March Love Letter

If I could use a color to define Sydney this month it would have to be green. Perhaps it’s just my natural aversion to the richer colors of the spectrum after the romantic blushes of February, but as Sydney slowly slips into Fall I’m finding I want to embrace all things green. Then again, maybe it has something to do with St. Patrick’s Day.

My family has no Irish heritage to speak of, but I still love watching Sydney’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade (stpatricksday.org.au). This year, it kicks off from the top end of George Street at 12pm on Mar. 15, winding its way through the city center to Hyde Park, where the festivities continue well into the night.

The best place to taste-test some great Irish tucker, to be sure, is Finola’s Restaurant (balmainbowls.com) at the Balmain Bowling Club. A bowling green might seem like an odd location for a restaurant, but you can try your hand at barefoot bowling and then warm up with a hearty serving of braised beef and Irish stout pie.

For nighttime follies, Durty Nelly’s (durtynellyssydney.com.au) in Paddington is where the craic is at. Tucked away just off Oxford Street, traditional Irish musicians and dancers will have you treading the floorboards all night long. Naturally there’s plenty of Guinness and Kilkenny following and the nosh is also tops.

It’s a giant leap from leprechauns, but if your tastes run to the darker side, A Night of Horror International Film Festival (anightofhorror.com) will certainly have you seeing red. The week-long fright-filled festival sharpens its cleavers on Mar. 25 with I Know How Many Runs You Scored Last Summer, a ghoulish Australian film about a serial killer who dismembers a cricket team player-by-player.

Kim Wildman