Theatre-free: Enmore

Now for something different. At the back of my mind, I had already completed this suburb, but it turns out that I never did and am conflating its memories with neighbouring Newtown. Here's the Inner West's own 

Enmore

As just mentioned, Enmore is an Inner West staple, bordering the perhaps better known Newtown. As such, after a public-holiday-afternoon ice cream in Newtown (in Hakiki, the Turkish ice cream spot I visited in the Newtown post), I figured it was an easy opportunity to tick off a quick suburb next door. 

Now, Enmore is best known for Enmore Theatre, the local theatre for gigs of all kinds, but it turns out that that theatre sits just barely in Newtown rather than Enmore. So please do not look at the below image. 

So if not the theatre, what's actually in Enmore? Well, there's Enmore Road, the almost-as-trendy fork off Newtown's King Street full of restaurants and bars. 

Being a public holiday afternoon, rather than a Saturday night, it wasn't peak hour here, so today was more about observing the scenery rather than enjoying a lively street.  

I passed a very pink salon,

an interestingly styled dumpling shop, 

and a frame store with some eclectic art visible through the window. 

Like many (most) old commercial centres in Sydney, you've also got an interesting facade up the top of a lot of the streetside stores. Although, neighbouring King Street, I always find the fact that Enmore Road is an arterial road through the suburb puts a bit of a dampener on the mood of the otherwise trendy area. 

Now, while the bars and restaurants were quiet, one place was definitely not. This is Cow & Moon gelato, and if you're looking for some ice cream in Enmore, it's clearly the place to be. Indeed, even the Italians think so, and this place actually won a world's best gelato contest in Italy in 2014. 

Anyway. turning away from ice cream corner, it was time to say goodbye to Enmore Road and take a peek at residential Enmore. 

At first glance, nothing too wild. Some brick walk-ups, 

terraces, 

with views obstructed by the foliage, 

and, being the Inner West, more terraces. 

But because this is the Inner West, I also found some interesting little spots dotted on the otherwise regular residential street. 

You've got the world famous Enmore Botanical Gardens, 

there's a nice bit of symmetry, 

these flowers, 

and, of course, some literal street art. 

In 2019, during the Federal Election, I did a mini-series where I visited the Laborest, Liberalest and Greenest suburbs in Sydney. I'm not planning on doing that again this election, but it's of minor interest that Enmore sits in Labor leader Anthony Albanese's seat, so I did see Anthony's face on some posters in suburban Enmore. The folks in this house especially like him.

Some Anthony-less but still nice houses are below,

and here is an assorted box of princess items in a box labelled puppies. I suppose the puppies escaped. (Yes, I realise that this is just a Hush Puppies shoebox, but it amuses me anyway.) 

Before, I showed off this suburb's great street art scene. Well, children's chalk drawings aren't the only bit of art to see in Enmore. For one, there's this building with a particularly whacky design on the side. 

There's this more traditional street art, 

with a familiar homage (and an ironic bit of vandalism), 

and across the road is this particularly proud house. If I'm not mistaken, after the same-sex-marriage matter was finally settled, this house had an exhuberant "Yes!" banner on it too, but now it's a more subdued rainbow-only design. I dig it. 

And that's not all. Turn the corner and on the side of this same building is a photo-realistic painting of the late great Freddie Mercury,

as well as another quality painting of some folks I don't recognise (plus a funky door). 

Enjoying Enmore's style, I continued down the street, 

passing some more interesting terraced houses,  

half a ute, 

and these extra-curly older ones. 

My short loop through residential Enmore took me back onto Enmore Road where I called it a day for this enjoyable little place. 

Enmore: That Inner West pizzazz.