Neutral Bay Suburb Review

Upmarket, central and often pretty, yet a victim of its own great location in many ways.

Summary: One of Sydney’s true “cafe capitals”, Neutral Bay is a wealthy slice of Lower North Shore living that still offers enough diversity of housing types to keep things fairly demographically varied. It’s centrally-located and is utterly decked out in amenities in terms of dining and small-scale shopping, and its hillside aspect overlooking the water is often highly impressive. It’s also as pricey as one might expect given its location, and its traffic and road issues often border on nightmare levels.

Key stats

Neutral Bay is a suburb in which the extremes of its highs and lows vary more than most other suburbs in Sydney.

Its strengths – quantity of good amenities, convenient location, pretty scenery and charming historic housing – are some of the best of its kind in Sydney, but they’re equally offset by its mix of high prices, narrow and traffic-packed roads, and lack of rail connectivity to make for an interesting subject case.

It’s pretty much a suburb that’s the dichotomy of what everyone both loves and hates about Sydney all concentrated within a fairly small 1.6 square kilometre block – and thus your opinion on Neutral Bay is likely to be highly polarising depending on what you value in life.

Let’s start with the good, the most obvious of which is its location. Sandwiched between Mosman/Cremorne and the highway, Neutral Bay is a hilly suburb with a fairly steep decline that grants much of it sweeping views over the harbour.

It’s an iconic view, and one that can be taken in from a number of different vantage points whether it’s sipping a coffee down at a cafe near the ferry wharf, or higher up from one of its historic houses or streets.

This position also means that the likes of Wynyard and the CBD are a mere (in theory) 10 minute drive over the bridge, while North Sydney and the beaches of Balmoral or even Manly are within reasonable striking distance.

Neutral Bay’s streetscape is also largely objectively beautiful. It’s quite historic, and there’s a lot of sandstone walls and buildings still in place that give it a charming vibe reminiscent of the likes of Balmain.

Many of its larger, older homes are particularly striking; this is a land of modernised historic houses with names like “Roselands”, highlighted by some truly massive manor-type homes along Wycombe Road and down close to the water. Architecture here is surely an attraction all in itself.

It’s also quite leafy and green given its close proximity to the CBD, and pretty floral colours abound both throughout its streets and in its handful of parks. Jacarandas during bloom are another highlight, with the whole suburb intermittently draped in their colour.

Fancy a bite?

Neutral Bay is also perhaps one of the best suburbs in Sydney for a visit, particularly for those who love a good coffee or al fresco dining. There’s a nearly endless array of cafes and small-scale restaurants largely clustered around the hub of Military Road and Grosvenor Street, and it’s got a decent mix of spots for a drink as well.

The Oaks serves as the main watering hole here, and it’s a damn good one – it’s massive, and has a good atmosphere with plenty of variety in beverages and food alike.

Oddly, Neutral Bay also has a sizeable Japanese population that has brought with it a wide array of good Japanese and ramen spots that makes it a bit of an unexpected go-to spot for this alone.

Neutral Bay is home to many impressive and historic homes

Amenity-wise, Neutral Bay is likewise impressive. There’s simply a ton of services and specialty stores – think hairdressers, boutique fashion, chemists, vets and the like – as well as two (for some reason) Woolworths in close proximity to one another and a Coles on top of that.

It’s largely arcade, strip-style shopping rather than a single major centralised shopping centre, with The Grove offering a miniature proximity of this.

In addition, while the eye-popping prices of some of its bigger properties is what will catch headlines, to its credit Neutral Bay does offer a wide array of housing types. The ballers out there can opt for freestanding houses in which a $2.5 million pricetag will barely get you in the door, sure, but there’s also quite a lot of high-density apartment buildings dotted throughout.

Some of these are older and make a ~$450 per week pricetag for a 1-bedder doable. That’s expensive, but it’s something to consider for those new to the city who want to live it up for a year enjoying all the benefits Sydney has to offer right on your doorstep. Add an extra $100 per week and you can score an extra bedroom and perhaps even a small yard.

“Neutral Bay is also perhaps one of the best suburbs in Sydney for a visit, particularly for those who love a good coffee or al fresco dining.”

For families, there’s an in-demand public school, and several good public parks (Ilbery Reserve for playground equipment, Anderson Park for the pets and great water views) for the kids to play in. Unless you’re cashed up, they won’t have much living space, however.

Which brings us to the inevitable: the pricetag. It’s hardly surprising that a pretty, safe and convenient spot in one of the world’s most desirable cities will be expensive, and Neutral Bay certainly is. This limits its viability as a permanent home to raise a decently-sized family to a very small subset of people with bank accounts to suit.

And it’s not without other flaws, either. While its streets are pretty, they’re mostly very narrow and parking is pretty much non-existent most of the time.

It’s also the main thoroughfare for the notorious Military Road, which is honestly just madness and a place I’ve personally only had terrible experiences with every time.

Intersections are often impossible to get across, and despite how wide it is it’s simply too overwhelmed with traffic; add in any kind of traffic accident and you might as well abandon your car and walk.

This crosses over to its public transport as well. While Neutral Bay’s pretty well-serviced by bus routes, they’re just as subject to this congestion as well meaning commute times often blow out. It also lacks a heavy or light rail connection, so unless you’re lucky enough to be able to take the ferry to work you’ll often be road-bound on a daily basis.

The suburb’s physical topography also makes parts of it very steep when walking, which can put a burn in the calves or some extra sweat in the armpits during the summer months.

The Verdict

At its core, Neutral Bay remains one of the best suburbs in Sydney to visit. There’s just a lot on offer in terms of views, dining, shopping and pleasant public spaces, and it’s not one of those North Shore suburbs that automatically become a ghost town as soon as the sun goes down – there’s a little life here yet.

The main sore points arise when considering it as a place to live, which is what the whole purpose of this website is about. For those with considerable amounts of money to throw around, it’s got a lot to offer but there’s also a small handful of issues to make other high-end suburbs perhaps more appealing as alternatives.

If you’re content with apartment living and wanting to experience central Sydney life in a clean and safe environment, then Neutral Bay also serves as a good base. Whether that’s for a couple who can afford a larger apartment, or a younger person renting a room within a sharehouse it serves both purposes.

Having some of Sydney’s best restaurants and cafes at your doorstep is nothing to sneeze at, without some of the grit and grime of say, a Leichhardt or Surry Hills.

If you’re a driver who’s going to need to cross the Spit or Harbour bridges on a daily basis however, be prepared to deal with a mentally draining onslaught.