25hours Hotel Sydney The Olympia

25hours Hotel Sydney The Olympia opened on 9 October 2025 as the German lifestyle brand's first Australian address, taking over the heritage-listed site of the old West Olympia Theatre and Grand Pacific Blue Room on Oxford Street. Ennismore has built a 109-room hotel around the building's cinematic past, with rooms split into "Dreamer" and "Renegade" characters and a rooftop bar staged like a 1960s film set. It lands at the point where Paddington, Surry Hills, Darlinghurst, Kings Cross and Moore Park meet, one of Sydney's more culturally layered crossroads.

The place

The hotel occupies 1-11 Oxford Street in Paddington, on the stretch where five inner-Sydney neighbourhoods — Paddington, Surry Hills, Darlinghurst, Kings Cross and Moore Park — converge. It is a corridor with a genuine performance history: the site itself was once the West Olympia Theatre and the Grand Pacific Blue Room, part of a strip long associated with cinema, cabaret and Sydney's LGBTQ+ nightlife. Rather than the harbourside or CBD locations most new luxury openings chase, 25hours has planted itself in a residential, boutique-retail pocket close to Moore Park's sporting venues and the Paddington art and antiques trade, betting on neighbourhood texture over postcard views.

The concept

25hours Hotel Sydney The Olympia is Ennismore's first 25hours property in Australia and the brand's debut in the Southern Hemisphere. The conversion of the heritage-listed theatre building was handled by a trio of architecture and design firms — Tonkin Zulaikha Greer, Indyk Architects under Shelley Indyk, and Woods Bagot — tasked with keeping the shell's theatrical bones legible while inserting a contemporary hotel inside it. The result leans hard into the site's cinematic history: the 109 rooms are organised around two archetypes drawn from film, "Dreamers" and "Renegades", with lighter, blue-toned interiors on some floors and darker, bolder palettes with statement carpets and artwork on others, including pieces by Sydney artist Kubi Vasak. The room mix runs from mid-sized to considerably larger suites, with select accommodations adding lounge space, soaking tubs or private terraces looking over the surrounding rooftops. It is a design-forward, lifestyle-category play rather than a five-star luxury one, aimed at guests who want a characterful, locally rooted stay over a conventional international-brand room. Guest-facing extras include a Schindelhauer bike rental fleet, a 25h things retail corner and an access arrangement with Fitness First Darlinghurst in place of an in-house gym.

Dining & wellness

Food and drink are handled by four venues under culinary director Mitch Orr. The Palomar, the acclaimed London restaurant, makes its Sydney debut here with a roughly 110-seat, open-kitchen room serving Southern European, North African and Levantine dishes. The Mulwray is an intimate cocktail and wine bar built around biodynamic labels and classic serves, and Jacob the Angel is a ground-floor café pouring specialty coffee alongside pastries from Lune Croissanterie. At the top of the building, rooftop bar Monica — created by Ennismore's food-and-beverage studio Carte Blanched — plays on a nostalgic 1960s Hollywood mood with live music, DJ sets and share plates.