The Claremont Hotel

The Claremont Hotel is a bar, music venue and fine dining pub located in Claremont, Western Australia and around 9 km away from Perth CBD. It was also titled Perth’s best venue for 2023 at the AHA (Australian Hotel Association) awards after its renovation worthing $12 million AUD in 2023. It is also one of the most expensive pubs in Western Australia.

The Claremont Hotel

The Claremont
The Claremont Hotel in 2012.
Former names	McManus' Hotel, Fink's Hotel, The Continental Hotel, Redrock Hotel
Address	1 Bay View Terrace, Claremont WA 6010 Perth Australia
Public transit	Claremont station
Parking	Parallel parking
Owner	Andy Freeman, Tim Mclernon and John Parker
Type	Bar, music venue, dinning, rooftop entertainment
Seating type	Fine dining
Capacity	1,600
Current use	Trading
Construction
Built	1884 (1884)
Opened	1886 (1886)
Renovated	1902, 1985, 2013, 2023
Years active	1884 – present
Construction cost	$12 million
Website
https://theclaremont.com.au/

Description

The venue features a bistro, bar and courtyard for indoor and outdoor dining, function spaces and a rooftop bar and a newly added 'beer garden'. And with just a few steps away to the Claremont Quarter shopping center.

The two dining areas delivered an “unpretentious, produce-led pub menu” supporting local farmers, while highlighting seafood, reflecting its close proximity to the Indian Ocean and Swan River. The pub hired two professional award-winning chef Telina Menzies and head chef of Claremont Nick Trezise.

History and operations

The hotel first opened on the site in 1886, but it was demolished and in 1902 due to unknown circumstances and the current structure was built in the Filigree style. It has seen a myriad of changes, to become an institution of Perth's Western Suburbs.

In early years, the hotel took the name of its licensees and in the 1920s was known as McManus' Hotel and Fink's Hotel. In recent years, it has traded as the Continental Hotel and Redrock Hotel. Before a major renovation in 1985 by the then licensee Tony Heyns. The hotel was a former tavern where you could buy a pie. But when that work finished, it secured what turned out to be an enduring niche as a meeting place and several generations of pub-goers have spilled from the hotel at closing time to make the short trek to Club Bayview which is less than a minute walk.

As the COVID-19 outbreak struck, the hotel was temporarily closed in April 2020. It remained dormant until acquired by Australian Venue Company (AVC) in 2022, as part of the group's concerted push into Western Australia. It has now been reimagined, AVC predicts will be a “hospitality hub set to redefine Claremont’s leisure life”. It was later classified as a family-friendly pub allowing access for underaged children to dine in the dining section of the pub.

Renovation

The two-level pub has been expanded – the floorspace more than doubled, with a capacity for 1,600 people, it has been restored so as to retain the fabric of the heritage building, and it has been modernised and reimagined, via contemporary architecture and significant backing. AVC's design brief was simply to “create a landmark pub for locals featuring a bistro, bar and courtyard for indoor and outdoor dining, function spaces and a rooftop bar”. The designers kept its historic elegance and period detail, but in a radically re-designed space adorned in subtle finishes of terrazzo, timber, waxed plaster and extensive greenery of nature. The designers revived the pub's original balconies encase sports bars, lounges, a bistro and function spaces, and a rooftop terrace offers open-air dining.

Relation to Claremont killings

The hotel is also closely related to the Claremont serial killings, with the murder of two young women named Jane Rimmer and Ciara Glenon and the disappearance of a third women named Sarah Spiers in 1996 and 1997 after they had been patrons either at the hotel and Club Bayview.