Going to White Revolver, an underground club where members are given keys and access is through a revolving door hidden in a wall, makes me feel like George Costanza in that Seinfeld episode where he’s in a club filled with models. Feeling woefully out of his league, George is reduced to hitting on women by showing them a picture of a model he cut out of a magazine and put in his wallet as if she were an ex. Since George has already used up that trick, however, I instead go to White Revolver with two glamazons who promise they’ll act as if they find me sexually alluring. I’m not sure their acting skills are up to it but I’m crossing my fingers.

Because White Revolver is a late night venue (it’s possibly the only place you can get a drink in Bondi Beach after midnight), my posse and I spend a few hours getting lubricated at Ravesi’s Wine Bar first and so we’re all a little … well, let’s just say tipsy when we arrive at around midnight.

White Revolver was created by the same guys responsible for the Rum Diaries and Cream Tangerine and is in the basement of Cream Tangerine’s building. When White Revolver first launched they hid the revolving door within a space that looked like an art gallery to passers by (the idea being that only those in the know would realise the gallery contained an entrance to a club). However, in December the owners decided that the street level space could be better utilised and so they turned it into a wine bar called Thru The Grapevine. This is possibly worthy of a separate review on its own: for now we’ll just say that Thru The Grapevine is narrow, intimate (which is Bar Zine’s new code word for “small”) and looks like a decent place for people watching, since the large windows open out onto Curlewis Street.

It’s a Thursday, which is apparently the quietest night of the week for White Revolver, and so we don’t see any queue outside. When we walk into Thru The Grapevine, however, we ask the guy working there and, after one look at the glamazons, he whisks us inside, through the door that makes me think of old James Bond movies, and before we know it we’re led down into a subterranean chamber filled with the type of olde world furniture you might see in a Victorian Englishman’s abode, as well as a funky curved bar and black and gold patterned wallpaper that, after a few drinks, looks like it’s moving.

The dance floor is in a second room that’s packed with young things grooving. This area is more spartan than the main bar – my main impression is of black walls – and a bottle of wine later we find it’s 1.30am, the place is empty and we’re being asked to leave. I’d like to say I know how the hour and a half passed but, to be perfectly honest, it’s one of the few times in my life when I’ve actually had a memory blackout (ok, so maybe I was understating things when I said I was just tipsy beforehand). I remember arriving, I remember departing, but that time in between is a mystery. I can only hope it was filled with witty repartee rather than me sprawling across the laps of the glamazons while screaming at them to massage me (actually, that’s the type of thing I do sober, but that’s another story) and I don’t have any recollection of using the glamazons to impress other women. I must have been out of it.

And so, on another humiliating note, I’ll leave the review at that – other than to say that I do plan on going back one day when I’m a little more observant.

White Revolver, corner of Curlewis Street and Campbell Parade, Bondi Beach. Email friends@whiterevolver.com for more info.

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Now it’s your turn – how do you rate White Revolver?

White Revolver - Bondi Beach, 4.2 out of 5 based on 28 ratings

 

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