Botany Bay Hotel Has Been Revamped by the Lord Gladstone Crew

Botany Bay locals, rejoice. Paddy Coughlan, founder of Sydney hospitality group Bourke Street and brains behind the Lord Gladstone relaunch, has announced the Botany Bay Hotel as the proud new site of a Sydney pub revamp.

It's not dramatic, the Botany Bay Hotel has undergone a quick facelift but essentially stays true to the bones of the building. "The Botany Bay Hotel is a great pub," says Coughlan. "Until now, we've been buying venues that need a lot of work, and we then do a complete overhaul. The bones of this place were great — and we wanted to retain features like the sandstone and timber, which are a nod to the heritage of the venue. So this time around we've tweaked and freshened up, with the main changes coming in the kitchen via an all-new menu in the bistro."

The biggest change is in the kitchen — the menu has been completely overhauled by Bourke Street staple Ernie Priestly. "Ernie's cheeseburger is famous across Sydney, as is his modern take on pub classics," says Coughlan. "Ernie first worked with us at the Marlborough Hotel, then again at the Lord Gladstone, and now at the Botany Bay Hotel." The new bistro offering is in the classic pub vein but broader, with favourites cherry picked from a range of different types of gastropub. The new menu includes the classic parma (is a pub really a pub if it doesn't serve up a parma? We think not), steak and nachos as well as crispy skinned salmon, Baja fish soft shelled tacos, jalapeno poppers and Southern fried chicken wings. Not bad for a pub dinner, we have to say.

Coughlan and the Bourke Street crew have been responsible for some of the most dramatic Sydney revamps in the last few years, with a long list of successes under their collective belt (including the Lord Gladstone, The Workers and the under-construction Hampshire Hotel to name but a few).

 The revamped Botany Bay Hotel is now open, operating seven days a week with lunch from 11am–3pm and dinner from 5pm–9pm.

Image: Lord Gladstone.