“One reporter wrote of the locals drinking there at the time, that it seemed as if they treated the front bar like their living room.” “Its clientele of tradies, maddies, housos, meth chemists, transgender, con men and assorted ratbags appealed to me greatly,” Nowra tells Broadsheet. In 2018, he immortalised the pub’s locals with This Much is True, a play written for the space. Louis Nowra, the celebrated playwright and an Old Fitz regular, wrote a history of Woolloomooloo ( Woolloomooloo: A Biography) that centred around the pub. The Old Fitz is not just a pub, and it’s not just a theatre. “The performing arts were so affected by Covid we saw this as a special opportunity to give our support.
“The theatre was definitely the reason we took on the task,” James Thorpe, Odd Culture’s owner and group general manager, tells Broadsheet.
The group has been committed to maintaining the spirit of the historic space, while installing head chef, Anna Ugarte-Carral (ex- Momofuku Seiobo, and Noma, Copenhagen), to elevate its pub grub. The Woolloomooloo pub was taken over by hospitality group Odd Culture ( The Oxford Tavern, The Duke Of Enmore, Odd Culture Newtown) at the end of 2020, and recently unveiled a new 100-seat outdoor-dining area.
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