Newtown’s Carlisle Castle Is Back, With $10 Cheeseburgers And Hard Vanilla Cola

There are pubs you go to because they’re new, and pubs you go to precisely because they aren’t.

The Carlisle Castle Hotel has always belonged firmly in the second camp. Tucked down Albermarle Street away from the main Newtown drag, the neighbourhood pub has been sitting here since 1876, accumulating a history that’s pretty hard to buy these days—generations of regulars, a marble bar installed during an early-1920s refit and enough local lore to include a resident ghost named Pete.

So when the team behind Redfern’s The Bat & Ball got the keys, the obvious question wasn’t what they could turn The Carlisle into, it was how little they could get away with changing.

“We actually haven’t changed that much— it feels the same but different,” co-owner Dan McBride tells Urban List.

“I think that’s a reaction we’re seeing a little bit, which was very much the intention. We didn’t want people to feel like the space had completely changed because it is that kind of meeting place for community, like another lounge room, if you will.”

It’s an approach that definitely makes more sense when you know The Carlisle wasn’t simply another pub acquisition for the group. McBride says various members of the team have lived, studied and spent years around Newtown and its neighbouring suburbs, with the corner watering hole very much the crossroad for their own circle of friends.

After replenishing The Bat & Ball back in 2024, they spent months putting feelers out for pub number two. The Carlisle was the only one they kept coming back to.

“There was a lot of group history and a lot of good memories and thoughts, and the heritage charm of the place as well,” McBride says.

“We all love old pubs and it’s one of the things that drew me to The Bat & Ball. I like the old tile facades that haven’t been touched, and all the old kooky, weird things.”

That familiarity matters, because best believe locals would argue that the quickest way to flatten a pub would be to polish every odd edge out of it.

Instead, thanks to a crew spanning Rachael Paul, Dan McBride, Dynn Szmulewicz, Zac Godbolt and Cameron Votano—the original Italian marble bar remains exactly where it was, now finished with a new solid timber bar top handbuilt by McBride and co-owner Dynn Szmulewicz. There’s fresh 70s-inspired Axminster carpet designed specifically for the pub, vintage art throughout, a hand-painted Carlton Draught mirror by Good Hands Sign Co (also across venues like Stanmore's Ard Bakery and Chippo's Radio Taco joint), and perhaps the most useful possible repurposing of an old phone booth, a lucky-it-didn't-become-a-broom-closet photobooth.

The beer garden has had some attention too, but don’t expect a before-and-after-reveal where you need archival photos to recognise the room.

“If something is good, just leave it,” McBride mentions.

This philosophy extends well beyond aesthetics too, as he speaks to old pubs being less a blank canvas than places you inherit for a while.

“Coming from a small bar background, a lot of them are concrete boxes that you put your ego onto or personality onto, I guess. With pubs, it feels very much like a living, community space that has all these stories that you're trying to do justice to and not erase.”

What has changed substantially, is the reason to stay for a feed.

Executive chef Cameron Votano oversees the food across both The Bat & Ball and The Carlisle, with James Walker running the latter’s kitchen day-to-day. Comparatively, there’s more room to play here and consequently a bigger menu, but nobody is attempting to convince Newtown that what its local pub has always been missing is a 14-course degustation or a burger over $26.

“Cam, our exec chef, is really good at treading that line of what a pub is,” McBride says.

“It’s nostalgic and comforting; there’s schnitzel, steak and burgers—but he’s good at putting a slight twist on things and making them some of the best versions you’ve had in a pub.”

The schnitzel, case in point,  gets a pretzel-and-herb crumb and mustard gravy treatment.

Work your way down the menu and there’s also a steak and Guinness pie loaded with slow-braised beef and vintage cheddar, served with mash and greens; as well as pig’s head toast with pork terrine, plated alongside fried bread and burnt apple mustard. Keep going and you’ll even find a blood-sausage scotch egg with date sauce.

The drinks suite follows very much the same logic. You can get Guinness on tap alongside the CUB stalwarts, while Sydney breweries Grifter, Young Henrys and Philter cover the more local end of things. The wine list leans Australian (naturally), and the cocktail offering deliberately avoids trying to out-Enmore Enmore Road.

Instead, there’s a Carlisle Coffee somewhere between an Irish coffee and Espresso Martini, plus $15 Martinis when live jazz rolls around on Thursdays.

And this is still a pub that understands the gravitational pull of a properly-priced weeknight special. Mondays mean $20 schnitzels, Tuesdays $20 steaks, Wednesday $20 parmis, Thursday brings $10 cheeseburgers (and the aforementioned Martinis and jazz), Friday cops $1 wings with live music, Saturday gets a polish of dollar oysters and Sunday is reserved for the roast of all roasts.

For newcomers, that makes The Carlisle Castle Hotel a very good argument for walking 10 minutes beyond the King Street strip. For the punters, the more important news is that it still looks and feels unmistakably like it always has, old piano nook and all.

Image credit: Brew Casa Creative