Western Australia Food & Traditional Cuisine

Western Australia eats from its coast and its southwest corner. The cold Indian Ocean current gives western rock lobster — the state's most valuable single fishery — along with abalone, snapper and dhufish, a local reef fish that rarely leaves the state.

The southwest supplies the rest: Margaret River wine and beef, Manjimup truffles, Albany seafood and stone fruit from the hills behind Perth.

Perth's proximity to Asia shows in the food — Malaysian, Vietnamese and Singaporean cooking are ordinary rather than exotic here, with Northbridge the concentration.

Western rock lobster

The state's signature catch, most of it historically exported. Eaten locally it is expensive but genuinely excellent, and best from the coastal towns north of Perth.

Dhufish

A West Australian reef fish found essentially nowhere else, firm and sweet, and the thing to order if it appears on a menu.

Marron

A large freshwater crayfish endemic to the southwest, farmed and served around Margaret River and Pemberton.

Manjimup truffles

Black truffles from the southwest, harvested June to August, now a significant producer in the southern-hemisphere season.

Margaret River Cabernet

The region makes some of Australia's best Cabernet Sauvignon, and its Chardonnay is world class.

Malaysian and Singaporean food

Perth's everyday alternative cuisine, and closer to the source than anywhere else in Australia.

Fremantle Markets have traded since 1897 in a heritage hall — produce, makers and food, busiest at weekends and genuinely used by locals.

Margaret River cellar doors mostly serve food, and several are among the state's better restaurants; the region also has a substantial brewery scene.

Northbridge in Perth holds the Asian eating, and the food halls there are the cheapest good meals in the city.

Coastal towns sell rock lobster and fish direct from processors and co-ops, considerably cheaper than restaurant prices.

Margaret River produces only around 3% of Australia's wine by volume but a far larger share of its premium bottles — a maritime climate on ancient soils, three hours south of Perth, planted only from the late 1960s after a scientist identified the region's suitability on paper.

Its Cabernet Sauvignon is among the best in the country and its Chardonnay is world class. Cellar doors are concentrated, well organised and mostly free or nominal.

Great Southern, further east around Mount Barker and Frankland River, is cooler and larger, and makes excellent Riesling and Shiraz with far fewer visitors.

The Swan Valley on Perth's edge is the state's oldest wine district, planted in 1829, and is now more a day-trip destination than a serious one.