Pearla & Co Is Scott Bridger’s Return to the Beach – With a Smaller Dining Room and Dry-Aged Fish

North Fremantle doesn’t give up many secrets, but Scott Bridger has spent most of his life learning its rhythms. The surf, the wind, the mornings that start with salt on your skin – it’s all familiar territory for the Bib & Tucker chef. Now, after stepping away from that venue earlier in 2025, he’s back on Leighton Beach Boulevard with Pearla & Co, which opened in December 2025.

The new restaurant sits in the former Al Lupo site, less than 200 metres from the venue where Bridger made his name. “I’ve spent my life at this beach – it’s like a second home for me,” he says. “So when Bib & Tucker finished and this opportunity came up, I jumped at it. It’s great to still be in the area, with the locals on your side right from the start.”

Where Bib was big and breezy, Pearla is smaller, tighter, and built for detail. The reduced seat count is deliberate. “A smaller venue gives you the chance to spend a little more time on refinement,” Bridger says. “There’s only so far you can go when you’re doing big numbers. With this, we can put more effort into the food and the produce itself. Not fine dining – just more modern, minimalistic plating.”

Inside, co-owner and creative director Amalie White has softened the space without losing its coastal backbone. A 10-metre stretch of Verde Indio marble anchors the bar; recycled jarrah floors run warm underfoot; and in the entry garden, herbs are clipped each morning for service. The room is designed to feel open to the street and the sea, but intimate enough to see the work on the pass.

The name is a nod to Bridger’s grandmother, Pearl, but the second half – the “Co” – carries the weight. “Over the years I’ve formed really beautiful relationships with fishermen and suppliers. If you look after them, they look after you,” he says. “The ‘Co’ is everyone who contributes to this place. Diners don’t often see the work that goes into getting produce here in such a beautiful state.”

One of Pearla’s defining features takes pride of place in the dining room: two dry-aging fridges, always stocked, always visible. “Dry-aging fish and showing that process to diners is a big part of what we’re doing,” Bridger says. The fridges are kept at one degree with carefully controlled humidity, allowing the fish skin to protect the flesh while it transforms. “You end up with fish that tastes more deeply of fish, without being fishy. And the flesh relaxes.”

One fridge will always hold a pelagic fish – maybe mahi mahi, maybe Spanish mackerel; or locally-caught tuna. “We’re hanging everything seven to 10 days. We’re still learning, still figuring out the optimal times for each species.”

The menu shifts with whatever comes in – sometimes by the hour. “We don’t want to write a summer menu and lock it in for three months,” Bridger says. “Nature’s not like that. The venue will evolve around what we can get.”

Pearla is a modern seafood restaurant, but not in the fussy, over-handled sense. This is food shaped by tide, season, and technique. There is octopus cooked over coals with an XO sauce built from its own trimmings. A riff on aguachile, with pressed raw tuna dressed in juiced green tomatoes, jalapenos, coriander and lime, topped with summer melon. Fish with clams and pil pil, made not with bacalao but with a stock emulsified from fish scales, skin and heads. Grilled Exmouth prawns under fermented chilli and smoked butter, with the fried prawn legs served crisp and salty. And for dessert: Kensington Pride mango with coconut sorbet and fig leaf oil, a plate built on the same philosophy – good fruit, barely touched.

Heading up the kitchen day-to-day is Pablo Gostelli, previously of Casa, Young George and Bib & Tucker – now in his first head chef role.

Drinks are no afterthought. Pearla’s Martini will be made with an oyster-shell gin produced in partnership with Running with Thieves. There’s a Basil Smash riff using Australian Bottlebrush gin; low- and no-alcohol cocktails; and seasonal sodas on tap made from bar and kitchen offcuts. A house limoncello is made from repurposed lemon peels, and Pearla has partnered with Damaged Goods Distilling.

Pearla & Co feels like the product of someone coming home with a clearer head: a smaller room, a tighter menu, a relationship to suppliers that can only be honed over many years. A coastal restaurant that isn’t trying to define the beach but to cook in step with it. And for Bridger, that’s the whole point. “We’re just tapping into what’s already here. You don’t have to do much to beautiful produce. Cook it well, serve it simply, and let it be what it is.”

Pearla & Co

25 Leighton Beach Boulevard, Fremantle

0478772087

Hours:

Wed to Sun midday–11pm

pearlaandco.com.au/

@pearlaandco