Australian studio Alexander & Co has set sumptuous furnishings against worn brick walls to channel faded opulence throughout this Sydney dining venue.

The Imperial plays host to a series of jewel-tone dining spaces that have been designed by Alexander & Co to boast a similar atmosphere to a "lost palace".
It is situated in the suburb of Erskineville and has been a go-to venue for members of the local LGBT+ community since 1983. However, over the past two decades the building had undergone little maintenance work and fallen into a state of disrepair, leaving it in need of a complete overhaul.

"Something in the metaphor of the restaurant is the ability for this rawness to never feel like a construction site, but instead a theatre of colour, a visual outrage," explained the studio. "Although the project feels immediately decorative, it is, in fact, a collection of robust building materials faced in makeup ? brickwork, concrete, steel, all represented in colour and high fidelity."

The ground floor now contains a 250-seat restaurant called Priscillas. It takes its name from 1994 comedy film The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, which follows the journey of a transgender woman and two drag queens through the Australian outback.

Several of the time-worn walls have been left in their found state or freshened up with a coat of white paint, while a new mural akin to what could be seen in a church has been painted across the ceili...