Sharp counter meals, maverick art: how this corner pub was given The Royal treatment
Built in 1882, this inner-city landmark offers insights into (West) Aussie pub culture circa 2025 and beyond.
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14/20How we score
To anyone who clicked straight through to this week's review after reading the headline above and decoding my not-so-cryptic clue, congratulations. As a prize, you get to go home five minutes early.
Hopefully, that's enough of a head start to get to The Royal Hotel – the CBD one, not the East Perth one – in time to take advantage of the happy hour beer special being offered daily between 4pm and 5pm.
But if the thought of pints for a tenner triggered some sort of Pavlovian response to shake the person next to you or bombard WhatsApp group chats in excitement, don't feel bad. At a time where risings costs are shaping more of our choices, excitement about low-cost lager is understandable.
Especially when said blanket pricing applies to all six of the beers on tap, from the workhorse Swanny D and guest craft beers to Guinness. If The Royal isn't home to Perth's cheapest (happy hour) pint of the black stuff, it'd have to be one of the title's more serious contenders: at least as far as grand, lovingly restored CBD hotels go, anyway.
Despite The Royal's distinguished history, I knew it largely as a rickety shell on Wellington Street that's housed a barber, backpackers and squatters. Then in mid-2018, John Parker of The Parker Group (The Standard, Busselton Pavilion) took it over and spent 18 months and $13 million dollars helping the 140-year-old building rediscover its Gold Rush-era swagger.
Specialist leadlight glass repairers were called in. Subversive art was bought and hung. The first-floor balcony overlooking Yagan Square and William Street was carefully restored and now seats 200 of the 725 guests that this two-storey pub can accommodate. For anyone who gets energised by noise, chaos and a crowd, this is the landmark for you.
This scale and scope also influence the pub's cooking. While the ground floor is home to the calorific Detroit-style pizza of Willi's Pizza Bar and suave new-age bistro Fleur, the main bar upstairs keeps things familiar via a roll call of pub hits that everyone knows the words to, supplemented by some modern Australian cornerstones.
Beer-battered snapper is meaty of flesh and crunchy of armour, the accompanying tartare sauce providing cut-through. On Wednesdays – the pub rotates through daily food specials – $30 gets you juicy scotch fillet accessorised with garlic butter, salad and chips that are pale of hue, chunky of cut and closer in DNA to British chippies than crisp American-style fries. In a cute twist, the house burger has been dubbed The Royale. (Enter stage right, Pulp Fiction references.) It's been years since I've eaten a Quarter Pounder, but I'm certain that the clown's burgers weren't succulent smash patty-style joys like this.
Just as finding skin-contact vermentino on the wine list is a welcome surprise, so too is discovering that jazzing up ceviche with chilli flakes and a glossy avocado mousse can help offset kingfish fatigue. Hot chicken wings are prepared Korean-style and golden-fried, then doused in a chilli sauce with fermented bite. Twists of casarecce pasta in a comforting sugo alla vodka are a nod to American red sauce deliciousness.
It's not all smooth sailing, however. The golden, thinly pounded pork schnitzel tastes wanting as is, but finds it voice when slicked with the dense brown butter and caper gravy it's served with. Impotent chilli squid yearns for crunch. Sticks of broccolini in an otherwise fine Arabic hummus and zaatar arrangement weren't grilled as promised, but blanched, limp and unloved.
As is often the case with big operations, consistency can be an issue, not just with cooking, but also with front-of-house. Large spaces need large floor teams: the crew here ranges from disinterested bartenders to engaged, earpiece-equipped hosts eager to help. And just like other high-volume venues, The Royal lets you order and pay via QR codes with varying degrees of success. (Pro: not having to leave the table or conversation to get more pinot! Con: entrees and mains all arriving at once!) It's still early days for the technology, but I can't help but wonder what effect reducing human interactions will have on service standards.
But enough of the future, let's focus on the now. And the fact that The Royal is a very likeable ode to pub culture and proof of the power of self-belief. It's a beautiful space to be in, and its price point is accessible to many, especially if you time your visit right and order smartly. A primetime address near a major intersection and train station makes it ideal for after-work drinks, dates, work lunches and, vitally, people-watching and people-meeting.
Public houses don't work without a public. And over the last three months, I've met members of the public here that have challenged me, surprised me and even taught me. The bubbly Canadian from the same province as my late aunt. The wiry, serious-looking bloke who, unprompted, put out his ciggy and apologised for lighting up upwind from our table because he didn't see us. The lady with pink-tinted hair in a wheelchair who snuck onto the balcony for a quick suck on her vape. We swapped small talk about The Royal's accessibility (good) before she wheeled herself back inside.
'It's not bad for an old hotel,' she smiled. I smiled back in agreeance.
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Seymour has had a long association with the popular vocal duo, having written When Will You Fall For Me, the first single from their self-titled 1994 debut album. The show will combine hits from both Seymour and Vika and Linda's catalogues. Seymour will take on lead vocals for some of Vika and Linda's hits, and they will take the lead on some of his, giving audiences the chance to experience the songs in a new light. Outside of touring life, Seymour, who co-penned Australian classics like Throw Your Arms Around Me, Holy Grail, and When The River Runs Dry, continues to write and produce music. The former Hunters and Collectors frontman released his latest album The Boxer with his current band, The Undertow last year. Its eponymous first single tells the story of a young woman who leaves a country town to pursue a boxing career and was inspired by his personal trainer. "I'm at my best (as a songwriter) when I inhabit a character. So there's a person engaged in something, and then they've got an attitude or they're in a particular emotional state." Having written and recorded music for more than 45 years, you might think the occasional bout of writer's block would be inevitable, but it has never been an issue for Seymour. "I look out at the world, and there's never a lack of material, ever. And I just basically experiment with my guitar, you know, it's a very simple process." "Why I chose songwriting as a pathway in life was pretty intuitive, really. Whatever that trigger is, it has always been there." Tickets for the Red Hot Summer are on sale now and selling fast. Red Hot Summer; touring regional venues in Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia from October 11 to December 6. For tickets visit Share your thoughts in the comments below, or send a Letter to the Editor by CLICKING HERE. . Veteran Aussie songwriter Mark Seymour will be feeling the heat this summer, but come December next year, he will be preparing for a cool change. From October to December, Seymour will join some of Australian music's biggest names for the Red Hot Summer festival. Just 12 months after the tour wraps up, he will embark on a voyage to the coldest continent on earth. Seymour, 68, said he couldn't resist the offer to join an 11-day cruise to the Antarctic, which will see him performing intimate acoustic sets for those onboard. Read more from The Senior "I'd never do it otherwise. I'd never get down there. So it's an incredible opportunity to see, you know, this really, magnificent part of the earth," he said. Seymour is particularly excited about travelling the infamous Drake Passage. The notorious stretch of water between South America's Cape Horn and Antarctica's South Shetland Islands has historically been considered the most dangerous body of water in the world for seafarers. "It's got hundreds and hundreds of old wooden shipwrecks somewhere down on the bottom, you know, and so the history of the area is incredible." Before heading off on the adventure of a lifetime, Seymour will join the likes of Crowded House, The Church, The Waifs, and Angus and Julia Stone on the lineup for this year's Red Hot Summer touring festival. He can't wait to perform at the festival. He enjoys the opportunity to hang out with fellow performers at festivals and said Red Hot Summer offers a different vibe to most music festivals. "It just sort of becomes its own little kind of like a community backstage, but it's definitely got that vibe in the audience as well, I think. "What sets it apart from other tours or other festivals, it's very much about communities in towns, and it's sort of multi-generational. It's not focused on one particular age group." Joining Seymour on stage will be Vika and Linda. Seymour has had a long association with the popular vocal duo, having written When Will You Fall For Me, the first single from their self-titled 1994 debut album. The show will combine hits from both Seymour and Vika and Linda's catalogues. Seymour will take on lead vocals for some of Vika and Linda's hits, and they will take the lead on some of his, giving audiences the chance to experience the songs in a new light. Outside of touring life, Seymour, who co-penned Australian classics like Throw Your Arms Around Me, Holy Grail, and When The River Runs Dry, continues to write and produce music. The former Hunters and Collectors frontman released his latest album The Boxer with his current band, The Undertow last year. Its eponymous first single tells the story of a young woman who leaves a country town to pursue a boxing career and was inspired by his personal trainer. "I'm at my best (as a songwriter) when I inhabit a character. So there's a person engaged in something, and then they've got an attitude or they're in a particular emotional state." Having written and recorded music for more than 45 years, you might think the occasional bout of writer's block would be inevitable, but it has never been an issue for Seymour. "I look out at the world, and there's never a lack of material, ever. And I just basically experiment with my guitar, you know, it's a very simple process." "Why I chose songwriting as a pathway in life was pretty intuitive, really. Whatever that trigger is, it has always been there." Tickets for the Red Hot Summer are on sale now and selling fast. Red Hot Summer; touring regional venues in Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia from October 11 to December 6. For tickets visit Share your thoughts in the comments below, or send a Letter to the Editor by CLICKING HERE. . Veteran Aussie songwriter Mark Seymour will be feeling the heat this summer, but come December next year, he will be preparing for a cool change. From October to December, Seymour will join some of Australian music's biggest names for the Red Hot Summer festival. Just 12 months after the tour wraps up, he will embark on a voyage to the coldest continent on earth. Seymour, 68, said he couldn't resist the offer to join an 11-day cruise to the Antarctic, which will see him performing intimate acoustic sets for those onboard. Read more from The Senior "I'd never do it otherwise. I'd never get down there. So it's an incredible opportunity to see, you know, this really, magnificent part of the earth," he said. Seymour is particularly excited about travelling the infamous Drake Passage. The notorious stretch of water between South America's Cape Horn and Antarctica's South Shetland Islands has historically been considered the most dangerous body of water in the world for seafarers. "It's got hundreds and hundreds of old wooden shipwrecks somewhere down on the bottom, you know, and so the history of the area is incredible." Before heading off on the adventure of a lifetime, Seymour will join the likes of Crowded House, The Church, The Waifs, and Angus and Julia Stone on the lineup for this year's Red Hot Summer touring festival. He can't wait to perform at the festival. He enjoys the opportunity to hang out with fellow performers at festivals and said Red Hot Summer offers a different vibe to most music festivals. "It just sort of becomes its own little kind of like a community backstage, but it's definitely got that vibe in the audience as well, I think. "What sets it apart from other tours or other festivals, it's very much about communities in towns, and it's sort of multi-generational. It's not focused on one particular age group." Joining Seymour on stage will be Vika and Linda. Seymour has had a long association with the popular vocal duo, having written When Will You Fall For Me, the first single from their self-titled 1994 debut album. The show will combine hits from both Seymour and Vika and Linda's catalogues. Seymour will take on lead vocals for some of Vika and Linda's hits, and they will take the lead on some of his, giving audiences the chance to experience the songs in a new light. Outside of touring life, Seymour, who co-penned Australian classics like Throw Your Arms Around Me, Holy Grail, and When The River Runs Dry, continues to write and produce music. The former Hunters and Collectors frontman released his latest album The Boxer with his current band, The Undertow last year. Its eponymous first single tells the story of a young woman who leaves a country town to pursue a boxing career and was inspired by his personal trainer. "I'm at my best (as a songwriter) when I inhabit a character. So there's a person engaged in something, and then they've got an attitude or they're in a particular emotional state." Having written and recorded music for more than 45 years, you might think the occasional bout of writer's block would be inevitable, but it has never been an issue for Seymour. "I look out at the world, and there's never a lack of material, ever. And I just basically experiment with my guitar, you know, it's a very simple process." "Why I chose songwriting as a pathway in life was pretty intuitive, really. Whatever that trigger is, it has always been there." Tickets for the Red Hot Summer are on sale now and selling fast. Red Hot Summer; touring regional venues in Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia from October 11 to December 6. For tickets visit Share your thoughts in the comments below, or send a Letter to the Editor by CLICKING HERE. .
9 News
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For Mick Fanning, the shark attack 'was just something that happened'
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