There is a small but precise list of things that make me happy. High-vibe rooms. Real gravy. Cooks who take hot chips with the seriousness they deserve. And, more recently, soda bread. Find me a venue that delivers all of the above at once and we are, as they say, cooking with gas.
The Irish pub had been sitting at the edge of my attention for a while before it properly landed. A search for a decent Sunday roast led me to Johnny Fox’s in Northbridge. It delivered. Then two press releases arrived in the inbox within a fortnight of each other, both announcing new Irish pub openings in Perth. The mission to understand the formula had begun.
There is something about the Irish pub that keeps landing, regardless of city or climate. And it starts, perhaps, with the Irish themselves. As people, they are genuinely passionate, instinctively social and, by most reasonable measures, very good at having a good time. That energy does not stay behind when they travel. It follows them, settles into the rooms they build and sets a tone that other people want to be around.
Despite the exponential rise of the “splitting the G” challenge on social media, Ireland’s greatest export may not be Guinness at all. It may be the pub itself. The format travels with a fidelity that is remarkable, arriving in new cities and new climates and somehow feeling, within weeks, as though it has always been there.
Which raises an interesting point. Most people inside an Irish pub on any given night are not Irish. Not even close. And yet the room still behaves as though it has something to live up to.
There is an unspoken standard, a sense that you owe it to the concept to show up properly, to commit to the evening, to not be the table that leaves before it gets interesting. Is it just me, or is it genuinely difficult to find someone in a bad mood inside one of these places? The format seems to select against it.
In Perth, where hospitality is increasingly polished, concept-heavy and eager to signal its own sophistication, the steady arrival of new venues in this format says something worth paying attention to. Not every idea needs reinvention, some endure because they already work. At their core, Irish pubs are not about novelty. They are about familiarity, atmosphere and a very particular kind of social ease. You know what you are getting, and more importantly, you know exactly how you are meant to feel when you are there. That feeling sits somewhere between warmth and looseness, where the room does as much work as the menu. Pints being poured, live music finding its footing, groups settling in for something longer than a catch-up. And when the clock strikes ten with the right music playing, things tend to get loose in the best possible way. It is not accidental; it is the whole point.
Perth has long had a productive relationship with the format. Johnny Fox’s in Northbridge built its following not by chasing trends but by delivering consistently, reliably, and generously. Alongside it, stalwarts like JB O’Reilly’s in West Leederville, Fibber McGee’s in Leederville and The Galway Hooker in Scarborough have become institutions, each leaning into the same core principles while finding their own register, from memorabilia-lined walls to coastal-facing rooms.
What is interesting now is how that model is being reinterpreted for a new generation of regulars. McNally’s in Subiaco is a useful case study: a large, multi-level space that does not feel oversized. It leans into the details that matter, fireplaces, snug corners, a dependable live music programme, and keeps its menu close to tradition, from ploughman’s boards and steak sandwiches to Scotch eggs and a proper Sunday roast. Familiar, but executed with the kind of care that explains a full room on a Tuesday.
Molly’s, now in both Highgate and Victoria Park, takes a similar position. Owners Niall Tolan and Lee Behan describe their approach with a clarity that is easy to underestimate: “In many small Irish towns, the pub is the beating heart of the community, a place to gather, celebrate life’s moments, and share a laugh. It’s something we grew up with.” What they have built in Perth is a direct translation of that instinct, the craic, the music, the dancing, a sense that the room belongs equally to everyone in it. “You’ll always be welcome at Molly’s,” the motto goes, and it lands because the room actually means it. These are not venues designed for a single visit. They are places that become part of your week.
One of the most compelling recent arrivals is Mons O’Shea on South Terrace, Fremantle, which opened on the Cappuccino Strip in 2025 and promptly earned a place in the West Australian Good Food Guide Top 25 Pubs list for 2026. A newcomer that feels like it has been part of the neighbourhood for years, which is perhaps explained by owner Simon Carthy, a third-generation publican whose family carries over a century in the Dublin pub trade. The kitchen, shaped by opening chef Jane Collins, formerly of Petition, lifts the menu well above standard pub fare, with house-made Scotch eggs, traditional colcannon and the Spice Bag, crispy chicken with seasoned fries, onions, capsicum and curry sauce, sitting alongside that most intangible of Irish ingredients, the craic, in generous and reliable supply.
Photo by Sally Hall – Perth is OK!
Further out, The Mighty Quinn Tavern in Yokine, Murphy’s in Mandurah and Paddy Malone’s in Joondalup demonstrate how adaptable the format truly is. Suburban, coastal or city, the same fundamentals hold. A good Irish pub works wherever people want to gather.
Then there is the food, which deserves its own reckoning. Perth now has enough Irish pubs operating at a serious level that competition has quietly raised the floor. When ten venues in the same city are all doing these dishes well, the standard stops being merely adequate and starts being something you would seek out deliberately. Fish and chips arrives beer-battered, flathead or barramundi being the local variation, with tartare sauce, lemon and a thick slice of bread and butter on the side, and it is very good, because it has to be. The beef and Guinness pie, slow-braised and set under shortcrust or puff pastry with mash and mushy peas, has become a benchmark dish rather than a default one. Bangers and mash come with proper caramelised onion gravy. Shepherd’s pie builds its crust of golden mash over lamb and vegetables. A bowl of Irish stew, lamb, potato, carrot, arrives alongside a wedge of soda bread that most venues now take genuine pride in. The ploughman’s platter, a shareable board of cold cuts, cheese, pickles and chutney, bridges the Irish and Australian pub traditions with an ease that feels entirely natural. And then there is the chicken parma, not Irish by any measure, but so thoroughly embedded in Australian pub culture that its presence on these menus reads less as contradiction and more as honest local adaptation.
There is also something to be said for the way these places balance nostalgia with accessibility. There is no barrier to entry, no sense of needing to understand the room before you walk into it. Whether you are there for a quick pint, a full meal or just the music, the experience adjusts around you without making you feel it.
That is not to say the format is standing still. The newer openings show a clear lift in quality, better sourcing, more considered drinks lists, kitchens that understand the difference between a good pie and a great one. But none of it comes at the cost of what makes them work. The warmth remains the point.
Ultimately, their endurance comes down to something quite simple. They make people feel comfortable, and they give them a reason to stay. In an industry that rarely stops asking what is next, that is a genuinely rare thing to get right.