Royal Hotel Torrensville

After a good feed and a couple of beers to kick off the South Australian leg of the Tour in Balaklava, we headed back to Adelaide and the Royal Hotel Torrensville.

It turns out there’s only one single pub called the Royal Hotel in all of Adelaide! And just a reminder we’re not counting pubs like the Royal Mail, Royal Oak, Royal Exchange, etc. Just straight Royal Hotel (and potentially the name of the suburb/town). But if you happen to know of another, please let us know and we’ll just have to go back to Adelaide. Which I personally wouldn’t mind. I’m a fan.

But as far as we know at this stage, the Royal Hotel Torrensville is the only one. And it is a pretty schmick Royal. This is probably one of the most nicely done up Royals we’ve been to. It certainly looks like they put some effort and money into it. And it also looks like it was worth it. They’ve done it nicely. Walking into the Royal Hotel Torrensville, you wouldn’t mistake it for a county pub by any stretch. This is clearly an inner-city pub. That being said, it artfully hits the right ‘fancy’ notes without veering into ‘wanky’ territory.

The main portion of the pub is all hardwood floors with green tiling. Tall tables in the middle of the space are complimented by rows of plush booths all along the walls. Further through, there’s a good-sized beer garden area with giant industrial ceiling fans and equally giant TV’s for sport viewing. And somehow, the industrial bigness of the beer garden fit seamlessly with the schmickness of the rest of the pub.

It’s not something I usually comment on in this blog, but the lighting was pretty cool as well. Jordy was a big fan of at least one aspect of the lighting which he dubbed ‘the sexiest lamp ever’. As none of us had any interest in asking any follow up questions to Jordy’s profession of affection for the lighting fixture, we headed to the bar to get some beers.

With South Australian beers in hand, we set up at one of the tall tables. None of us were having wine, but we did notice that the pub had excellent branded wine glasses as well. And if there’s one thing we love on this blog, it’s bespoke branding (that and saying ‘we could have stayed all day’).

We got there in the late afternoon on a Thursday. So as we enjoyed our schooners, the place started to fill up a bit with the afterwork crowd. And you could very easily picture this place being packed on a weekend. But it’s also the kind of place that you could easily picture still being quite fun even if it was packed.

It was a bit of a bummer that we weren’t there for dinner as well. There were some damn good looking stuff on the menu. And any place that has specials on tacos and ribs is definitely up there in my book.

But unfortunately, we headed off before dinner time. Even though we could’ve easily stayed all day. We had other non-Royal stops to make in Adelaide (Gilbert Street Hotel for amazing Buffalo wings and Little Bang Brewery for equally amazing beer if you were curious). And after that we had a good percentage of eastern South Australia to traverse the next day. But the Royal Hotel Torrensville is definitely a very good Royal. And it’s another one we’d definitely come to again.

Royal Stats

• Town/Suburb: Torrensville (Adelaide), SA
• Population: 4,110
• Date Visited: Thursday, October 17, 2024
• Visited By: Cory, John, Jordy and Anthony
• Beer Sponsorship on Sign: None
• Beer Consumed at Pub: Cooper’s
• Price of Schooner of Said Beer: $10.10
• Unique Award: Royal with the Sexiest Lighting Fixture
• Tour Progress: 46.8% (65/139)