A three-for-one Newtown crowd-pleaser offering clever tropical cocktails in the middle, a Euro-style wine bar and shop up front, and a sunny courtyard out back.
King Street is already loaded with some of Sydney’s best bars and restaurants, so any newcomers need to be at the top of their game to draw a crowd. Thankfully Huelo, right next to gelateria-of-the-moment Mapo, and a couple of doors up from pizza parlour Bella Brutta, went hard. Pitching itself as a three-for-one, this newcomer (Huelo flung open its doors in April 2023) offers a general store and wine bar in the front, a 12-seat cocktail bar in the middle and a cosy courtyard for drinks and snacks out the back.
It helps that the team behind it can wave serious credentials about, too, with Dre Walters – owner of rollicking CBD rooftop bar Old Mate’s Place – backing Swan “Swanny” Kanongataa, who brings bar skills honed at Sydney’s Wild Rover and Bistecca and The Joker in south London to the picture. He also brings his Tongan background (“huelo” means ray of light in Tongan), which means there’s a tropical edge to his cocktails, but the pair cite “Miami tropical glam” as the theme above anything, at least for the cocktail bar and courtyard, which is overloaded with ferns and fairy lights. Out front, it’s old-world charm all the way, with dried garlic and chillies strung from the ceiling, pasta sauce, pickles, olive oil and tinned fish on the shelves, and a flywheel slicer working overtime on cured meats. Pull up a stool in the middle, slide into a booth out back, or browse the shelves up front and prepare to make a night of it.
