Before we put together the list of the nine best new restaurants, bars and cafes in Perth, I looked back to our 2025 round-up – and then to its 2024 equivalent. I was looking for some type of consensus, and there isn’t one.

Where some cities’ food scenes specialise, becoming known for a specific cuisine or moving quickly to follow trends, Perth’s restaurants remains delightfully diverse, leaping between cuisines, dining styles and suburbs.

Over the last six months, we’ve welcomed bowls of Indonesian noodles, a Greek taverna, a banh mi joint serving south Vietnamese street food by night, a Latin American spot, and more.

Here are the best new restaurants, bars and cafes in Perth.

Gwelup Fish & Chips, Gwelup

Fish’n’chip shops are woven into Perth’s DNA. Whether it was your Friday-night ritual or your first after-school job (in my case it was both), few places inspire quite the same nostalgia. They’re also becoming an increasingly rare breed, making it all the more remarkable that Magnolia BBQ’s Anisha Halik and Jacob D’Vauz chose one as their next move.

Rather than reinventing the neighbourhood institution, Gwelup Fish & Chips perfects it. Beef tallow fryers turn out fish that’s always crisp and never greasy. Thoughtful weekly specials – including that 1000-layer potato chip butty – give regulars a reason to come back. Then there are the potato scallops, which might just be Perth’s best. It’s proof there’s still plenty of room to push a classic forward without losing what made it so special in the first place. – Madeline Wallman, contributor

Pearla & Co, North Fremantle

Scott Bridger has spent most of his adult life cooking within sight of Leighton Beach, so it makes sense that his return to the neighbourhood feels less like a reinvention and more like someone settling comfortably back into familiar surroundings. Pearla & Co is a smaller proposition than Bib & Tucker, and all the better for it. There are dry-aging cabinets in the dining room, fish arriving straight from fishermen Bridger has known for years, and a menu that seems happy to change course whenever something better comes off a boat. Exmouth prawns with fermented chilli butter and pressed tuna with green tomato and jalapeno show a kitchen confident enough not to overwork beautiful produce. Perth has plenty of restaurants by the water, but few cook quite so closely in step with it. – Jessica Rigg, contributor

Bakmi Kochan 88, Myaree

Those in the know have chased Chandra Harsono and Sheila Handijatno’s bakmi all around town, from their home kitchen in 2020 and then eventually to Bakmi Kochan 88, their new store in Hulme Court. With three options for bakmi (a Chinese Indonesian-style noodle with a base that’s less sweet and more savoury, with a notable emphasis on pork toppings), and an assortment of Indonesian Chinese staples like a crisp hekeng and a smooth wonton, there’s enough to feed even the fussiest of family diners.

Together with co-owner and friend Eveline Indra, Harsono and Handijatno are creating a breakfast routine that brings Jakarta and Perth closer, one bowl of bakmi at a time. You can see it in the multi-generational families that frequent Hulme Court; the crowd that swells on a Sunday mid-morning, thanks to the post-church, sports and extracurricular activities crew; and the student and freshly P-plated teens grabbing bakmi and bubble tea to-go. They’re all part of the groundswell of Perth diners fast becoming regulars at Bakmi Kochan 88.

With homey touches like a side of chicken broth served with each bowl and house-made chendol, Bakmi Kochan is a natural next chapter in the history of Hulme Court, a gathering spot for the diaspora families who have made this area their home. But make no mistake, Bakmi Kochan isn’t just trading on nostalgia. The noodles are cooked to chewy perfection, the toppings of barbeque pork and seasoned mince are generous, and the chendol meets the high bar for all Asian desserts: it’s not too sweet. – Ange Yang, contributor

Farra, Perth CBD

“Remember when every new restaurant was Greek?” That’s what Broadsheet’s food and drink features editor Dan Cunningham asked the other week. In 2025, that was certainly true in Sydney, Melbourne and, to a lesser extent, Adelaide, where it was undoubtedly the year of the “Greek revival”. That trend didn’t quite reach Perth, or at least it hasn’t yet.

Enter Farra, the restaurant we’re hoping will kick off the Greek trend in WA. Ironically, it’s led by an Irish chef. Aaron Moore moved from Ireland to Greece at the age of 17. It’s where he learnt to cook, working his way around Greek Island tavernas. Later, he made the move home, working at Roscoff in Belfast and Mint in Dublin, before moving to Australia, where he was head chef at Fremantle’s Bread in Common, and Coogee Common.

Farra has heart. It occupies three separate-yet-connected spaces within the Hyde hotel: a dining room, the pool deck and a terrace. It’s free-flowing, like the tavernas of Greece, and guests are encouraged to linger.

You could start the day at Farra Pool Bar with breakfast dishes like eggs Benedict served with thick-cut bacon, Aegean hollandaise, and dried olives. Lunch could be a myriad of hot and cold meze. The dinner menu flows from snacky options like tomato keftedes and mizithra dumplings folded with zucchini blossom and basil to larger plates like goat sheftalia, or the lamb shoulder, which is brined for eight hours and then slow roasted overnight. – Lucy Bell Bird, national assistant editor

Hem Street Food, Northbridge

Perth has plenty of places to eat pho and banh mi, but very few that feel as though they’ve been airlifted directly from another city. “Danny” Nguyen Thanh Thien Dang’s Hem Street Food does exactly that. By day, people queue for some of the city’s most compelling banh mi, packed with everything from mackerel fish cake to a gloriously overstuffed traditional version layered with house-made pâté, char siu, roast pork and floss. But it’s at night that Hem really earns its place on this list. Plastic stools spill onto Lion Walk as plates of smoky banh trang nuong, chewy rice-paper salad and fish sauce-slathered squid beaks circulate between tables. Southern Vietnamese cooking remains surprisingly underrepresented in Perth, even within our sizeable Vietnamese community, and Hem feels less like another restaurant opening than a reminder that there are still entire regions of Vietnamese cuisine waiting to be explored. – Jessica Rigg, contributor

Il Santo, Claremont

My favourite dish at Claremont’s new Italian osteria Il Santo isn’t Nicola Lunardi’s rustic mafaldine e fagioli, the beautifully crisp pork cotoletta or the restrained lemon tart with Chantilly. It’s the crustless, comforting Shark Bay prawn sandwich.

On paper, it has no business stealing the show. Between two slices of white bread sits a golden-crumbed prawn cutlet, crisp iceberg (the most underrated lettuce in existence, if you ask me) and house tartare. It’s playful without trying too hard, nostalgic without feeling dated, and deceptively simple despite the precision behind every element. This humble sanga captures exactly what Il Santo does so well: no unnecessary theatre or overthinking, just thoughtful, generous cooking executed with extraordinary care. It’s designed to become your next regular. If every suburb had an Il Santo, we’d all eat out a little more often. – Madeline Wallman, contributor

Masa Mesa, Nedlands

For a city that likes to congratulate itself for its Latin American food scene, Perth has historically cast a fairly narrow net. Masa Mesa widens it considerably. Erick and Lara Martinez draw on their Salvadoran and Argentinian backgrounds to build a menu around dishes that rarely appear locally, led by excellent pupusas stuffed with pork cooked rillette-style, black beans and molten cheese, then brightened with fermented curtido. There are golden pastelitos filled with smoked queso, choripan slicked with chimichurri, and cassava fries worthy of obsession. Erick spent years cooking in some of Perth’s best kitchens before opening a place of his own, and the restaurant carries the warmth of someone finally cooking for his own community with the food he grew up eating. More importantly, it introduces everyone else to a side of Latin America that extends well beyond tacos. – Jessica Rigg, contributor

Bistro Massila, Inglewood

While regulars at West Leederville bar Besk bemoaned the loss of former general manager David Pille, Inglewood has celebrated his homecoming with the opening of Bistro Massila, a Marseille-influenced spot on Beaufort Street. Together with chef Matt Mills and Mark Cecchi (the founder of Cecchi’s and owner of the Bistro Massila property), he’s bringing bistro culture back to its truest expression: hearty food that’s for the locals, by locals.

Pille himself lives a stone’s throw away from the restaurant. He’s tailored the opening hours to work for the neighbourhood’s families and young professionals, opening at school-pick-up o’clock and serving quick pass-to-table options like the cheeseburger in bearnaise sauce.

The food is hearty and served with a flair that rivals any bistro, wine bar or dining concept in the western suburbs or the CBD. There’s a dish of coquillettes jambon that is finished with a quenelle of chervil butter (and can be served without pork to cater for dietary requirements), and a black Angus oyster blade that’s treated like a premium cut (and given an overnight confit). Cocktails come from local powerhouse Shirley Yeung. In short: great food without having to endure the parking purgatory of the CBD or Mt Lawley? Yes, please. – Ange Yang, contributor

Tigerfish, Cottesloe

In a suburb with a reputation for early dinner bookings, pressed linen and Gucci loafers, Tigerfish seems to be having considerably more fun than the rest of Cottesloe. Case in point: the hidden karaoke room. But there’s so much more to Tigerfish than the novelty of belting out Horses behind a secret door.

Between Brendan Scott Grey’s razor-sharp cocktails, Steven Ryu’s bold Southeast Asian-inspired menu and the effortless coastal interiors, Tigerfish has genuine staying power. It’s turned what could have been a gimmicky concept into one of Perth’s most enjoyable venues. Of course, the view of the million-dollar sunsets over our world-famous beach doesn’t hurt. By the time the sun disappears, though, Tigerfish is only just getting started. – Madeline Wallman, contributor