the bar tops are sturdy and it remains a solid spot to throw back a schooner on a Sunday with your kelpie at your feet.