TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM / APRIL 2018 41
IT WAS MY FIRST DINNER on my second visit to Perth. I had just
popped a mouthful of roasted peppers at Ascua, a Spanish-inspired
restaurant in the newly opened InterContinental Perth City Centre,
and the silky strips were among the sweetest I had ever tasted.
“They’re from Gingin,” the waitress said of their origin, a town
67 kilometers north of Perth. “They’re really good, aren’t they?”
That was an understatement. Served alongside an equally f lavorful
beef rump cap, which has been cut from grain-fed cattle from the
southeast Stirling Ranges, the peppers were just the beginning.
Isolated from the rest of the country, Perth has access to some
of the most biologically diverse produce from across Western
Australia, the largest Australian state. The opening of the
InterContinental last October coincided with the debut of many
regional-focused restaurants in the last year and the hotel forms the
perfect base from which to start my feasting journey.
Ascua is one of two new openings located within the hotel itself.
The other is tapas and raw bar Heno & Rey. A Spanish take on “hay”
and “king”—the names of the streets forming the intersection where
the bar is located—Heno & Rey, like Ascua, embraces the Spanish
style of cooking to make local ingredients sing.
“We felt there was something missing from the market and
Spanish cuisine would be a great addition. But we also wanted to
keep it regional with our own spin on it,” says chef de cuisine of both
restaurants Nicholas Trezise, who grew up in Pemberton, a small
town southwest of Perth.
Trezise worked the Australian-Spanish combination into each
restaurant’s menu distinctly. My Ascua dinner is refined: Shark Bay
scallops (from the World Heritage site at Australia’s westernmosttip) are complemented with two types of jamón:
serrano crisps and ibérico crumbs. Dessert is a
rich chocolate pudding made from handcrafted
chocolate by a Margaret River chocolatier and
paired with ice cream made with turrón, a
traditional Spanish nougat.
Heno & Rey’s offerings are more relaxed. I
share the space with happy locals celebrating
Australia Day, and polish off plates of Australian
tuna ceviche, acorn-fed cured ham, and
marinated chicken thigh with romesco sauce. I
sit alone, but the boisterous Aussie crowd,
pumping music and house-made sangria on tap
make me want to skip up from my table.A SHORT WALK FROM the hotel, at the basement
of an old bank building, is Fromage Artisans.
Opened by Danicia Quinlan and Michael Taylor,
who also founded the city’s only cheese festival,
the fromagerie not only showcases the region’s
best dairy produce but is licensed to sell liquor
and has a serious dress code—no activewear,
sandals or ripped jeans allowed. “Our travels
interstate and overseas made us realize that
there was nothing [in Perth] that showcased
amazing artisanal cheeses in a way that was so
appealing as it is in these boutique places,”
Quinlan says as we stand in the century-oldFROM LEFT: The InterContinental Perth City Centre is surrounded by stately architecture; Fremantle octopus, chorizo and pimento
caponata on toast, a hearty lunch at Market Grounds; the dining room at Ascua, where Spanish cuisine gets an Australian approach.FROM LEFT: COURTESY OF INTERCONTINENTAL PERTH CITY CENTRE; COURTESY OF MARKET GROUNDS; COURTESY OF INTERCONTINENTAL PERTH CITY CENTRE