Pubs

If you’re a visitor to Balmain, it’s likely one of its dozen or so pubs will be the reason you come back again – or never leave!

Forged by the hard-earned thirsts of Balmain’s early boat builders, shipwrights, ferrymen, coal miners, metalworkers and dockyard labourers, numerous drinking holes were quickly established on Balmain’s main road and side streets for the local workforce, who could enjoy their first pint as early as 4am. In 1844, The Dolphin Inn was the first alehouse at Darling Street Wharf, and was frequented by the ferrymen as they finished their shifts. It was later renamed the Shipwright's Arms.

By the 1850s Balmain boasted a dozen pubs, a number which had swelled to thirty by the 1930s. With names like The Dry Dock Hotel, Captain Cook Inn, The Forth & Clyde and The Pacific Hotel, the identity and origins of Balmain’s first settlers are eminently clear. A few of these buildings remain in name alone as a legacy to their past, whilst others continue to thrive as a favourite ‘local’.

Balmain’s pub culture is still just as colourful today, offering customers a pint and a chat along with a wide range of eateries to satisfy the ‘foodies’