Is Umina Beach a great suburb to live in? How does it compare to Bondi and other beach side suburbs?
2 Answers
Bondi is a in we city beach, very busy, lots of cafés, back packers , millionaire locals and renters with high incomes.
Umina is a sleepy coastal town with a large famous beach catering to locals and summer holiday makers - the town grows by x3 every summer. Our beaches include dog/leash free areas and are very community minded.
Umina is more a working class town with the large percentage of workers being tradies.
Locals are artists, alternative people, those that respect nature . It's bush and beach with suburbia.
Most people know each other and it's very warm and friendly.
The only thin bondi and Umina have in common is the beach and the two beaches are chalk and cheese.
It's a inner city beach verses a coastal town a hr out of Sydney - you can't compare apples with oranges- compare bondi and coogee yes, compare Umina with avoca yes. I for 1 work in. A corporate job and my partner in the arts - we are in "Sydney" at shows, dinner etc etc every week just like when we lived in surry hills, newtown then marrickivlle , for us the difference is we catch the train in can have a few drinks, don't hVe to worry about parking or tickets - its the payoff for the hr train ride. I am of European desent and pretty fussy when I eat out if they can't do it better than us :-). I can recommend rasama thai in Umina for thai as good as marrickivlle, la fiamma for pricey Italian as authentic as haberfield - all Italian owned and chefs in kitchen, menhir in ettalong for modern Spanish tapas as good as the Spanish quarter or better if your into modern Spanish cuisine (aka what hey are serving in Barcelona now) And woolombi cafe also in ettalong for a newtown organic type experience wih cafe food from people who know what they are doing.
We moved to Umina a year ago. We mainly go to Ettalong for decent restaurants. There's a huge gap in the market for a trendy/comfortable/atmosphecic nice restaurant in Umina!!.Margarita dayz is really nice great decor in a fantastic location/but lacks atmosphere and its hard to have a decent conversation, as they have live music at the weekend catering for the younger clientele. There's a new Japenses...food is great but again v sterile and not comfortable. The Cooper pot Indian food is really good/but not overly comfortable to sit in, and service on a Friday night isn't good. Could be fantastic with a refit and more staff.
Reply
Sounds like Umina is a great option if you want a quieter lifestyle away from the hustle and bustle. Are there any good local restaurants in the area that you would recommend?