SOUQ Perth — Restaurant in Leederville

Experience 1 (2022): My partner made a booking for a meal a few months ago. After not receiving a confirmation email, she emailed the restaurant to discover the booking system had failed and we didn't have a booking.

Experience 2 (2023): PREMEAL- My partner booked a table for my birthday about two months in advance as we were both eager to try a meal here. I got a mild case of gastro the night before and was not feeling great the day of the booking. We spent the whole day trying to cancel the booking, but Will St does not have a phone number (really, in this century?) nor did they respond to an email. My partners fretting about the cancellation added a dour cloud over my whole birthday. Rather than losing the $50 cancellation fee (we never expected Will St. would be inflexible about last minute cancellations due to force majeure) we decided to go and have a very light meal. THE MEAL- We were running a bit late due to Leederville parking and got seated around 8:10. Here is approximately how the meal went: 8:15 - Drinks ordered (Reisling for my partner) 8:20 - Food ordered (Tuna ceviche, Roasted Tomatoes, Occy) 9:10 - Drink arrived (55 min wait) 9:25 - Tuna ceviche arrived (1:05hr wait) 10:00 - Roasted Tomatoes arrived (1:40hr wait) 10:10 - Occy arrived (1:50hr wait) Staff was very friendly, however we did not get the standard 'this is how our menu works' or 'we'd recommend you order 2x of this and 1x of that' chat when the food order was taken. The waitress also touched us a lot. It was in a friendly way, but it was uncomfortable. The restaurant was very loud - too loud for a conversation. We were shouting to hear each other. THE FOOD- 1.) Tuna Ceviche - Very very good. Amazing flavours. Prawn crackers were fabulous. Did find a large fish scale in the dish. 2.) Roast Tomatos - Very very good. Great melody of flavours. Was missing substance as most of the dish was sauce. There was very little 'food' in the dish. 3.) Occy - Poor. Occy was charred and the burnt flavour ruined the rest of the dish. Occy was chewy for a dish of this price. The dish was a bowl of sauce with a single tentacle in it - for the price, this is not...

First things first, it's super cool that they have different menus depending on your allergies, nut free and coeliac, plus a vegetarian/vegan menu. More restaurants should do this and I applaud them for these options.

We were in a group that utilised 3 different menus, but there were no issues with ordering and everything came out as expected (except 1 dish didn't arrive, but we were too full anyway)

Lots of local native ingredients used which is great to see, I was told the goat was from a feral farm up North, but it might also be imported so would be nice to have clarification on this as eating local feral pests is obviously the preferred option.

Highlights: Easily the best dish of the night was the Charred Pumpkin, that was amazing, Followed by the Dal Tadka which was equally as good, The service was pretty decent, although they do have a lot of new staff we didn't have too many issues. Some improvements could be made for the waiting times for water and alcohol, my glass was empty for about 20 minutes with no staff checking up on us.

Lowlights: What is the deal with the corn? That was gross. Don't bother with that dish. The Wild grains were good, but I personally felt there was too much going on in the dish with competing flavours, my partner thought it was really good though. The beer selection is a bit all over the place, they have their own beer brewed at Running with Thieves, which is pretty good, but the rest of the beer selection is quite average. If this place is trying to bring local food into the spotlight you really need more local WA breweries on the menu. In fact there is a brewery down the road on the same street, which isn't on the menu.

We didn't get the meat options, but others at our table did and they enjoyed it, the baby lamb is quite big and could feed 3-4 people easily.

Try it out and make your own judgements, but I'm not sure we'll be back as the vege options were quite limited, and the corn really did put me off. Although the pumpkin...

Food was delicious. As we expected from Will Meyrick - bold Asian inspired flavours, a lovely variety of dishes and all well presented.

However, the service was really disappointing and unfortunately ruined our meal. Shortly after we had sat down, we asked for some oysters while we chose our mains. We were told this was not allowed and all food had to be ordered together. There was no wiggle room on this - it was a strict rule which had to be followed. We were also told we had no input on how fast the meals came out - we were told the "kitchen gets mad if we don't follow their rules".

We chose our cocktails from the menu and then had a waiter arrive to take the drinks menus away. We asked to keep one as we were planning on more drinks but were told we were not allowed as they were running short. However, the waiter simply took the menu and put it in the draw behind us.

Throughout these exchanges, the waitstaff gave the distanct impression we were causing them a significant inconvenience by being there and, given we were there, we had to follow their strict rules and be quiet about it.

Our empty dishes were left on the table for extended periods. We had to fight to get more water, more drinks or attention from the waitstaff at all. Not once were we asked how the food was or if we needed anything. The bathrooms were messy with no paper towel. The restaurant was about 50% full so the staff were were busy, but certainly not rushed off their feet.

Whilst the food is delicious, the service and dining experience was very poor and overtook the great flavours.

Unfortunately, our dining experience has meant we will not be returning and we will be recommending our friends give the...