A Lovely Local: The Darlo Bar

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Published

October 29, 2010

SPONSORED EDITORIAL

The Darlo Bar in Sydney is one of 50 venues handpicked by Ray-Ban to be part of their Rare Prints/Rare Places initiative, a unique concept they developed to help their customer discover their city’s best bars, shops and events to celebrate their new range of Rare Print Ray-Bans.

The Darlo Bar has become somewhat of an institution in inner-city Sydney suburb Darlinghurst with a growing and loyal fan base. It has been considered a community lounge room, and a funky one at that. Licensee Ingrid Townson explains, “We’re not really a stainless steel, futuristic looking place, we’ve just got a relaxed atmosphere and the locals and visitors love that.”

The furniture downstairs is a retro-kitsch mix of styles spanning the 1950s to the ’80s, which suits the quirky, casual vibe of the place. The Darlo Bar’s ‘Patio’ is a Garden Wonderland upstairs comprising trellises and vines and park bench furniture.

Darlo Bar also supports a lot of interesting initiatives- such as Tuesday night movie screenings in the past where classic films were shown. Townson says, “It’s good that we always have stuff happening so that people keep coming in. We have an old, cultured venue, so it’s good that we have regular initiatives to keep locals keen on coming back.”

Currently, Darlo Bar are working on a project with local artists and photographers. Darlo Bar have blended their very own wine called the ‘Thirsty Artist’. Artistic types send through pictures of their work and every couple of months The Darlo staff choose their favourite. The winner receives a carton of ‘Thirsty Artist’, complete with their winning masterpiece on the label. There will be an exhibition of the works coming up in November.

Townson says there has definitely been an increase in bars in the area but that Darlo Bar has stuck to it’s guns and to them, there hasn’t been much change (“apart from a few of the regulars carking it”).