There is a kind of uneasy recalibration that happens to a person when a pub gets… glamorous. You walk in expecting sticky carpet, a pool table with one lousy cue, and a pint pulled by someone who would rather be anywhere else. Instead, you find a perfectly stirred dirty martini and a bistecca Fiorentina. The pub that you were asking for a good time is now asking you, “Who are you going to be tonight? The Old Guy or The New? It’s a lot to consider, and yet this is just the beginning.

Are you still a pub person if your drink costs $24? Is ordering a second vodka soda at the bar still casual if there is a candle involved? These are the questions that come with progress, I suppose. The little existential crisis of a person who loves a pub but also loves… when the local gets a facelift.

Hotel Harry’s has always sat on that corner of Wentworth Avenue and Goulburn Street, like the lady in the window who has seen it all, because she kind of has. Built in 1912, it has watched Surry Hills evolve, fall apart, reinvent itself, and now don a very expensive outfit. It has seen the grit of the 80s and 90s, when Kylie Minogue filmed the video clip for “Better the Devil You Know” on a nearby rooftop, through to the 2000s when the neighbourhood became a creative hub, and now into its current era where the chic roam freely around every corner.

Surry Hills has always been good at this kind of transformation, and the neighbourhood has embraced its current language of linen shirts, natural wine, ricotta pancakes and vinyl collections. All this new age hootspah may have left Harry falling behind, but now, under The Point Group, the people behind Shell House, The Dolphin Hotel and The International, the iconic venue is joining the movement.