What makes a good restaurant? At Broadsheet, we’re interested in how well a place lives up to its own ambitions, regardless of its age, price point or cuisine.
Maybe it offers value for money and an incredible atmosphere. Maybe it pioneered a trend, and remains the most vital example of it. Or maybe, after several decades in operation, it still offers an undeniably great experience. All are equally valid answers.
The remit may be wide, but if you’re looking for restaurants that both define and capture Perth’s culinary spirit, stop right here.
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Joel Valvasori-Pereza is serving some of Australia’s finest pasta in this Subiaco walkway.
A beachside wine bar modelled on a neighbourhood *boteco*, serving up small plates from the freshest local seafood.
Find this sophisticated Euro-inspired wine bar and dining room in the basement of an old Art Deco building. The menu focuses on local produce, and the wine and cocktails are equally as important as the food.
Fleur refuses to be pigeonholed. Take the French name, Japanese-ish food, and the native produce. What is certain, though, is that this one of the most exciting restaurants in Perth.
A “nuovo Italo-Australian” space offering all-day drinking, dining and dancing.
Looking for a special occasion restaurant? Indigenous Australian ingredients meet polished technique at the in-house fine diner of Como The Treasury.
Superb wood-fired pizza is just the start at this suburban diner.
Accessible kitchen garden dining in a glorious Perth Hills setting. A daytrip worth taking.
Taking its cues from Parisian and New York City bistros, this neighbourhood wine bar and restaurant brings a fresh take on French food and wine to Beaufort Street.
A mess hall dining room in Fremantle where exemplary bread, produce-driven cooking and great drinks rule.
A personable small bar run by wife-and-wife team Susan Whelan and Melissa Palinkas. Expect great drinks and punchy no-waste cooking.
David Thompson’s grungy, high-energy love letter to Bangkok street food is hot in more ways than one.
The Mary Street Bakery team presents its vision of an inner-city tavern, replete with spirited woodfired cooking and a specialist bottle shop.
A serious contender for the CBD’s best-looking dining room, the Alex Hotel’s in-house restaurant hangs its hat on sharp Mediterranean cooking and a far-reaching wine list.
On the surface, Casa is an all-day neighbourhood bar and eatery. Under the bonnet, there’s a serious commitment to wine, food and hi-fidelity sound.
A cosy Italian wine bar and restaurant from the Monsterella crew. It’s serving up refined plates and hand-made pastas, plus a good-time ambiance that rivals the mothership three doors down.
A retro-tinged neighbourhood wine bar with snacks and plates referencing everything from London’s legendary St John to Northbridge Vietnamese institution, Viet Hoa.
An intimate, family-owned woodfire restaurant that champions West Australian farmers.
Neil Perry’s West Australian outpost keeps on keeping on with luxe renditions of steakhouse classics plus one of the country’s most formidable cellars.
The pizza at this Sardinian-influenced diner is among the city’s best. The handmade pasta, meanwhile, is uniformly excellent and the portions are big.
A bijou diner in Nedlands serving value-packed omakase. Bookings aren’t just essential: they’re fiendishly difficult to score.
Loud, buzzy and fun: this all-day dining room at the State Buildings is a worthy destination for everything from brunch to after-dinner drinks.
Sunny Italian cooking and drinking by Perth’s postcard-perfect Cottesloe Beach.
Guy Grossi’s Roman-inspired trattoria at the Westin celebrates the food of the Eternal City with aplomb.
Japanese comfort dining by day, bargain-priced omakase by night.
Bold Middle Eastern cooking from one of Perth’s journeyman chefs.
A lively BYO pizza spot bringing the good times to Maylands.
Love natural wines and comforting Mediterranean cooking? Welcome to your happy place.
The gold standard for burgers in the CBD.
Bright Tank Brewing’s in-house restaurant has a woodfired kitchen and a veteran chef wielding the tongs. Forget about that side of chips – the food here is just as enticing as the beer.
This unpretentious dining room and bar is full of colour, imaginative Italian cooking, wallet-friendly glasses of “fancy goon” and Sunday sessions that are all about bringing people together.
This spacious William Street wine bar with an outdoor spritz garden serves up Italian wine and house-made pasta.
Terrines, tartines and afternoons on the terrace: La Lune is East Freo’s answer to the casual neighbourhood bistros of Paris and Manhattan. The all-day menu sticks to familiar Gallic cooking, served from morning till late in a fun dining room with plenty of yesteryear flourishes.
Ethos’ kitchen only cooks West Australian ingredients, all the soft drinks are house-made, and the no-waste menu – focusing on secondary cuts of meat, by-catches and imperfect produce – leans hard into Eastern European food culture.
At this smart-casual restaurant attached to one of Swan Valley’s best distilleries, you’ll find thoughtfully sourced native ingredients and plenty of Japanese, ferment-heavy flavours. It’s a menu that ticks the boxes for both familiar and adventurous dining.
Soak up this restored cottage’s old-world splendour, then dive into an extensive wine list and high-flavour snacking including pies, tasty-things-on-bread and monkfish “under a fur coat”.
This fine dining chain is all about modern Japanese cuisine with Peruvian influences.
There’s nothing common about Coogee Common. Not its sprawling garden, not the warmth of the renovated Coogee Hotel space, and not the produce-driven, no-waste cooking of chef Nathaniel Murray, an alum of Melbourne fine diner [Vue du Monde](https://www.broadsheet.com.au/melbourne/restaurants/vue-de-monde). You’ll find earthy cooking in the dining room; counter meals and snacks in the pub; and vegetables, fruit and honey in the backyard.
The cafes, restaurants and bars staying open for the Easter long weekend.
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