Farrah Perth
Greek$$
I don’t know about you, but “the rise of Greek hotel restaurants” wasn’t on my Perth dining style bingo card for 2026. Yet as we approach the halfway point of the year, local foodies find themselves in the surprising position of having not one, not two, but three dining rooms vying for their drachma.
The first item in our Hellenic Snack Pack is Greek by George Calombaris: four-
pop-up week that opens at the casino next weekend and strikes me as more than a
more of a marketing exercise than an attempt to promote Greek food culture.
Restaurant number two is Yefsi, a local Greek restaurant of the Limnios family-
He managed the Northbridge Hotel, Attica. Yefsi is not only a restaurant that feels like an Attika brand, it also feels like one that works and attracts a crowd after dark.
Which brings us to lucky entrant number three and the hotel’s Greek restaurant
the most attractive room for diners: Farra Perth, the ground floor restaurant
anchoring at the three-month-old Hyde Hotel.
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On paper, Greek cooking and the skin-flipping nature of the LA-born brand Hyde read like an odd couple. But in practice? Finding yourself cozying up in this Instagrammable linens, soft furnishings and pastel colors while sliding flatbread fingers into tzatziki snows will make you wonder why more Perth hotels don’t bake flatbreads to order. (Or hang their own yogurt when making dips. Or put limniona, savatiano and other indigenous Greek grapes on wine lists.)
One reason: not every hotel has Aaron Moore in the pot. Moore may not have been born in Greece, but the Greek islands are where the Belfast-born youngster got his start. Having come to Farra through years spent honing his craft at Bread in Common and Coogee Common, he and his sous chef Jack Henderson have the skills and insider knowledge to adapt Greek cuisine for modern cuisine.
Seafood feels like a superpower. Grilled arrowhead squid stuffed with risotto
flavored with sujuk (dried sausage made by small-goods wizard Paul Marinovich of Adrian’s Continental Small Products) it’s as good to look at as it is to eat. Slashings of skordalia made with taro instead of potatoes are a clever addition to the perfectly cooked octopus: chewy and tender in all the right places.
The prognosis for turf is as promising as that for skating. Alongside the massive roast meats – pork tomahawks, a long shoulder of lamb designed to feed a crowd – small plates with air-dried beef dumplings and a pepper sauce and fermented cheese (a strong twist on the Greek pastrimopita pie) emphasize the fact that size doesn’t matter. Nor is the price of your links available.
From earlier this year: lightly undercooked Albany sardine fillets — raw, except for a brief sear when they come out of the kitchen — paired with a fresh tomato salad is a reminder that so-called baitfish, when given a little TLC, can be as soothing to the mind as any other seafood.
Fried mizithra dumplings – ricotta gnocchi by another name – slathered in a green zucchini and basil sauce are a stark reminder that Greek cooking is about more than heroic abundance of meat.
Like any hotel restaurant, Farra makes concessions to the needs of guests and
Travelers: think steak, oysters and good chips. But similarly, management does not
afraid to throw conventional hotel restaurant wisdom to the wind too.
Loukaniko and htipiti are among the less visible foods, which are difficult to pronounce.
give (Thankfully, the staff involved happily translate the names and describe the dishes, so
smartphones can stay in our pockets and purses where they belong.) The
the restaurant is also a non-burger zone. If you want one, hit the lobby bar which is where breakfast is served in the morning as well as a lunch deal during the week.
But if souvlaki with chips and a drink for $26 isn’t enough of a reason to head to Perth’s East End, the desserts should do the trick. Co-produced by Moore and team member Jane Metero – a future talent, mark my words – the sweet stuff includes the head-turning Olive Alaska. Think of a classic Bombe Alaska, with just a gray ice cream core and cherry scraps, all arranged on a bird’s nest-like base made of golden strands of kataifi cake.
Did Moore and Metero need to indulge as much in desserts as they did? Maybe not.
But like the rest of Farra’s team, they have no intention of allowing themselves to be defined or limited by the “hotel dining room” label.
Farra is a great restaurant, a complete stop. That it happens to be in a hotel only reinforces its appeal as well as the growing maturity of the CBD food scene.
The bottom-up
Sky: a confident modern Greek restaurant with a kitchen team to watch, very closely
Go to plate: calamari from Yemi ($28), pita cleaning ($26), Olive Alaska ($20)
Drinks: A beautiful picture of modern wine styles with Greek names and styles. The Greek accent is less pronounced at the bar.
Cost: about $200 for two, excluding drinks
Good Food reviews are kept anonymous and are independently paid. The restaurant may not pay for the review or be included in the review Healthy Food Guide.
Max Veenhuyzen is a journalist and photographer who has been writing about food, drink and travel for national and international publications for over 20 years. He reviews restaurants for the Good Food Guide.
