Forgive me Father for I have sinned.
In spite of my FebFast pledge to stay booze-free for the whole of February, I confess to drinking alcohol last week. I'll say 5 Hail Mary's and put $50 in the poor box. Although, technically, I didn't drink anything. I licked and ate and inhaled alcohol, but didn't drink.
Welcome to Zeta Bar's Cryogenic Sorbet & Cocktail Bar. Every Friday night in February and March, the Terrace Bar crew are treating you to classic cocktails cryogenically frozen and served as fresh sorbets, nitro puffs and Champagne ice-blocks.
Mojito, Margarita, Pina Colada, Negroni, Spiced Black Raspberry Mule: so many tempting flavours that Jean and I don't know which one to choose. Oh, well, we'll try them all then, thank you very much. Sorry for FebFast. I try the Negroni first, which is amazing. The mojito and pina colada are also spectacular.
Sorbets are made on the day using fresh ingredients. They're served out of a retro ice-cream cart and you can have them in a punnet ($6) or in a super cute mini waffle cone ($4).
The latter are made by dipping a cocktail-mixture foam (think whipped cream) into a bowl of liquid nitrogen. You then get some sort of ice-cold meringue, which causes you to exhale swirls of smoke through the nose. Very funny! Although ladies, I wouldn't recommend having a go on a first-date night. Not that sexy. Which is why I got Jean - instead of me - to be my Guinea pig for you.
Visually, I love the whole 1950s-inspired concept. It's very "La Dolce Vita". Just makes me wanna let my hair down and go frolick in the Trevi fountain with Marcello Mastroianni.
[PS: note to all the crafty people & future brides out there, did you know that you can actually recreate this 50s look and create your very own gelato parlour, thanks to Melbourne's Eat Drink Chic's amazing DIY tutorials? Amy is so talented, she's one of my favourite Australian bloggers.]
"I think the Sydney bar scene is fantastic, but sometimes it can take itself a bit too seriously," Grant Collins tells me. "Here at Zeta we were looking for something different, something fun - perfect for summer."
"Take New York for instance," he continues, "people there are having a lot of fun these days with speakeasy / Prohibition-era themed bars, where old-fashioned cocktails are the drink du jour. I'm thinking of bars such as Milk & Honey, the Back Room, The Hideout in Brooklyn, Dutch Kills in Long Island City or the not-so-secret anymore "PDT - Please Don't Tell" - a speakeasy in the East Village where patrons have to enter through Crif Dogs, a famous hot-dog place, then step into a phone booth and identify themselves by speaking into the receiver before a buzzer opens a secret door to the bar."
"Our ice-cream parlour is an Aussie take on this retro theme," Grant concludes, before serving another happy blogger. "And we hope people will have as much fun visiting us as we do making and serving these ice-cream cones!"
So tell me, dear reader, if you could choose which favourite cocktail of yours could be made into an ice-cream, which one would you order?
The Cryogenic Sorbet & Cocktail Bar is sponsored by Belvedere Vodka and is only available on Fridays till the end of March.
Zeta Terrace Bar at the Hilton Hotel: Level 4, 488 George Street, Sydney
www.ZetaBar.com.au
P: 02 9265 6070
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