Like many of Surry Hills' watering holes, the bar formerly known as the Clarendon Hotel has endured many incarnations. What matters most in this case is the new Hotel Clarendon has emerged as the kind of place where they know your name... and if they don't, they soon will.
Situated on a corner of Devonshire Street, parallel to the Belvoir St Theatre, up from a swingers club and down from bars the Shakespeare and Trinity, the Clarendon has been a Surry Hills stalwart since 1876.
In the 1920s and 30s, it formed crucial high country in the constellation of sly groggeries pocked through Surry Hills and run by notorious underworld madam Kate Leigh who lived a block up in premises that today have bequeathed a florist.
A new trendiness in the former badlands necessitated costume changes, and the mid-1990s saw the old hotel's metamorphosis into the somewhat legendary O Bar. Staffed by the usual motley mob of models and actors, these were gun gargle facilitators whose personable performances behind a circular bar made the O a truly egalitarian neck oilery.
Journalists, editors and cartoonists from the nearby News Limited newspapers raged against the dying of deadline long into the night, and actors like Geoffrey Rush and Kiefer Sutherland also made it their local while they were in town.
Renamed the Hotel Clarendon two years back, the room now boasts five separate areas including a restaurant and courtyard. The most regular customers come for the $10 meals (downstairs) and the weekly trivia and poker nights.
The crowd doesn't vary much from weeknights to weekends. It's a convenient spot to meet for lunch in the upstairs bistro or for an after-work drink. It's not greatly suited to romantic date nights, but for drinks with friends, the HC makes a fine HQ.
The Clarendon cocktail list is pretty straight up, but boasts a few gems, including a bourbon honey lychee martini ($15) with a big kick in the pants. Also lip-smacking is the honey berry sour ($15), a sugary elixir pairing vodka and Chambord. If your pockets are deep, arrive between 6pm and 8pm, Monday to Friday for drinks at almost half the price ($8.50). For a superlative bite to eat, bypass the drinkers and head upstairs to the bistro for pastas, pizzas and burgers or a smattering of mod-Oz like rib-eye steak ($24), grilled snapper served with Chinese cabbage ($16.50) and roasted pork belly with baby bok choy.
Hotel Clarendon is friendly and clean and, despite a couple of huge plasmas, easy to relax in. If you've been there before, they'll remember you and welcome you back - a rare homely touch in Sydney's change-on-a-saucer scene. History, happenstance and hipster-living have collided nicely. Just don't expect to win trivia on your first week - that, like everything else, takes some time.
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