The Prince Hotel, St Kilda, Melbourne review: a turn of the tide

A classy new act for a seaside institution.

The Prince Hotel, St Kilda, Melbourne. Picture: supplied

My most enduring memory of St Kilda’s semi-legendary Prince of Wales Hotel is of a crowded Saturday night in the upstairs Bandroom, when the punk band X was blasting out its ode to juvenile delinquency, Degenerate Boy, and two punters in the moshpit had a dispute about mosh etiquette that ended when one headbutted the other into submission. Admittedly that was the early 1980s, an aeon ago in the shapeshifting history of this 1930s-era pub at the seaside end of St Kilda’s infamous Fitzroy Street strip.

Originally a working-class hotel, The Prince became a pioneering gay-friendly venue in the 1970s, when drag queens strutted in the Pokeys stage show. Rock’n’roll bands have played in the 900-capacity Bandroom for more than four decades, but when gentrification stole over the south Melbourne suburb in the 1990s, new owners took the hotel upmarket, bringing fine dining to the first-floor Circa restaurant and converting the 39 rooms into a New York-style boutique hotel with muted lighting and decor.

Prince Hotel dining room. Picture: supplied

Now under the ownership of businessman Gerry Ryan, The Prince has undergone another transformation. The Bandroom is still operating, its walls adorned with photos of transvestites and rock bands of yore, but the restaurant, hotel rooms and downstairs bar have been remodelled to open the hotel up to the light, the street and the foreshore. The slightly schizophrenic Prince of old – where well-heeled dinner restaurant patrons tucked into $36 slow-cooked Tunisian duck while next door the punters thrashed themselves to Corrosion of Conformity – has been replaced with an ambience located somewhere in the middle ground.

The ground floor bar, previously a Mexican restaurant and cocktail bar, is now one long, airy room with a central oval-ended bar that mimics its 1930s configuration, complete with original terrazzo floor and obligatory St Kilda footy club posters on the wall. In the morning it doubles as a cafe and breakfast spot, while at night the kitchen serves a modern spin on pub food, with steak nights and the usual array of schnitzels and fish’n’chips.

Upstairs, the new Prince Dining Room has likewise been opened up to take in the light from its corner position looking out to the foreshore, where the palm trees on the promenade Paul Kelly memorialised in song can be glimpsed from just about any table in the room. The menu here is based around lighter dishes with Middle-Eastern flavours, many of them chargrilled or roasted in the wood-fired oven. I enjoyed the coal-grilled calamari, Wagyu beef skewers and a salad of grilled nectarine, mustard leaves and radish.

St Kilda tram and promenade. Picture: Prince Hotel

The guest rooms, spread across two floors, are nothing fancy but have a relaxed and unpretentious ambience – timber floors, a palette of pastels and neutral tones, venetian blinds. My balcony overlooked Fitzroy Street and the promenade and made for a nice retreat in the evening, although I did wonder whether the weekend street life might make earplugs necessary.

Prince Hotel guest room. Picture: supplied

What The Prince offers above all is a fantastic location from which to explore St Kilda’s sights. It ain’t Bondi, thank God – no off-duty models and muscle-guys in athleisurewear will be seen walking along the nearby pier, or lining up at the faux-Moorish entrance to the St Kilda Sea Baths, another 1930s institution that’s been receiving the proverbial “mixed reviews” for decades.

Hardier souls can take a night-time walk along the block that leads up Fitzroy Street to the railway station, which has somehow retained its grunginess as everything around it gentrifies. But that tide, too, is turning as the rooming houses disappear – the Nine Network famously bought one on Fitzroy Street and transformed it into luxury apartments for its hit show The Block. And in October, the street will be transformed again with the opening of the Victorian Pride Centre, a multi-storey hub for the LGBTQI community, 20 doors up from The Prince, where the trannies of Pokeys once strutted their stuff. Plus ça change, as the punks would say.

• Perfect for: Nostalgic Gen Xers.

• Dining: Make time for a session in The Prince’s bar and dining room; beyond, check out local stars Cafe di Stasio and Stokehouse.

• Must do: Take in the sights of St Kilda, from Luna Park to the remodelled Esplanade Hotel and the cake shops of nearby Acland Street. Throughout March, check out the immersive art installation Rain Room on the hotel’s top floor.

• Getting there: The hotel is at 2 Acland St; public transport nearby.

• Bottom line: Rooms from $189. Packages include Eat, Sleep, Spa:a night in a Deluxe Room, lunch or dinner in the Prince Dining Room, breakfast and a 60-minute couples’ massage at the in-house Aurora Spa, from $485 per couple.

theprince.com.au