Everything we know about Bar Demo (and when it opens)
Two ex-Double Deuce bartenders branch out on their own.
There’s a new bar on the way from two top bartending talents, Claudia Morgan and Oliver Churcher. It’s called Bar Demo, and it’ll take up residence on the burgeoning Enmore Road precinct on the border between Newtown and Enmore.
Ollie and Claudia worked together in the early days of Double Deuce Lounge, and Ollie’s Discretionary cocktail — a staple of the Double Deuce Lounge menu — landed on the Boothby Top 50 Drinks of the Year in both 2022 and 2023.
So what can you expect when Bar Demo opens? We’ve got all the details below.
Just don’t call it a listening bar.
What’s the deal with the name?
“We wanted a short and snappy name,” says Claudia.
“We have specific rules about what bar names should be like,” says Ollie, “it can’t auto correct to anything in the phone, it should be able to be shortened into one word, you know, all the good ones are like that. [It] doesn’t mean anything else, no one’s gonna get it confused with like a legendary 90s metal band or something.”
“Demo can mean a lot of things as well, you know, like democracy, demolition,” says Claudia.
To Demo it is, then.
What’s the big idea behind the bar?
“It’s going to be a wine bar, but not as wine bars have been [recently] in Sydney, like an undercover one hat restaurant,” says Claudia. “Emphasis on bar. Obviously there’s going to be cocktails.”
“There’s lots of great wine bars,” says Ollie, “great places to drink wine, but it’s like 10 William St — I don’t feel like I can casually just pop in for a glass, you know? You feel like you should have a booking, and you need to order a fucking steak.”
Bar Demo will be a neighbourhood wine bar, where they’ll have some snacks available, but the primary purpose is to pop in for a glass of wine — or, given the duo’s experience, a cocktail.
Bar Demo will have room for 50 people.
Where is Bar Demo?
You’ll find Bar Demo at 85 Enmore Road in Newtown, in a shopfront that was once home to the Cat Protection Society’s retail store and office.
When will Bar Demo first open?
The DAs and licence have been approved — now construction begins. “There’s a lot of knocking out of walls,” says Ollie.
He’s also impressed with the licensing process they went through. “Licensing has actually been really easy,” he says.
The goal is for Bar Demo to open in February 2025. “Hopefully earlier in February rather than later,” Ollie says.
What’s the feel of Bar Demo?
There’s a sliding glass window at the front of what is a narrow room; expect plenty of mirrors on the wall, and the bar will take much of the length of one wall; opposite will be booth and banquette seating, with a lot of dark natural wood in place.
And music is a big focus?
“We’ve got a very good sound system,” says Claudia. “Massive speakers.”
“Yeah,” says Ollie, “we kind of realised that we went a bit overkill. They are impossible to miss.
Just don’t call them a listening bar.
“I feel like it really reached fever pitch like six months ago,” Ollie says. “We were like, fuck, are we going to get branded as a listening bar? That’s not what we are at all. Like, we’ll have records. We’ve got a really good sound system, but go to a random cafe in Melbourne and that’s just, this is just how we play music.
“It’s not as if it has to be fetishised into this weird thing. Go to Japan and go to a listening bar — you sit down, you shut the fuck up. You fucking order one drink, because there’s only one drink available. It’s whisky, rocks or neat, you know? Shut the fuck up and listen.”
As the man said: that’s not Bar Demo at all.
What’s on the drinks list?
“We’re going to have about a hundred bottles,” says Claudia.
“12 to 14 by the glass at all times,” says Ollie. “About 12 cocktails. We’ll also always have like a little list within a list of the wine list of like wines under a hundred bucks,” he says.
As for the style of wines they’ll be serving, the first and foremost consideration is taste.
“We’re not dogmatic about it, but all the wines that we like pretty much are what you would consider natural,” says Ollie. “Then again, that’s a very shaded term — what that means can be very different. There’s a lot of reasons to like natural wine where — like, it’s not fucking destroying the planet. Like, cool, great — and that’s all good. But for us, the overriding question number one is, does it taste good?”
There will also be a dozen cocktails on the list.
“I think being cocktail bartenders as well, ideally you would want someone to get a cocktail on way in, a bottle of wine, maybe get a cocktail, a nightcap at the end, you know?” says Claudia. “That’s ideal.”
And whilst they’ll be stirring cocktails down with a thermometer — the technique Ollie introduced at Double Deuce Lounge — their Bar Demo Martini will come from the freezer.
“We’ll have thermometers around,” Ollie says. “We may be batching some things. We’ll definitely do a Demo Martini that will be very, very cold, straight from the freezer. As is the fashion these days. But you physically can get it colder.
“I think people have this idea of batching is just about convenience. But you can fundamentally change the product. You you cannot get a Martini that cold if you just stir it, it’s just not possible. And the idea is for it to be fast and snappy in terms of service.”
And they have a weird beer tap?
Yes, they do, though perhaps it’s not so weird to devotees of all things beer.
We’ll have this very expensive, fancy tap that you get from the Czech Republic,” says Ollie. “It’s called a side pull faucet, from a company called Lukr. It’s been a big thing recently in the last five years in America; a very traditional way to serve especially Pilsner-style beers. The whole point is that it’s meant to produce a lot of foam.
“A regular beer tap is like a light switch, right?” he says. “It’s either on or off. You’re either putting beer out or you’re not. This is more like a dimmer switch, so you can actually control how fast the flow comes out or not.
“But there’s also a tiny mesh screen in the middle of the tap, so it gets forced through this tiny mesh screen. So what that does is one, it de-gasses it a bit, but two, helps build up that really rich, thick, froth.
“The difference is it’s a wet foam rather than a dry foam. It’s just denser.”
How can you follow them?
The website is on the way (bardemo.com) but for now you can follow their progress on Instagram at @bardemo.
If Bar Demo sounds like the kind of place you’d like to work, they’re looking for people — send your resume and a joke (the joke is essential) to hello@bardemo.com.
Sam Bygrave
Boothby Staff
