St Kilda Icon The Prince Enters a New Era With Grant Smillie

Few buildings in Melbourne have a history as varied and important as The Prince of Wales – now simply known as The Prince. Erected in 1862 and mostly rebuilt in 1937, the sprawling corner site served as a headquarters for the US military in World War II, hosted a seminal drag night from 1977–1992, became a punk rock hub over a similar period and later housed Circa, a restaurant that incubated a generation of kitchen talent including Andrew McConnell and Ben Shewry.

Today, the historic complex houses a ground- floor pub and wine shop, a spacious upstairs bandroom, a rooftop function deck and 39 hotel rooms. But it’s fair to say that after an overhaul in 2018 and a string of hands-off operators, it’s been plodding along without much direction. 

Grant Smillie is here to change that. The experienced restaurateur runs Marmont in Southbank and co-owns one-of-a-kind bar Ponyfish Island. Before that, he spent years running some of Hollywood’s most hyped restaurants, EP & LP, Strings of Life and Grandmaster Recorders. And before that, he was a resident DJ at Onelove, the pre-eminent club night of the early 2000s, which started in The Prince bandroom and spawned a music label and national festival in Stereosonic.

After taking possession of the site, Smillie has already begun transforming the upstairs function deck into a rooftop bar that will open to the public in time for summer. It’s the first of several big changes that will roll out through 2026, hopefully transforming The Prince back into the buzzy hub it once was. In particular, he’s keen to shrink the menu, rub off a bit of the pub’s polish and return it to being a simple locals’ boozer.

“Some of the locals have perhaps been disenfranchised over the years,” Smillie says. “I’m trying to step back a little bit and look at what the thing needs overall. I’m excited to look at the programming in each space and make it a bit more cohesive.”

His biggest plan, though, is an interior renovation to connect the bandroom, pub and upstairs deck, currently all separate spaces accessed by individual entrances. “That doesn’t come at a small expense, but I think it’s an important one nonetheless.”

Elsewhere, such as in the bandroom, he’s happy to change almost nothing in terms of aesthetics. “The heritage is all sweat and rock’n’roll,” he says. “If you want to make it fancy, you’d lose that soul of what made it. I think, spend where you need to spend, which is reactivating the rooftop. And then look to be still changing certain things, but with considered restraint. Paint and art and some love can go a long way.”

Of course, as a former DJ, the programming of the bandroom was always going to get a review. Smillie plans to keep things as diverse as they are now, with acts from across the genre spectrum. But he’s also keen to work with local promoters to bring back big-name international DJs, as it was during the Onelove days, when the likes of David Guetta and Bob Sinclar visited, years before gaining the kind of profiles they have now.

“I think it’s important we try and secure some of those big acts again to put us on the map over the summer,” he says. “And then still support with the grassroots stuff. The week-to-week is going to be super important to make sure we really get that visitation and people come. Imagine on a Saturday night in summertime, we push 400 people from the rooftop down into the bandroom that’s already busy and then you spill all over the place. That sounds like a pretty good time to me.”