Bad Mama came to town a while ago - and I dismissed it as a try-hard bar in a modern building, but last Saturday a friend suggested we should give it a try. "It's the best bar in Bondi!" they claimed, "It's a proper bar." We weren't enjoying ourselves at Ravesis so I gave in and followed them down to the end of Glenayr Avenue where the fun runs out - the end that there's no point going to unless there's sports on at the Beach Road Hotel.
Outside this dull grey newly-built building there were groups of people sat and talking, and inside there were tunes pumping, cold beer and eclectic furniture crowded with beautiful people. I realised I would have to raise my game and wiped the sooky grimace off my face and we ordered a few beers at the bar. The beers were cold and we gathered some mis-matched chairs into a corner and ended up lost in conversation, only momentarily distracted when super-hot six-foot blondes walked up to the bar.
And this is the good thing about Bad Mama, it's not the super-hot six-foot blondes, or the great food. It's the fact that you forget you're there - you're enveloped by the bar, not left perched in the middle of some massive empty bar which is so typical of the Bondi bar scene. On the face of it you know that this is a brand new constructed space, but when you're inside you're sucked in by the interior design and the lighting such that you forget and you could be in a bar in Hoxton Square or Hackney.
Five stars - I'll be back! read more