Pitt St pub Edinburgh Castle Hotel set to welcome 1920s inspired bar, Dusk Club

An institution of the Sydney CBD is about to undergo a time-travelling transformation, opening up a secret bar on its under-utilised upstairs level.

Upstairs, The Dusk Club is inspired by 1920s jazz clubs.

Hospitality heavyweight Solotel is launching its first new venue since Covid, turning the upstairs of an iconic pub in the city into a moody 1920s style jazz bar, Dusk Club.

Since 1885, The Edinburgh Castle Hotel or “The Eddy” on Pitt Street has been an institution in the city. It’s been said that Australian poet Henry Lawson wrote some of his odes inside it’s hallowed walls.

Rather than erase that history and change the interiors of the pub itself, the new bar will be tucked inside the previously under-utilised upstairs level between Pitt and Bathurst Street.

The Edinburgh Castle hotel of Pitt Street in Sydney. Picture: Toby Zerna

The venue is renowned for its rumoured connection to poet Henry Lawson. Picture: Stephen Cooper

Opening on 25th August, from 6pm to late, Dusk Club will serve up cool cocktails and live jazz on Thursday and Fridays, as well as a DJ.

The bar, hidden behind a green door, will serve up all the classic cocktails. However, a partnership with Bombay Sapphire sees them take gin cocktails in different directions and offer up a lemon myrtle infusion, a blood orange sorbet or a Ramos milkshake.

Ramos milkshake at Dusk Club.

A selection of food and drink at Dusk Club.

This is the first in an host of new openings planned for the Solotel group under CEO Elliot Solomon.

“We created Dusk Club because Sydney needs more great, late-night cocktail bar options. There’s some intrigue as you walk into the Eddy’s classic pub setting, but then head up the stairs and through the double doors to find yourself somewhere that feels totally different,” Solomon said.

“Downstairs at the Eddy is pints of beer and pub meals, upstairs at Dusk Club is that great mix of good cocktails, bar snacks and live jazz. It’ll welcome a completely different guest who perhaps would never have come to the Eddy.”

Despite winter traditionally being a quieter month in hospitality, and despite the latest Covid outbreak, Dusk Club’s introduction is part of a wave of new venues that is seeing life come back to the centre of the city.