It Just Has To Be Delicious

Top Perth Restaurants

09 06 20

top perth

Fine Dining:
Twenty Seats, Highgate (romantic, amazing degustation)
Hearth at the Ritz Carlton, Elizabeth Quay (great views)
The Boatshed, South Perth (great food and amazing city views)
Fleur, Perth CBD (great degustation – next level umami)
Nobu, Crown (next level Japanese food)
Andly Private Kitchen (You pay a fixed price and get the best dishes of the day)

Smart-Casual Dinners
Duende, Leederville (great tapas)
Neho Asian Tapas, Victoria Park (quirky and fun)
Bivouac, Northbridge (great Middle Eastern options)
The Beach House, Jindalee (crab scramble excellent for brunch, cool dinner menu)
Pappagallo, Leederville (awesome pizza)
Como Garden, Como (awesome dim sum, red rice flour roll to die for)
Canton Roe, Northbridge (dim sum)
Hiyori, Manning (excellent lunch specials and great dinners)
Tendon Kohaku, Vic Park (amazing tempura and rice)

Casual and yummy:
Scents of Siam, Joondalup (amazing roti, mussaman curry, fish specials, great front of house from Dan)
OEC Sushi, Joondalup (everything is amazing)
Shou Japanese Cafe, Greenwood (wonderful value Bento boxes and great sashimi)
Katsuya, Joondalup (great katsu chicken curry and good sashimi)
Bunn Mee, Leederville (several wonderful authentic dishes from Masterchef’s Jenny)
Shehnai, Currambine (the best curries in Perth)
Kallaroo’s Curry House, Kallaroo (good curry)
Heng Ong’s, Joondalup (amazing authentic Malaysian)
Vung Tau (best pork roll north of the river)
My House Dumpling, Leederville (great Taiwanese dumplings)

Brunch and Brekkie
F5 Cafe, Belmont (great nasi goreng)
Miller and Baker, Northbridge (fab bread and pastries)
Chinta, North Perth (a zen oasis with quality innovative food)
The Little Pantry, Shenton Park (everything is lovely)
The Shorehouse, Swanbourne (crab omelette is a must)
May Street Larder, East Fremantle (good for allergies)
Pixel, Leederville (wonderful breakfast options, beautiful presentation)
Forklore, City West (great congee, kimchi fried rice, katsu sando, great cakes)
Good Things, Mosman Park (nice breakfast options in leafy surroundings)
Moore and Moore, Fremantle (wonderful menu in an art gallery)
Propeller, North Fremantle (middle eastern bold flavours)
Bread in Common, Fremantle (quality food, made with love)
Gordon Street Garage, West Perth (brilliant brekkies, crab omelette is amazing)
Taylor’s Art Cafe, Swan Valley (great breakfast, quirky setting)

Best Gelato and Desserts
Gusto, Vic Park (sublime gelato, has several dairy free and gluten free options)
The Milk Barrel, Hillarys (tiramisu gelato is amazing)
Le Papillon, Joondalup (wonderful cakes)
Bites by D, Mount Hawthorn (amazing cakes)

Best Afternoon Tea
Cape Arid Tea Rooms at the Como, Perth CBD
Hearth, Ritz Carlton, Perth CBD
Pan Pacific, Perth CBD

Best Dairy Free Selection
Bib and Tucker, North Fremantle
May Street Larder, East Fremantle
The Little Pantry, Shenton Park
F5 Cafe, Belvidere St, Belmont
Best Sunday Roast
Allegria, Ocean Reef (overall winner, great quality and atmosphere)
Chapters, Currambine (quality food, classy atmosphere)
Iluka Tavern (Top notch food, but noisy atmosphere)
Woodvale Tavern (Fixed price for three courses, eat as much as you like carvery, good value)
Fibber McGee’s (great Irish hospitality, quiet dining room at the back of the pub)

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Hiyori, Manning

02 11 25

Nestled in amongst the Manning community and shopping centre, Hiyori first came to my attention when I found out that they serve a Teishoku Japanese lunch. Great value, for around $30-38 depending on your protein, you get a tray with rice, protein, pickles, tamagoyaki (egg), soup, dessert (usually mochi), and a serve of tea – choose from hojicha, sencha, matcha, and genmaicha. Proteins include miso cod, koji salmon, sashimi, wagyu, and yakitori, and the whole meal is a wonderful experience.
While you decide, you get a small bowl of beans to snack on.

On our first visit we chose the miso cod. Great good quality cod with a delicious miso sauce. The soup had a chewy dumpling which made for an interesting texture, the egg was smooth and tasty and the pickles wonderful. Mochi dessert was green tea, which had a slightly bitter coating and a slightly sweet soft jelly texture. The sencha tea was first class.

On the second visit I chose the wagyu roast which came with a soy dip. Again, top quality protein and the mochi was a mango flavour which I preferred to the green tea version.

My partner chose the Koji salmon, again a lovely good quality protein.

On our next visit we decided to try dinner and it was an absolute treat. Everything we had was good. We started with a kingfish crudo, probably my favourite dish.

Then tuna tataki with a lovely chilli oil ponzu sauce and grated radish.

Next came the shio teba chicken wings with yuzu koshu, umeboshi paste and mayo – so moorish and addictive.

Next the sticky belly pork chashu with miso and red onion salad. A little fatty for my tastes but the lean meat tasted amazing.

Then last the okonomiyaki stack – japanese pancake with bacon and cabbage

Dinner didn’t disappoint. Bookings are recommended, Hiyori gets busy and there’s a good reason why.

Last Visit October 2025
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Tendon Kohaku, East Vic Park

02 11 25

What could be nicer than tempura and rice? Tendon Kohaku have a mouthwatering list of choices and “tendon” is a portmanteau of tempura and rice, nothing to do with connective tissue!

The menu include a range of tempura, there’s the Kohaku that includes prawns, chicken, corn, beans, shiitake mushroom, pumpkin and runny egg tempura; then there’s the prawn lover one that is purely tempura prawn; there’s also wagyu versions, veggie, and eel. The choice is yours and you can order additional side dishes of tempura if you wish. Each set comes with sauce (classic or spicy), pickles, miso, chawanmushi (savoury egg custard), and wasabi. You can choose from white rice or multi grain rice, and you can add tencha tea if you like to pour tea over the rice.

There are other dishes available such as katsu curry, and udon noodles, and a variety of soft drinks, usually tea based.

It’s all extremely well organised, but can get incredibly busy at weekends, so the best plan is to get there early and order early.

On this occasion I chose the soft shell crab tendon with tencha:

Everything on the tray was delicious. The wasabi nice and strong, and the variety of things to eat made it a really enjoyable and interesting meal. I definitely want to come back and try the other tendon options.

Last visit November 2025

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Como Garden, Como

10 06 25

I think that Como Garden is fairly new. I saw some posts on Instagram and the food looked amazing so we paid the restaurant a visit after a Sunday morning park walk. It’s on Melville Parade just across from the freeway and overlooking the Swan River. There are tables both outside and inside, and we were seated fairly quickly. We chose some food from the trolleys but also ordered some items that I had been looking forward to. The restaurant makes it’s own dumplings and many of them are signature dishes.

First choices were Har Gow (prawn) and Scallop dumplings from the trolley.

For steamed dumplings these were probably the best we have ever tasted. You could really taste the scallop, it wasn’t mixed in with prawn, and the Har Gow were packed with prawn, absolutely delicious. I usually order my Har Gow with Sui Mai because they traditionally go together, but decided to save room for other tasty dishes.

Next came glutinous rice dumplings Ham Sui Gok (affectionately known as footballs). If you haven’t tried these, you really should – they are usually minced pork with veggies, and the signature Como Garden version have preserved vegetables in them. They were also really light and not stodgy like others can be. Very very good footballs.

Then came the signature brown rice flour rolls stuffed with prawn in cruller pastry. Such a lovely version of rice flour rolls (which can often be all roll and no filling), and with a nice soy dressing.

Finally one of our favourites – fired radish cake in XO sauce. So umami, beautiful soft radish cake with a crispy edge, and a burst of XO flavour. Probably the best radish cake I have tasted.

Como Garden oozed quality from start to finish, even the jasmine tea tasted better than other restaurants (and $1 per person – not like the $4 per person I have been charged at Emperor’s Kitchen). Every dish was delicious, with generous fillings, quality ingredients, what’s not to like? I’ll be back.

Last visit – June 2025

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Ginza Midai, Perth CBD

19 05 25

Next to Pier Street car park in Perth is a little alley called McLean Lane. If you didn’t know about it, you wouldn’t know it’s there but it’s a bustling little touch of Tokyo with Teppanyaki bars, and right inside is a tiny twelve seater restaurant called Ginza Midai. The menu is quite small, but the dishes are all carefully thought out by chef Midai. It’s quite expensive for the amount of food that you get, but the food is top quality. There is also a selection of wines, sake and beers.

The waitress went through the menu recommending dishes to us and we chose four things. The restaurant is so tiny that most dishes are passed across the counter as there’s not a lot of room to manoeuvre. The first dish we chose was an anago and smoked radish potato salad.

It was quite unexpected. I thought it might be a leafy salad with potato and eal, but it was more like a regular potato salad with cold mash, anago eel and iburigakko (smoked daikon). Very tasty.

The next dish was the assorted sashimi, which looked amazing and I was really looking forward to trying. The plate contained sea urchin, scampi, scallop pudding, two types of tuna, squid, white fish and seaweed paste. The fish was super fresh and very good quality. I’d never had sea urchin before and found the flavour quite intense. The scampi and tuna were the stars of the plate.

Next came sukiyaki, another new dish to me that was reminiscent of a steamboat in other cultures. We had a burner placed in front of us with a very hot clay pot of broth, tofu, greens and mushrooms. We were given a plate of premium wagyu with some extra chopsticks for the raw meat, and instructions to dip the meat in the broth for ten seconds then dip it in the rich egg yolk sauce. We followed the instructions and also drank the broth and ingredients with our ladles. The meat was incredibly good and the egg yolk sauce very special.

The last dish was a bowl of rice cooked in scallop broth with dried scallop and ikura (salmon roe). Again very tasty and nice fresh roe.

Well this restaurant was definitely an experience and I wish I had tried the Oden (vegetables in broth) that I saw other customers trying. I think if you are looking for a real Japanese experience, it’s a good place to try.

Last visit – May 2025

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Grand Orient, Perth CBD

22 03 25

Grand Orient is situated in the Melbourne Hotel on the corner of Milligan Street and Hay Street. Once you work out how to get in (we tried two doors before finding the actual entrance inside the hotel), you are transported to another world. The decor is traditional Chinese elegance, with muted lighting. Staff are very helpful, and on our visit there were plenty of tables celebrating special occasions, seemingly via the set menu with lobster and crab galore.

We chose the Peking duck with san choy bao. The duck is carved at the table, and the waiter makes up the pancakes withe crispy duck skin, cucumber, carrot, onion and hoisin sauce. It’s a real touch of theatre and we felt very spoilt.

San choy bao were beautifully presented, lettuce cups of seasoned duck with vegetables. Both duck courses were delicious. We soon noticed that pretty much every table ordered the duck – it’s obviously a speciality.

For the post-duck course we chose the deep fried prawns Hong Kong Bay style (with crispy chilli, spring onion, garlic). Excellent quality fresh prawns, with a perfect coating of batter and delicious crispy bits.

We also had Young Chow fried rice – very tasty with large prawns, barbecue pork, celery and egg.

We watched in awe as some of the larger tables were served delectable looking lobster with noodles, and a huge crab with Singapore style chilli sauce. The staff really go to a lot of effort to serve the food at the table, impeccably done with a flourish. All in all a very pleasant experience and much fancier than I expected. I will definitely be back to try some of the other dishes.

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Last visit – March 2025

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Wisteria’s Edge, Edgewater

17 03 25

This unassuming little cafe sits in amongst the little shopping mall on Wisteria Parade in Edgewater. There’s always a friendly face to greet you and a nice selection of tables both inside and outside.

Their small brekkie is one of my favourite lunch options, it’s like a half serve of bread, sausage, bacon and egg with either beans or tomatoes, perfect for just a light lunch. Drinks are good too – the coffee is good quality and there’s a selection of nice juices.

On this visit I chose a bruschetta with a serve of mushrooms. Really good and appetising, with a nice proportion of onion to tomatoes, a drizzle of balsamic and a dusting of parmesan.

My partner chose the club sandwich, bacon, chicken, lettuce and tomato with a side of awesome chips.

This is one of our go to places, we go back again and again.

The menu has the usual breakfast options including avocado smash, eggs benny, granola bowl, omelette and French toast. For lunch there are breakfast options plus salads, fish and chips, nachos, bruschetta and sandwiches. On top of this there is a selection of savoury and sweet dishes in the cold cabinets – frittata, cheesecakes etc. so it’s a place that easily suits a breakfast, a lunch or a coffee and cake date. Consistently good and worth a try if you haven’t been before.

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Last visit – March 2025 for this post but we go there all the time.

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Coffee shop review, Restaurant review

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Matilda Bay Restaurant and Bar, Crawley (second visit)

16 03 25

We haven’t visited the Matilda Bay restaurant for a long time (thirteen years). Looking back at my previous post the service was lacklustre and the food not very well presented, however I noticed that they were having a ‘Cray on the Bay’ promotion and I love crayfish, so we decided to try it again.

The location is perfect, right on Matilda Bay with yachts bobbing outside, the city lights in the distance, and wonderful doors that open up onto the view. We were seated in a nice booth. I ordered a glass of Eden Vale alcohol free sparkling wine, and set about looking at the menu. Nearly everything had a dairy free option – great for our dietary requirements. We decided on just bread and olives to start with the intention of enjoying the mains and maybe having a dessert afterwards. I asked for the bread to come with oil and balsamic instead of whipped butter, but the waitress said it comes drizzled with oil and salt. I would have preferred the oil to dip the bread, but this did not seem to be an option.

The bread was lovely, and lots of nice olives, although I really wish I had insisted on the dipping oil. My wine arrived too, but it wasn’t the Edenvale as advertised, it was McGuigan (equally nice), and there was no explanation about it being a different wine to the one that I ordered.

We were really enjoying the bread and olives, halfway through them, when all of a sudden our mains arrived and we had to quickly move the bread and olives out of the way.

My crayfish was disappointing, I expected a sauce or oil of some kind on it, but it was lumps of chilli, garlic and chives. It was also overcooked, same as last time I visited. I find that with dairy free options this often means removing the dairy item altogether rather than replacing it with an alternative. This really wasn’t a ‘sauce’ as advised, it was just dry ingredients. It would have been so easy to make a nice sauce with oil or a vegan butter or even a mayo.

My partner chose the market fish (dhufish) at market price ($69) with smoked baba ghanoush, beans and lavosh. The lavosh was like a thick piece of pastry and not really very good, so he left it. The fish was okay, but not tasty as you would expect from a fresh piece of premium fish at that price, the baba ghanoush was overly spiced and this was all that he could taste. Good baba ghanoush doesn’t need loads of spice, it’s all about the smoky eggplant, but this was sadly lacking.

Sides included duck fat potatoes, which were not that tasty. Duck fat usually adds so much flavour, but these were nothing special. There was supposed to be an aioli but I can only imagine that it had dairy and they removed it. It’s so easy to make dairy free aioli, but clearly not an option here.

The smoked mushrooms were the other side, nice meaty mushrooms, but not much evidence of smokiness. They must have removed the manchego crisp, but a little pangrattato wouldn’t have gone amiss. Another removal of an item rather than a replacement.

Anyhow we pressed on eating our mains and bread/olives at the same time, but it wasn’t an enjoyable experience. Maybe they rushed us because we weren’t drinking alcohol and hence not a very profitable table? We finished with quite a lot of potatoes and olives left and asked for them takeaway only to be told that we were not allowed to take food away. This is the first time I have ever heard of a Perth restaurant declining takeaway. By this point I couldn’t wait to leave, and asked the waiter for the bill. He asked how the meal was, and we both were non committal, so he said okay there’s a problem and asked us to explain. We mentioned the lack of takeaway, and the mains coming up before we had finished the starters. I didn’t get a chance to mention the other issues because he went into quite a defensive explanation about how bread wasn’t really a ‘starter’ and they had this issue before with customers. He said that some customers liked to have the bread with their other starters and mains, some didn’t. I said okay, then if you’ve had this issue before why not learn from it? Why not ask customers when they want their mains? He said okay we have something to learn. When I mentioned the takeaway issue he said that they were not allowed to do this because of food hygiene and the inability to guarantee that the food would be eaten within two hours. It was a bowl of potatoes, not really a high risk item, besides, I don’t think any takeaway establishment can guarantee when people eat the food and how it’s stored, so I’m not sure why they were quite so resistant to this. He said we could have asked for a ‘doggie bag’ which was apparently a different option. By this point I was really fed up. He complemented both sides which was good of him, but the meal still cost $155.

Great view, great environment, still poor service and not much care given to cooking quality or dietary requirements. I will not go again, it’s too far to travel for a whole load of disappointment. I do hope they learn from this, but I doubt that they will change anything.

Visit date – March 2025

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Wildflower, Treasury Buildings, Perth CBD

03 03 25

I have been to Wildflower before, three years ago, and didn’t have the best experience. I decided to give it another try this year for my birthday lunch. It’s now under the direction of chef Paul Wilson, and I liked the idea of the Flow lunch menu – two courses for $69.

We were greeted by a very enthusiastic waiter (who I think we met last time) and directed to our table. We had a view of the Swan (sort of) and it was a nice enough table.

I was happy to see that the drinks menu had some zero alcohol options and we chose a Pear and Ginger Spritz and a Sans Gimlet, both very refreshing.

We were served the most awesome sourdough to start. Great bread with a wonderful crispy crust. We were even offered a second round of bread which we happily accepted.

I liked the idea of having the kangaroo to start however it was the only dish that couldn’t be made dairy free, so I went for the crocodile tongue with kohlrabi, pepperberry and charcuterie XO which was very good. I wished I had saved some bread to mop up the sauce.

My partner chose the eggplant with bush tomato, samphire and kelp. This was good, fresh and herby, he enjoyed it.

For mains he chose the Wagin duck with cauliflower, toasted greens and Geraldton wax. This was an awesome dish, tender tasty duck with a crispy skin.

I chose the wild caught snapper with buttermilk, ikura caviar and sea parsley. I’m not quite sure how they made dairy free buttermilk, but the chef somehow achieved it. The fish was topped with some sublime oyster crackers which had an intensely oystery flavour (similar to some that Todd makes at Twenty Seats), and the whole dish was really good and well cooked.

We also had a side of pumpkin with pepita fudge, thyme and bayleaf. A good choice, although the only choice for us as the other options contained dairy (raclette and quandong/peach).

It was a lovely meal and we could have had dessert but chose not to (there was only one dairy free option), although I did try a zero gin and tonic – Lyre’s blood orange which was very good.

They gave me a sweet Happy Birthday plate with some strawberry gum petit fours.

Overall it was a good meal, with some stand out dishes and I would go back for more.
I’d like to see more dairy free choices, and I would prefer that the drinks menu specified the variety for the alcohol free section – I thought they were gins but it wasn’t obvious. I would also ask the waiters to tone down their interactions a little – they seemed very keen and a bit overenthusiastic on telling us that everything was going to be wonderful, before we had even tasted it. This came across as a bit fake, but maybe they have been instructed to behave like this. They were quite sweet though, and helpful with our dietary requirements.

Last Visit – February 2025

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Acai Bowl

02 01 25

Acai (say it Ah-sigh-ee) berries are really good for you. Acai is a superfruit full of antioxidants and can help with lowering cholesterol. You can buy it in various forms, but frozen cubes or sorbet is probably the most convenient. There’s a legendary cafe outlet in Perth called Yelo that has a branch at North Beach which we frequent for the amazing coffee. I noticed that nearly everybody who eats breakfast there chooses the OG Acai Bowl. There’s also a chocolate version with Nutella. This is what the Yelo OG Acai Bowl looks like (current price $16.50 AUD):

The Yelo version is very tasty, but the granola at the bottom is quite sweet and in clusters, and the acai is a thick, frozen sorbet. The assortment of fruits is nice – kiwi fruit, banana, strawberries, blueberries, passionfruit, along with some coconut shreds. It’s also dairy free, which is really important for me,

Obviously it’s great to go to Yelo and have somebody prepare this for you along with a great coffee, but it’s also nice to make at home. That way you know exactly what goes into it, and you can make the Acai base as thick or creamy as you like. This is my version where the acai is more of a smoothie:

I like to blend the frozen acai cubes with some blueberries and coconut yoghurt. This makes it a bit less likely to give you ‘brain freeze’, but you can also use the neat sorbet if you like. You can also blend it with cold teas such as hibiscus tea or other fruity teas, or even green tea, and you can also add the milk of your choice – I sometimes add coconut or soy milk. If you like it sweeter you can add some maple syrup or honey. Once you have a nice smoothie, pour it into a bowl (or bowls if making more) and then top with your favourite toppings. I like to use fresh berries such as blueberries, raspberries, strawberries, some kiwi fruit for colour, and bananas. If you have passionfruit that’s also a great addition for some zing. Cocoa nibs are always good (the darker the better for that intense chocolatey hit), coconut, granola (that’s my home made granola on top), plus any seeds you like such as sesame, sunflower etc. It’s really one of those breakfasts that you can make your own and you can add a dollop of yoghurt if you like a creamier finish. When it’s winter and the fresh berries are not so available, you can use jar and tinned fruits such as peaches, cherries and lychees along with fresh bananas. You can also make a compote with frozen berries.

If you are watching how many different plants you eat per week (try to aim for at least 30), my bowl contains at least 14 different plants (the granola makes a big contribution here). Remember that the plant variety you feed your gut promotes a diverse microbiome, and there is plenty of scientific evidence to suggest that this is proven to help increase your resilience to diseases. If you would like to try this wonderful breakfast, I hope that my blog post has given you some ideas.

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Rym Tarng, Bicton

09 06 24

Rym Tarng is a little Thai restaurant in amongst the shops at Bicton Central. It’s unassuming with a relatively small menu, and you get the warmest of welcomes as you walk in.

We came for the pork and prawn donuts, which were lovely, but we were blown away by the delicious spring rolls, larb, and massaman curry.

Here are some pics:

Spring rolls – juicy and delicious – definitely not your average spring roll.

The famous pork and prawn donuts – lovely but larger than I expected and they filled me up.

The larb was well balanced – sour, sweet, and full of flavour, and it had some soft chewy noodles included which were a pleasant surprise.

Massaman beef curry – rich and full of flavour with shallots and sweet potatoes

Rice

That was a yummy meal, definitely worth the journey.

Last visit – April 2024

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