New Brisbane

The Shadow Lounge
1 Eagle Street, Eagle Street Pier,
Brisbane Queensland, 4002

For a long time now, the City’s nightlife has been a dead end for me. For years I haunted The Victory Hotel and the Exchange…even City Rowers. Now they just haunt me! So for two years now I’ve been spending my Saturday nights skulking in the Valley and West End, studiously avoiding the GPO and its counterparts. I hate the City mentality; I hate the club ethic (ie. blatant meat market); I hate McDonalds and “Happy Jacks” at 2am. I dislike the way people dress, like buffed-up bogans and I hate the music! Ok, enough negativity.

Finally there is a saving grace! And I’m not talking about Jorge on George. The Shadow Lounge (sometimes mistaken for the Jade Buddha) has been around since 2005, providing some polished metal among the dust. Thankfully it came in and broomed City Rowers under the proverbial carpet!

No longer do I walk into this venue and have bad flashbacks of two-for-one vodkas slipping down like ice cubes on a hot day; or male strippers flaunting their flesh in front of a ravenous group of females on their ‘girl’s-night-out’. In place of this is a cocktail/wine list, served to you by staff dressed in dainty Japanese-style black shirts embroidered with green oriental designs, and where the ‘emasculated’ male once postured is a distinctly non-sexual, but very sublime, statue of Buddha. (Actually now that I think of it- the only difference between the stripper and his replacement is obesity and harmonious presence!)

The venue is decked in candle light giving the place a warm gloom. Neat wooden coffee tables are parked across the deck and the interior accompanied by modern, cubic chairs and deeply reclining sofa chairs. These noticeable improvements are just the start. It’s the view that really had me hooked. I’ve never thought of myself as a romantic, but that view from the deck is just divine. Picture a cold night, heaters warming your back, sitting in a cushy sofa chair, wine in hand, good company, Story Bridge crested in golden lights, inky river swirling below, and the City starts to look incredibly good! What was City Rowers doing?? Either I never made it further than my two-for-one vodkas or they had us all locked in to preserve the cigarette smoke. Well, now it’s all opened out, allowing you to sit further in for the more intimate club-like atmosphere, or on the deck for a taste of the highlife, cocktails in hand, river lights in your eyes.

However, it isn’t just the setting that drew me back again. It’s the fact that we sat down and the wait staff served us our drinks, and we didn’t have to leave our coveted seats. It’s the fact that not one inebriated male, eyes glazed over by one too many beers, lips wet from slurred and sprayed speech, belt unbuckled from his urinal expedition, tried to communicate with us. Nor were many women with scantily-clad breasts and thighs falling off their heels and vomiting into pot plants for that matter. Now I can’t deny it, the City crowd was there- and a fair few peacocks were strutting their stuff while the black-clad babes adjusted their cleavage and nonchalantly perused them from beneath lowered lashes and over the rims of their champagne glasses. Probably they all just hold it together a little more, and save the messy end for the messier venues.

The place exudes a very Japanese theme, which is kind of surprising because it exists in conjunction with the Buddha Bar downstairs. My point being that Buddha is not really about bamboo sticks and Freedom Furniture table lanterns- well to me anyway who has only really encountered Buddha surrounded by dragon flies, colourful offerings and lots of golds and reds. Both venues seem to be more about Ministry of Sound chill-out and mood lighting but, well, it sells so who’s going to question it!

The Buddha Bar downstairs is more a restaurant venue, while upstairs the Shadow Lounge is all about cocktails and champagne. The Shadow Lounge drinks list has enough exotic cocktails and wine to keep the average boozer at bay. If you’re looking for a particularly fine drop don’t expect to find it here, it’s more lounge/club than wine bar. Beer on tap is the norm, prices very similar to the rest of the city.

Now I have been there on nights where the sheer volume of people stretch the place to its seams, but it was still a lot of fun. People seem to act more like humans than Neanderthals here. So, on that note, when you’re fed up with The Vic and its mates down the street and want to feel a little classy, try the Shadow Lounge on for size. It may just fit the occasion.

By Alice Blackwood.