The Cricketers Arms Balmain

The Cricketers Arms has been trading in Balmain since 1872, one of Sydney's oldest pubs and a survivor of the peninsula's dockworker era out to White Bay and Mort Bay. It spent the late nineties as the Monkey Bar before publican Tommy Hall (ex-White Cockatoo, The Henson) restored the Cricketers name in 2015. Seventeen taps run across the public bar, a sports lounge with six large screens, a pool room, beer garden and back courtyard. Downstairs is One Ford Street, a fifty-seat Italian restaurant with Sam Bennett in the kitchen. The building sits on the Inner West's heritage list.

Dogs are welcome in the public bar, which keeps the pub viable for winter walk-ups, and out through the back courtyard and beer garden. It's one of Balmain's few pubs that takes dogs inside rather than confining them to the yard.