Snap Crackle Pop, Tingly Paloma and Yum Yum Gibson. They’re a few of the creative cocktails on offer at Good Luck Restaurant and Lounge which opened in a basement space on Sydney’s Bridge Street in April this year.
Every day from 4pm to 6pm, you can sip mini versions of the cocktails at the venue’s Lucky Hour. Also on the happy hour cocktail menu are Rikuro’s Gimlet and classics Tommy’s Margarita and Negroni. All drinks are the creations of mastermind James Irvine, Merivale’s creative cocktail lead.
If you’re here for the Insta content, order the Snap Crackle Pop. It’s a blend of vodka, nashi pear and sake with a rice crispy flourish. Yum Yum Gibson is gin and vermouth, super saline and cocktail onion. For a wild mix of flavours, grab Rikuro’s Gilmet, with gin, cream cheese and native ingredients strawberry gum and lime leaf.
Though the fun, discounted cocktails might draw you in, it’ll be the food and décor that brings you back. The menu is by the same exec chef at Totti’s, Mike Eggert. It’s all kinds of Asian with a focus on seafood that’s so fresh, spanner crab, snow crab, mud crab and lobster are swimming around in three green-tinged tanks around the venue.
Highlights include smoked soy-poached chicken in shiso dressing, house-made egg noodles with Japanese whitebait and shishito peppers and fire-roasted prawns in tomato miso with chicken skin and cereal crunch.
The restaurant is in the subterranean space of a sandstone building that went up in the 1880s and was once a lumberyard. It’s decorated with layered carpets, elaborate chandeliers and thrift store nickknacks like a ceramic cat and open-mouthed fish. On one wall, a watercolour of a kitten surrounded by oranges and lemons hangs.
Groups can book a private dining room or semi-private, both filled with the same kitsch décor as the main spaces. For those only keen on cocktails, perch yourself at the bar. Two wine rooms lined with bottles can also be explored, as can an alcove with a helmet-sized TV and bottles of Asian sauces displayed on a shelf.
Sommelier Jacqueline Doucette, formerly of Geranium in Copenhagen, describes Good Luck’s wine list as “heaps of variety and something for everyone”. It ranges from Syrah from Yarra Valley to Vouvray from the Loire and a South African Chenin.
The restaurant which was three years in the making is open for lunch and dinner Tuesdays to Saturdays. Aside from Lucky Hour every late afternoon, the restaurant has a $95 bottomless sparkling (Moët and Chandon NV) and a 2-for-1 spanner, mud or snow crab Saturday and Sunday lunch.
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