Tokonoma

At Crown Street’s slick, Asian-inspired cocktail bar, head bartender Benito Drovandi is serving a drink called the Fragrante Hermanos (we're just guessing here, but we're pretty sure that translates to ‘smelly brother’). It’s a barrel-aged cocktail of Ron Zacapa rum, Campari, Averna and Antica formula stirred with crème brulee syrup. They serve it in a peat whisky-washed glass with a little caramel biscuit and a playing card spritzed with Tom Ford vanilla-scented tobacco. It’s $27. And it’s a bit like drinking a pair of perfumed underpants. Not everything here is that louche, of course. The beautiful curvy wood-panelled room also holds one of the city’s most comprehensive shochu collections – many of them infused on premises – as well as an impressive collection of hot and cold sake. You can even do a tasting flight for $17. The room, we might add, is incredibly dark. So dark, in fact, that it takes two of the tableside electric candles pressed against the menu just to read it. Yes, there are plenty of conversation-starter drinks on the list (which also states at the beginning "management dressed by Herringbone" – good to know) but this is a practiced bar team who are also happy to go ahead and make you a classic. Or even a vodka lime and soda if you swing that way.