Australasia > Australia > Western Australia > Perth > Gastronomy > Articles > Rich Pickings

A Sydney friend likes to tell this story about eating out in Perth. He and a group of friends go into a café where a waitress eventually slouches over to them.
“Do youse want tea?” she asks.
“Yes two please.”
“Do youse want coffee?”
“One please.”

When she returns with the two teas and a filter coffee she asks “Did youse want sugar in the teas and coffee?”
“ No thanks,” reply two of the group.
“Well don’t stir it then” she says.

And the food wasn’t much better he reckons. Steak and eggs or a Chinese restaurant was the standard fare. All of which says something about the isolation of a city with 1000 kms of desert between it and the rest of the country.

Although, my mate adds generously, things may have changed. It was15 years ago.

I’m about to find out. An old friend and dedicated gourmand promises to tour me round Perth on my first day while my second will be on a city tour covering the basics between prodigious bouts of consumption.

In fact I am whisked off to lunch almost as soon as I touch the ground, mainly because my friend’s Alfa Romeo is parked illegally. So he’s doing okay then. Well yes he grins. He certainly looks like he has drunk and eaten exceptionally well since he’s been here.

My friend agrees that apart from a few Italian and Portuguese restaurants the food in Perth was dismal when he first arrived. But that’s changed now thanks to chefs returning from their OEs with new food and new ideas. “You’ll see,” he promises before getting back to the absorbing task of negotiating the city’s road works. The rubble will eventually become a 76km train line from Mandurah in the south to the city where it will go underground.

The city already has a brilliant network of cycling tracks which will take you 50km from south to north.

Money is not a problem in this city at this time. The mining boom fuelled by demand for minerals from China and India has plumped up a lot of bank accounts. In fact, Perth didn’t even have to ask the federal government for help to build the new rail line. And there are now more millionaires per head of population amongst the city’s 1.5m residents than in any other Australian state.

The Oyster Bar Meads in Mosman Bay (there’s also one on the foreshore) on the banks of the Swan River is pricey but since my friend insists he is extremely well-paid and given raises regularly without request, I let him pay. It’s hard to believe though. After all, he’s a journalist and no journalist I know at home would make these claims.

Light bounces off the Swan River, the sunshine is clear and hot and my flounder is bigger and pinker than any flounder I’ve ever seen here. Despite protestations of my bird-like appetite I polish it off easily.

It will be the only time I spend on the river winding its way through Perth. Apart from a couple of tourist cruises the Swan is not much used and you could say Perth is a city with its back to the river. Worse now the new Expo Centre has blocked out huge sections.

After lunch it’s off to the brewery which makes the beer I enjoyed at lunch. Little Creatures Brewery in Fremantle is also a café where you can scoff top nosh amongst the shiny stainless steel beer vats. The beer is light as champagne and I’m not surprised it’s won numerous awards.

Fremantle is old and pretty but not quite as raffish as it once was. Still home to a thriving art and music scene the old west has become a little more sedate now that the private American Catholic University of Notre Dame has taken over many of the former pub sites. The mainly wealthy international students give it a cosmopolitan air however and there’s a wonderful market on Friday, Saturday and Sunday where you might be able to spot Freo residents Ben Elton or Tim Winton.

In the evening we dine at a new restaurant called The Pony Club in Mount Lawley. Mount Lawley, Subiaco, Northbridge and Fremantle have the best night life in Perth. The Pony Club is pretty much all white except for the trompe l’oeil style horsey paintings and a few silver cups. The clientele are young, under-dressed and female. The only men look gay.

The tapas-style food is great though the cocktails are silly and artificial tasting so we decamp to The Must down the road for a lemongrass and ginger mojito because it’s sensational.

Jeff Cottrell is my guide the next day and perfect for the job being a happily transplanted Englishman. He is full of guide-type factoids like Perth has the most swimming pools, the highest boat ownership and the most sunshine hours of any city in Australia. Plus he’s an enthusiastic advocate for New Zealanders coming try their luck in WA’s mining towns. Wages are high, unemployment low, opportunities plenty.

Appropriately we spend the next hour in The Perth Mint being gripped by gold fever and watching a gold bar being made by hand. The Mint is in one of the few remnants of Perth’s early sandstone architecture and its adjoining Tea Gardens almost beckons.

Instead we hive off to Kings Park just to the west of the CBD which overlooks the city and the Swan River. Of the 400ha of parkland, the front 20ha are well-groomed and botanical, popular with families and picnickers. The rest is bush.

Then it’s a short drive to the Swan Valley, the oldest wine growing region in Western Australia, with a stop on the way to gobble vodka-soaked strawberries at the Margaret River Chocolate Company. The viognier at Heafod Glen Winery is excellent and their restaurant Chesters good though not spectacular but whoever wrote the menu needs spanking. You can’t take a place seriously with titles like funguserimental one for pate on toast in the section called entreecology.

Perth’s beaches are among Australia’s finest. They stretch from Fremantle in both directions for hundreds of kilometres. Cottesloe Beach is the place to find a millionaire and a beer at ‘The Cott’ after a swim is an old tradition.

A little further down is the Indiana Tea Rooms refurbished in the manner of a grand colonial dwelling where we scoff coffee and brulee.

Amazingly I still have room for a dinner at the highly recommended central King Street Café which is part food outlet, part café. I adore the old high-ceilinged, tiled-floor décor and the fresh simple food.

As for the service, well a lot’s changed in 15 years. Not only is it fast but the waitress who is studying to become a chef can answer all my questions about the menu and actually writes out the recipe for my white bean salad for me.

• More from Yvonne Van Dongen
• More on the same theme