This hipster colonial bar is Yangon’s coolest nightspot – let’s just hope it lasts

The first floor of Hummingbird. PHOTO/COCONUTS MEDIA

When a bar in Yangon seems too good to be true, it usually is. Last month, we bid farewell to Port Autonomy, the dockside pop-up known for smart seafood dishes and house music, after just three months. The devilishly hipster owners used a Facebook post to blame #jettyproblems – aka, port authority problems (it reopened this week, far from the port). Blind Tiger, the city’s first speakeasy, can’t stay open past 11pm. The reggae spot 7th Joint barely had a chance to get started before it shut it down, reportedly after noise complaints.

So when Hummingbird – an impeccably classy bar and restaurant set over three floors of a restored colonial building on Phone Gyi Street – opened its doors last week, those in the know weren’t wasting time. “When I saw they were open I had to come, before they closed down,” a friend said, sitting down for dinner on Monday, its opening night. Testament to the power of word of mouth in a city with as many expats and as few late-night spots as Yangon, the place was already packed.

That won’t come as a surprise to anyone who was there the previous Friday night, when high school exams meant early closing for most of the city’s nightspots. Hummingbird – then in a barely half-finished state – was humming. Guests crossed gaping holes in the pavement over wooden planks and whirled up a curved wooden staircase to the first floor. Bouncy bartenders manned a well-stocked bar. People gyrated to hip-hop mixes in front of arched floor-to-ceiling windows and deep green walls. Others smoked on the roof terrace, where the owners are planning to host shisha nights and champagne-fuelled Sunday brunches. Two expertly-crafted Negronis deep ($6 a pop people), it looked like paradise.

Even in the blearier light of day, the design was hard to fault. The mood is grimy club meets British period drama. Take the toilets – not something often praised in reviews. Each is equipped with an antique copper bin, but the doors are massive chunks of unvarnished wood with rusty metal locks. You want to go to the bathroom.

Happily, the same attention to detail has been paid to the food, served in the restaurant on the ground floor. They’ve hired a British chef, Wayne Third, who has worked in luxury hotels the world over. His menu is broadly but non-exclusively Latin American – dishes include Cajun-spiced sea bass, hearty beef and bean soup and New Zealand ribeye. Inevitably, it’s pricey. Really pricey. A meal for four, which was more like tapas, cost $88. That did include, however, several cocktails – and free aperitifs served in cutesy boot-shaped shot glasses.

Three cocktails, each priced at $6. PHOTO/COCONUTS MEDIA

While the bartenders can whip up any cocktail of choice, Hummingbird’s speciality drinks (again, $6 each) are worth sampling. The vodka-based Siam Sunray’s is light and peppery, made with lemongrass and fresh kaffir limes. Bacardi and watermelon concoction Springtime in Milano, meanwhile, is spiked with aperol and comes with a slice of fresh fruit.

The food proved equally piquant. Salt and pepper calamari were crisp and crunchy, with a creamy wasabi sauce. Rum and tequila flamed prawns came with grilled watermelon and toasted coconuts. A tapas-style take on ribeye was tender and juicy. The brownie was regrettably dry, but the cheesecake – melt-in-the-mouth smooth, with strong vanilla notes – more than made up for it.

Prawns served with watermelon, priced at $7. PHOTO/COCONUTS MEDIA

At the end of the meal, one of the owners – it’s a four-way venture with foreign and local involvement – explained that the official opening isn’t until early next month, stressing that this is the soft launch. Screw that. There’s no time to waste. They’re taking dinner reservations. Call 09250292074.

Hummingbird is located at 76 Phone Gyi Street. Check out their Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/HummingbirdYangon?fref=ts.