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The first Newtown bar to secure a 4am liquor licence in more than a century opens tonight, inviting revellers into a purple-hued haven of theatrical, avant-garde hedonism.

Odd Culture Group’s latest venture, Pleasure Club, is a 120-seat basement bar with an emphasis on the bizarre, featuring chicken parmigiana cocktails, distorted mirrors and roaming performers.

“We want people to be able to say, ‘I was at Pleasure Club last night and the weirdest s--- happened’,” says creative director Nick Zavadszky.

“When the curtain opens, you won’t know what’s going to happen – but you know it’s going to be exhilarating.”

Pleasure Club is the sixth venue in the Odd Culture Group portfolio, which also includes The Old Fitz in Woolloomooloo and hatted restaurant Odd Culture Newtown. It may also be the group’s most ambitious.

“We see this as our first foray into creating a proper, world-class cocktail bar,” says Zavadszky.

The entertainment line-up, curated by entertainment manager Sabrina Medcalf (ex-Frankie’s), is critical to the team’s vision. Each performance will be free, unticketed and decidedly left-of-centre. On a given night, there could be a lingerie-clad gospel band putting on a cabaret show, or a gaggle of handmade puppets sparking up conversations with the crowd.

Medcalf says she wants the venue to embody the energy and drama of a Baz Luhrmann film, with performers weaving their way through the booths, bar seating and banquettes.

Beyond the velvet furnishings and the “oil spill” colour scheme, there’s the “Pleasure Lab”, with a drinks menu designed by bartending heavyweights Sam Kirk (creative beverage lead and former bar manager at Jacksons on George and The Coldroom in Montreal, Canada) and Matt Whiley (founder of the recently closed acclaimed sustainability bar Re in Eveleigh).

The pair harnessed Sydney’s flavour-of-the-moment – nostalgia – to create a line-up of tongue-in-cheek cocktails inspired by Millennial childhood.

“My favourite little cheeky one is called Passion Pop, and it’s an ode to the drink-of-choice for teenagers … but we make it a little easier to consume, less cloyingly sweet, with gin, yuzushu [yuzu juice and sake], passionfruit, passionfruit marigold and lemon myrtle,” Kirk says.

There’s also the chicken parmigiana cocktail (“a weird take on the Bloody Mary” made by distilling the flavour of cheese, bacon and breadcrumbs into vodka, with clarified tomato juice); the Cheez TV (after the famous 𝄒90s breakfast show, featuring Coco Pops and banana juice); and Mr Whippy (like the soft-serve ice-cream truck, using plain milk liqueur from Mapo Gelato).

Food options will be limited to four hot dogs, using franks from LP’s Quality Meats and plant-based dogs from Suzy Spoon.

The venue made headlines last year for securing the landmark 4am liquor licence, bolstering the state government’s 24-hour economy strategy to revive and diversify Sydney’s nighttime offerings.

Zavadszky says it’s been a long, tough and costly road through many layers of bureaucratic red tape. He says the process favours hospitality groups with enough resources to “bleed out while they wait to be approved”.

Without change, he warns the industry is at risk of deterring independent operators and creatives, becoming a homogenous landscape of big-name hospitality groups.

“The Vibrancy reforms are a good start to making Sydney a more diverse place,” he says, referring to legislative changesto sound management and the liquor licensing process passed through NSW parliament on November 30 (as part of the 24-Hour Economy Strategy).

“I love Sydney, but we can do so much better.”

Open Wed-Sun 4pm-4am

6 Wilson Street, Newtown, alwaysapleasure.club