Randwick Cellars

Three generations of the Nanni family have kept this Alison Road shopfront trading since 1972, one of the longer-standing independent bottle shops in Sydney's eastern suburbs. Fifty-plus years in, the appeal is still the same: staff who know the stock and steer customers toward smaller-run wines, spirits and craft beers rather than whatever the big chains are pushing that week. A wine club sends limited-production bottles to regulars' doors, and prices regularly undercut the supermarket-owned liquor barns nearby. Reviewers describe it as cozy and old-fashioned in the best sense, a shopfront that has kept its character on a strip where national banners now dominate. It is open seven days, with slightly longer hours Wednesday through Saturday. For anyone based near Coogee, Kensington or the university, it is the kind of local cellar worth walking past the big-box competitors for.