The suburb that gave us a raunchy grilled cheese scene - and a Dante

Ghost stories are an apt way to think about Leichhardt, a suburb in Sydney’s inner west haunted by news articles about empty shopfronts and struggling restaurants for the past decade. The sleepy residential neighbourhood might not be the first suburb to come to mind when you think of Sydney’s pop culture epicentres, but its streets bear the traces of Australian cinematic, literary, queer and music history.

Pioneers Memorial Park on Norton Street, once the site of Balmain Cemetery, is where you might find some actual ghosts. Opened in 1868, the graveyard was home to some 10,000 burials before being relocated in 1912. Perhaps you’ll spot the spectre of comedian Charles Frederick Young or Henry Beaufoy Merlin, an illusionist, showman and artist whose photographic work was so important to Australian history that it’s now listed in UNESCO’s Memory of the World programme.

The statue of Italian poet Dante Alighieri in The Italian Forum in Leichhardt.Credit: Kate Geraghty

Even though many of its Italian migrants have since moved on, Leichhardt still bears the moniker “Little Italy”. The Italian Forum, a largely failed utopian vision of a bustling European piazza, is a ghost town today. But at its centre remains a statue of the great Italian poet Dante Alighieri, whose work helped establish modern Italian as we know it and influenced the likes of Chaucer, Milton and Tennyson. The forum is also home to Actors Centre Australia, which counts Harriet Dyer and Anthony Campanella among its alumni. Hugh Jackman, a patron and the most famous alumnus of the school, was so passionate about the complex that in 2022 he called Inner West mayor Darcy Byrne, suggesting the acting school buy it.

It would be wrong to talk about Leichhardt and its history without mentioning the works of Australian writer Melina Marchetta, whose characters live and breathe Sydney’s inner west. In her debut novel, Looking for Alibrandi, Italian-Australian protagonist Josie comes of age in the streets of Glebe, Haberfield and Leichhardt (parts of the 2000 film adaptation were also shot on location there). Set in the early 1990s, Leichhardt’s star is already beginning to fade in the novel, but its cultural legacy remains alive in the women in Josie’s family. It’s where her mother works as a medical secretary and her grandmother bought her first house.

As Josie says in the novel’s final chapters, “Leichhardt was at its prime in the 1950s. The gates of immigration had opened and relatives and friends from the same Italian towns found themselves bumping into each other in the streets of Sydney”.

Canal Road Film Centre in Leichhardt.Credit: Steven Siewert

The suburb is also where some of Australian film history’s most recognisable moments were brought to life. Since the early 1990s, Canal Road Film Centre has lived in the industrial outskirts of Leichhardt, home to over 50 industry specialists that include prop makers, cobblers, set designers, special effects artists and dressmakers who have lent their hand to productions including The Sapphires, The Great Gatsby, Babyteeth, Australia and King Kong.

More recent cinema history saw two of the biggest film stars of the moment – Glen Powell and Sydney Sweeney – film the rom-com Anyone But You. The bachelor pad where the two romantic leads have their pivotal one-night stand was set in Boston but was filmed in a two-bedroom warehouse conversion in Albert Street (the property hit the market earlier this year with a price guide of $3 million – a small price to pay for the site of the raunchiest scene involving grilled cheese ever).

Parts of the 2023 romantic comedy Anyone But You were filmed in a Leichhardt warehouse conversion.Credit: Brook Rushton/Sony via AP

Newtown, Darlinghurst and Kings Cross may win the title for being Sydney’s most notorious LGBTQIA+ centres, but Leichhardt has a queer history of its own. As housing prices rose in enclaves of inner Sydney in the 1970s, many long-term residents migrated west. Nicknamed “Dykehardt”, the area became a haven for lesbians who established community organisations such as the queer reading group Bluetongues, Lesbian Line Counselling and the Leichhardt Women’s Health Centre. Dykes on Bikes regularly gathered at Leichhardt Hotel, where regular lesbian nights were also held.

Parts of the suburb remain alive and kicking. On any given Friday night you’ll find throngs of punks and metalheads lining up outside Crowbar on Parramatta Road. It sits on the site of what was once The Bald Faced Stag, one of Sydney’s oldest pubs which has seen iconic bands like Dead Letter Circus and The Dillinger Escape Plan grace its stage.

And Parramatta Road, home to an esoteric collection of specialty businesses, has become a staple of Inner West lore. The charmingly named, members-only I Love You Beads Store, part of Sydney’s “bead district” is often fondly referenced on social media (if you know you know), and was at the centre of the friendship bracelet frenzy brought on by Taylor Swift’s Australian tour this year.

Credit: cr: Twitter/@alexgllghr

Recently, the suburb was declared to become one of four new special entertainment precincts in the Inner West, with Leichhardt Oval slated to become a live music venue, a signal of a changing cultural tide for the suburb. And with Sweeney rumoured to be brainstorming ideas for the sequel to Anyone But You, I can’t think of anywhere better for Bea and Ben’s romance to settle into domestic bliss than over a plate of spaghetti at Bar Italia, in the aisles of Harris Farm Norton St and at $10 movie night at Palace Cinema. I’ll give you that one for free, Sydney.

What do you think the best suburb in Sydney is for pop culture? Share your thoughts in the comments section.