The New Brighton Hotel

The local take

The New Brighton holds down the corner where the Corso meets Belgrave Street, and it's the most reliably loud room in Manly — cover bands on weekends, looser local acts midweek, sport on the big screens whenever there's sport to show. The beer garden out the back is the calmer move if the front bar is heaving.

It's a classic big-format Aussie pub rather than a polished one, and the TripAdvisor rating reflects tourists expecting a gastropub. Read it differently: cold beer, honest pub food, zero pretension, and a band starting at nine. If that's the brief, the Brighton delivers it seven nights a week.