77

William Street's favourite late-night dance den is back and it's better than ever. Well, maybe not better – that's a matter of taste and one's penchant for grinding against strangers in a sweatbox – but it's objectively cleaner and now sells food.

Former Drink 'n' Dine group maestros Jamie Wirth and Mike Delany purchased the gutted Club 77 after selling their three Sydney venues (The Norfolk, Forresters and Oxford Tavern) to Melbourne-based, pokie-free pub group Dixon Hospitality in January. There's an eastern European theme to 77's latest incarnation that tips its hat to the club's former life as a place for goths to pash and talk about The Matrix.

Drink 'n' Dine's signature hotchpotch of kitsch hasn't made the transition to William Street ("I got sick of the clutter," says Delany). 77's interior is a more subdued affair with a couple of two-foot-tall knights-in-gold-armour statues, smatterings of gothic-script graffiti and a lot of black. It's like stepping into 1970s British horror comic. The perimeter is lined with green-cushioned booths and a long and winding bar snakes through the room. Red lights frame a dangerous European spirit selection, put together by general manager and "head burgermeister" Steven Forbes, which includes absinthe, slivovitz and Becherovka, the bitter, herbal cure-all loved by Czech uncles and Swiss skiers.  

The cocktail list is a ton of fun with minimum stuffing about and a lot of Euro spirits and spiced liqueurs. I'll drink anything featuring the walnut liqueur Nocello​, so I'm smitten to find it in the Forest Rendezvous ($18) with absinthe and dark cacao. I reckon it's what the witch in Hansel and Gretel knocks back after a hard day's oven cleaning. The Chernobyl Tears ($18) is a tartier brew of Ketel One Citroen vodka, ginger and Hungarian golden pear liqueur. It's incredibly easy to down and I could stay on the drink all night. "From tears comes passion", so the drinks list claims.  

It's a grab bag of beer selection rocking all over the Old World from Stiegl to Chimay to Newcastle Brown Ale (and Reschs on tap for good measure). Wine wise, while the team could have put on a handful of usual-suspect Aussie bottles and no one would have minded that much, Forbes has sourced his vino from France, Spain, Italy and Slovenia. I fall in love with a 2005 bottle of biodynamic Slovenian sparkling rose from Movia ($78). Doesn't quite go with the Transylvanian-black room, but it sure as heck matches a weapon of a fried chicken sandwich with celeriac and fennel remoulade ($14).   

Wirth hasn't abandoned his messy, carb-loaded cooking style and the menu also includes a stack of polenta chips ($10) that match it in the ring with Bloodwood's signature golden rods, a freshly baked and gloriously salty pretzel made for immersing in molten cheese ($10) and a highly snackable crudite platter ($14) of pickles, veg, dips and coldcut sausage. Crumbed and fried garlic cloves ($9) are blanched in milk to remove the garlic's edge, but they're still the kind of thing you'll want to chase with a Tic Tac or 10.

77 will continue to book DJs for your dance card and Sunday promises to be the party night with a weekly event called Pavlova Bar to include sets from Phil Smart, Annabelle Gaspar, Ben Drayton and international acts. Note there's osetra caviar on the menu if you want to grab a 30 gram tin ($110), slide into a booth and really get your Studio 54 on during a set.

Written above the spirits shelf is "Za-nai dobroto na momenti". Translation: "To the very best of times." With Delany, Wirth and Forbes at the helm, that's exactly what you're likely to get.

THE LOWDOWN

Go for… pretzels and prost.

Stay for… caviar and DJs.

Drink… the Chernobyl Tears.

And… don't go banging on the William Street door; the entrance is now via Yurong Lane.