The Leadlight — Restaurant in Perth

First time here since it changed hands and went from Ruinbar to Leadlight - and sadly it’ll be the last too.

The positives: the refreshed beer garden is really quite pleasant. It has less of the gritty urban vibe that gave Ruin a lot of its charm, and it’s a little too sparsely populated with tables to the point of feeling slightly empty. BUT that said, it’s a nice space to sit outside with a beer. The selection of beers is also still decent, from what I saw. There’s a reasonable range of options, and some old favourites are still there. I didn’t go into the indoor area, but it looked pleasant from the outside.

The negatives: the quality of the pizza has absolutely plummeted. I’m vegetarian, so I always used to get the No Diggity - mushroom, truffle, and a fistful of rocket on a pizza bianca. I decided to get the closest equivalent, the mushroom pizza. It was a wholly underwhelming pile of oversized, chewy mushrooms on an anaemic round of paper thin dough, with a smattering of chives thrown across the top. I love mushrooms, but even so, the most enjoyable part of the pizza was the crusts. One pizza and a beer cost $40 as well, which is pretty poor for this quality.

YMMV if you like different foods and order different options. But to me it felt like The Leadlight is just another copy-pasted urbanite gastropub asking gourmet prices for bottom-shelf pizza, a far cry from what used to be a pub built from the ground up around a core cultural concept that sincerely celebrated the food and drink...

I made a booking through the booking email linked to their instagram. Fast forward to day of booking they were at capacity, I have 10 guests and we weren’t allowed in. I spoke to the guy whose name I know but won’t mention and he said he knows I have a booking but to let me in he’d have to ask 10 people to leave. I understand u can get in trouble with capacity but maybe you should’ve thought about a reservation and not let in other people prior if you knew it was getting busy? The way I see it is a reservation is a priority. I didn’t even get an apology. I’m not gonna have my friends and family wait 30mins-1hr just to enter inside. The whole situation was absolutely unprofessional and maybe this can be a learning experience that you can’t do bookings on saturdays, so you aren’t mucking around...

I've been coming to Leadlight since it was RuinBar & have always enjoyed the LoFi vibe of the venue.

The renovation that lead to the renaming/branding as Leadlight has been great. With the back courtyard now (even more of) a joy to hang in (and it will only get better as the trees & greenery establish themselves).

The food menu has also levelled up with the rebrand. Theres a wider range of tasty options to choose from - most of them hitting the mark. Their "Pretty Good" pizza is still as damn good as ever.

The team also have a decent range of beverages on offering (including rotating craft beer taps, and a decent vino selection).

Well worth checking out for pre/post game/concert @ HBF Park, lazy after work/uni drinks, or a casual...