Sydney is one of our favorite cities, but we’ve been enough times to stop acting like tourists.
You know what I mean, right? No more stumbling around Sydney Cove with our cameras out, waiting for that perfect angle of the opera.
We wanted a more authentic experience. The answer involved a barber, a biscotto and a tea shop run by a woman everyone calls Auntie Helen.
(One housekeeping note: the podcast now has two camera angles, so you can see our production quality from two directions. Our standards remain low.)
Question of the week: If you could return to only one place, where would it be?
We’re asking because this was our third visit to Sydney. Which destination would you pick if you only got one? And what keeps you coming back?
OK, there’s the mandatory shot of the opera house. Can we get on with it?
A strange question we get asked a lot
When we tell people that we travel 350 days a year, they often ask: “Where do you get your hair cut?” (Iden says the version he hears is closer to, “Why does your haircut look like that?”)
In Sydney, the answer is Barbarico in North Sydney, a short walk from the Victoria Cross Metro station. It’s run by a Greek barber and it’s a special place.
There’s a sequence to the visit, and we didn’t invent it. Next door is Bacino Espresso. The order is first coffee, then the chair. So when we walked into the barbershop, they took our orders. Then we got the haircut.
Bacino is a legend in the neighborhood. Around 9 a.m., the owner’s father comes out and hands each customer a fresh biscotto. The recipe is simple: no eggs, no milk, orange juice instead, sesame seeds on top.
People line up and wait for him.
A visit to Don Fred, respectfully
Aren and I are on a plant-based diet, which makes a city like Sydney either a problem or an adventure. In Newtown we found Don Fred, where Lorenzo cooks northern Italian food without meat or dairy, but without compromising on taste. We can respect that.
He serves a set meal, and we weren’t sure we could finish it. The standout was the calamari, which is made from konjac. He explained that konjac is porous enough to take on whatever flavor he wants, and he coats it in polenta so it crisps up and stays gluten-free. The focaccia comes from Liguria, near the French border.
Auntie Helen and the tea from Uji
We stayed in Bondi Junction, which is where we met Helen at the Taka Tea Garden. She and Taka-san import from Uji, near Kyoto, and the shop is full of tea containers, matcha bowls and whisks.
Helen poured us a sencha that was so sweet we assumed it had sugar in it (it didn’t). When Iden asked whether turning it into a latte would offend anyone, she pointed out that young people already do it with soy milk. No offense taken.
She also wanted to know whether Iden was working or just having fun. Answer: both!
In Sydney, everyone is properly caffeinated
We stayed in Woollahra this time. We walked to Paddington for the cafes and down to Bondi Beach, but kept going back to the same coffee shops until the staff recognized us. That’s how the locals do it. Sydney has no bad angle, but you don’t get to know a city by looking at it.
Next time we’re reporting from Saitama, Japan, a place almost no tourist visits.
Don’t forget our question of the week: If you could return to only one place, where would it be?
