It’s a great life in the prime minister’s backyard

If an oft-cited 2020 Time Out article is to be believed, Marrickville is the 10th coolest suburb in the world. I am a 44-year-old dad so I speak with very limited authority on what’s cool, but having lived in the ’ville for over 15 years I say it’s a valid claim.

Marrickville today is heaving with craft breweries, gin distilleries, small bars, restaurants and artisan food shops. Whole Beast Butchery, Brickfields Bakery and the new Messina HQ are three of my favourites. There’s a good number of live music venues, from the Marrickville Bowlo to the Factory Theatre, and the area is stuffed with creative arts spaces and workshops. People come from all over Sydney to explore Marrickville, and it’s easy to see why.

Vietnamese grocer on Illawarra Road.Credit: Brook Mitchell

My Narrabeen-raised partner, Heather, and I bought our first house in Silver Street in 2007, having moved to Sydney from Scotland two years previously. This was before the gentrification started in earnest. The Greek and Vietnamese communities were – and still are – prominent, and back then we loved the old-school Greek delis like Lamia, with its huge vats of olives, the gyros joints, the Vietnamese bakeries and the pho shops lining Marrickville and Illawarra Roads. Walking past the Vietnamese grocers on a hot summer morning, with the smells of the fresh produce and the tonal chatter of the workers, you could be right there in the backstreets of Ho Chi Minh City.

Our first daughter was born in 2009 and we moved to a slightly bigger place in Ruby Street, in the Warren, where our second arrived 18 months later. There were plenty of early morning walks with the stroller around the local streets – a bit leafier in this end of Marrickville – and McNeilly, Steel Park and Mackey Park, where a young Tim Cahill learned his trade with the Marrickville Red Devils. The Cooks River path is another treasured green space to retreat from the constant clatter of trucks and roar of jet engines. The abundant birdlife, with spoonbills, egrets, ibis, cormorants, pelicans and even the odd kingfisher along this restored stretch is great to see and a sure indicator that the river is coming back to health.

The crowd of 8972 celebrates another Newtown try at Henson Park.Credit: Rhett Wyman

What I love about Marrickville is the endless variety - of cultures, houses, food, and people. Walking around the Warren you see the smartly renovated architectural masterpieces sitting cheek by jowl alongside the “Fediterranean”-style hybrids, all marble and replica Greek columns with olive, citrus and fig trees on the nature strips out front. And always the old men in singlets lovingly watering their concrete front yards.

Not long after the federal election last year, I was grocery shopping at the Illawarra Road Woolies when I almost literally bumped into the new prime minister, putting his shopping through the self check-out. Say what you want about Anthony Albanese, but he’s a Marrickville boy through and through. That’s pretty cool.

Best cafe: The Hellenic Patisserie on Illawarra Road, for a lethally strong Greek coffee, slice of spinach and cheese pie and clouds of second-hand cigarette smoke from the elderly European clientele.

Best restaurant: VN Street Foods on Illawarra Road. Sit at one of the rickety pavement tables and have the bun cha with a side of nem ran. Just like being in Hanoi.

Best beach, park, or pool: The eighth wonder of the world, Henson Park, home of the mighty Newtown Jets. Game day on a sunny winter afternoon is a quintessential Sydney experience that should be listed in every tourist brochure.

First place you take visitors? Family members usually arrive off the plane from Scotland very early in the morning so I will take them for a walk along the Cooks River to shake off the jet lag. My mum is always excited to see things like cockatoos and lorikeets, which reminds me that Marrickville is a long way from Dunfermline, where I grew up.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese pours a beer during a visit to the Bob Hawke Beer & Leisure Centre in Marrickville.Credit: Bianca De Marchi

Perfect night out in your suburb? Celebrating a Jets victory with a few schooners in the Henson, followed by a succulent Chinese meal at the Lucky Prawn in the Bob Hawke Beer and Leisure Centre.

What would make your suburb better? Something needs to be done about the Illawarra Road Woolies car park. Over to you, Albo.

Best secret spot in your suburb? The Concordia German club. Marrickville is full of places you can drink a triple-hopped, oat-milk stout in a room full of beer snobs, but give me a few steins of ice-cold imported German beer at this old-school gem any day.

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