The dozen restaurants that define eating out in Perth

What are the flavours of Perth? What are the foods that define P-Town?

What, to quote one Homer J Simpson, are the meats that make up our city’s (multi)cultural stew?

As we dry ourselves off after one of the last WA Day long weekends in June, it feels timely to reflect on the city’s dining landscape and the tastes and influences that make Perth, Perth. Not a wannabe Melbourne or a second-rate New York, but one of the planet’s most isolated capitals that grows ever more cosmopolitan yet remains in touch with its (West) Australianness.

This is no restaurant top 10 (or top 12, even). Nor is it a rundown of every dining category in Perth.

Instead, it’s an attempt to isolate the key strands of our city’s dining DNA and places that, circa June 2026, really represent each food style.

Restaurant reviews, news and the hottest openings served to your inbox.

Hopefully it generates discussion: not just about the places that made the cut, but also the places that didn’t. Modern-day Perth is a big (sprawling) city. And big, sprawling cities are full of great places for flavour(s) to hide.

Thanks to geography and our university system, Perth is home to Australia’s best southeast Asian food. It’s a big call, but one I’m confident in making.

Consider the myriad Malaysian chicken rice spots, Indonesian eateries and Singaporean canteens dotted across Leach Highway, Northbridge and Vic Park.

The latter is where you’ll find cheery Yip, one of the last places on Earth still making southern Chinese-style bamboo pole noodles.

For more than a decade, Fervor duo Stephne Pronk and Paul Iskov have criss-crossed WA in search of native ingredients and ancient flavours that speak of Country and Indigenous culture.

The result: truly bucket list lunches and dinners in unforgettable settings that are conducted alongside traditional owners, and proof that roving kitchens inject plenty of vim and vigour to Perth’s dining scene.

Occasionally, some pop-ups even settle down: just ask Charlotte Beeton and Drew Dawson who took over this beloved neighbourhood cafe last year.

They got a space to serve luxe-simple brunch food and a home for their Off Licence pop-up: we got a watertight reason to visit Freo.

In Vic Park, Sandro Puca’s Social Manna is another cafe run by a former restaurant chef that nails the daytime dining brief.

Globally recognised pizzerias. Cult local favourites (hi Monsterella!). The multinationals: our pizza scene covers many styles.

As far as future talents go, I’m keeping a close eye on Andrea Muru.

Since arriving at Mima in August, the Sardinian pizzaiolo