Depending on how deeply ingrained you were in the Sydney party scene back in the late 1980s, you might have found yourself dancing through the night inside a former church – The Kirk – in a relatively quiet corner of Surry Hills. Now, the historic building that turned from house of God into house of hedonism is being granted a new lease of life, set to be transformed into a pretty sizeable food and business precinct. The project is set to bring new energy to the intersection of Crown, Baptist and Cleveland streets, and from what we know so far, The Kirk’s next iteration is looking interesting.
The Victorian Gothic church (located at 422-424 Cleveland Street) was built back in 1879, and was used as a place of worship until 1970. Though it’s played many different roles in the cultural landscape of Sydney – including as a party palace under the ownership of renowned artist and dominatrix Gretel Pinniger (known as Madame Lash). In more recent times, The Kirk has been unused since 2010, so the news of its renovation means big things.
According to plans released by the City of Sydney, The Kirk is set to be reborn as a dining destination – with a 200-person dining hall housed within its historic walls, and a new adjoining building set to house “part of the licensed restaurant” (presumably the kitchen and other facilities) and four levels of additional space, currently marked as for “commercial use”. The council has also approved landscaping work to take place around the building, and the construction of a basement "for end-of-journey facilities" beneath the new adjoining building.
The new restaurant and office precinct is set to be brought to life by Sydney developer Toga Group, who acquired the building back in 2022 for a cool $6 million. Considering they own TFE Hotels (which includes one of Australia's best hotels, The Calile), we can expect something pretty cool.
Toga Group’s Paul Shaw (general manager, development) described the building as “an iconic piece of Sydney’s cultural history”, and the plans for the space aim to honour its colourful past. We don’t know they’ll go as far as AC/DC did in their music video for Let There Be Rock (filmed at The Kirk back in 1977), but a big licensed restaurant in a grand gothic space doesn’t sound bad to us.
At this point, the restaurant set to be housed within The Kirk has been granted approved hours of operation between 7am and 10pm Sundays to Wednesdays, and from 7am until midnight Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays. Aside from that, the details we have so far are thin on the ground, but it looks like some lucky Sydneysiders are set to find themselves working very close to a very cool foodie hotspot.
You can learn more about the project over here.
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