Truly Scrumptious

Fleur is a superb fine dining restaurant inside the Royal Hotel on the corner of WIlliam Street and Wellington Street near Raine Square in the heart of Perth central. We booked a Saturday night table and the vibe outside was buzzing with people heading out for drinks, food and parties. The Royal is a traditional pub and the restaurant is in a separate section but still has the dark pub atmosphere, hence the poor quality of my photos.

The inside is lovely, cosy and intimate with walls of attractive drink bottles that make you want to try them all.

The staff are lovely and knowledgeable, the barman was very helpful with cocktail choices, and there really is something for everybody. My partner was on antibiotics and not drinking, but there was a whole page of appealing alcohol free cocktails to choose from and he couldn’t go past the rhubarb sour. So he had a rhubarb sour and I had a citrus martini.

The menu is a degustation, but you can add to it. There are a few extra dishes you can add, you can have the whole menu ‘truffled’ if truffles are your thing, and you can also add some caviar dishes, ranging from the expensive polanco oscietra grand reserve sturgeon ($120 for 30g) to a $12 10g portion of yarra valley salmon smoked roe in a brik pastry tart. There’s also a bar snack menu for those who want to pop in for cocktails and a sophisticated bite of oysters, lobster toast, and a cheese board.

We decided to stick with the main degustation, no additions and were delighted with the amuse bouche selection of salted orange soda, spicy togorashi popcorn and pickled daikon. The popcorn was addictive and has inspired me to make some spicy popcorn at home. The menu has a Japanese twist, and we knew that we were in for a treat.

The starters consisted of: Skull Island king prawn tartlet with green apple and Geraldton wax – a really yummy mouthful with light crispy pastry, fresh prawns and crisp apple.

Kangaroo tsukune, salted egg, tare (a thick soy sauce) and native dukkah, another gorgeous light bite with great flavour:

Shiromi (white fish), sushi rice, nori (seaweed), garum (Roman fish sauce) and sesame – this is the dish that we’ll be talking about for years to come. It doesn’t look much but oh boy it delivered on umami, umami tenfold! Such amazing savoury, moreish flavours with beautiful fresh fish hidden inside. I could have eaten ten of these little bowls of goodness:

Next came a fish course of ocean trout, native saline, sudachi (a citrus fruit), ancient grains and a smoked mussel broth. Another sublime dish, fresh quality fish, an incredibly tasty broth and the great crunch of the ancient grains – more perfection from chef.

The main course was aged duck breast with five spice, apricot, cabbage and umbles (a little offal – ‘umble pie). The picture doesn’t show it well, but the skin was crisped to perfection, and the duck beautifully cooked. Every little item was meant to be on this plate, and it was a triumph of menu design.

Next came a pre-dessert jasmine tea and fennel granita with lemon myrtle – a great palate cleanser.

Last but certainly not least was the main dessert 64% single origin dark chocolate with a Davidson plum mousse (they made this version especially for us to avoid the usual dairy version) and coconut. What a supreme dessert with so many good textures and flavours, and a super moist sponge, I scraped every last spoonful from the bowl.

I managed to squeeze in a second cocktail – a delicious floral prosecco spritz with cherry bitters.

I also loved the Fleur cutlery:

So wow. Fleur definitely has the wow factor and a menu brimming with umami. If you don’t do anything else this winter, please visit Fleur – you won’t regret your visit because this treasure of a venue has so much to offer.

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Last visit date – July 2021