This week is jam-packed with food and wine events from the City Wine Festival to a Kitsch wine dinner, whisky tastings to a night of Italian cheese and wine pairings. Sports lovers will be as happy as food lovers, too, with the West Coast Eagles and Fremantle Dockers playing their first home games of the season this week.
Here’s what’s on this week in Perth:
FEATURED EVENTS
City Wine 2023
Sip and savour the flavours of West Australian wines at Perth’s City Wine Festival this Friday and Saturday. There will be more than 150 wines from 20+ wineries on the pour, ranging from crisp, French-style rosés and dry whites to those full-bodied reds the state is so well-known for.
Wander about the stalls all session, or take a seat at the Garden Retreat, where local tunes will keep you entertained. For a more elevated experience, consider premium tickets to the fully catered Park Lounge. Dine on house-made potato, ricotta, and truffle ravioli, and prosciutto-wrapped scallops as you admire the beauty of Perth’s ever-growing skyline.
There’s more to City Wine than swilling great wines, though. Learn your Pinot Gris from your Pinot Grigio with the experts at a barrel session, or understand the tell-tale qualities of your favourite varieties with presentations and tastings from Clandestine Vineyards, Chalari Wines, UMAMU Estate, and Oatley Wines.
When booking your ticket, use the code SOPERTH25 for a 25% discount.
An Evening With Perrier-Jouët
Get acquainted with the Rusty Fig at their exclusive three-course Perrier-Jouët Champagne dinner on March 23rd. It’s a rare opportunity for fans of the century-old Champagne house to sample the catalogue side by side, while supping on the modern-Australian fare Rusty Fig is known and loved for.
The evening begins with a welcome glass of crisp Blanc de Blancs. Santé.
As the first course — ocean trout — is served, so too is your glass of complex and vibrant Grand Brut. Then, it’s onto a main course of duck with the light pink-hued Blason Rosé, and a final oh-so-French dessert of cheese and pear, matched with the elegant Belle Epoque Blanc.
To make a reservation for the one-off dinner, call 08 9221 0885 or book online.
Wednesday, March 22nd
Perth Caravan & Camping Show
Whether you’re a seasoned road tripper or a newly-minted camper, WA’s largest display of caravans, campers, trailers, and camping equipment at the Perth Caravan & Camping Show will surely inspire plenty of future getaways.
While you’re browsing the latest and greatest in tent pegs, the kids can get their faces painted, pet farm animals, and try their hand at the rock climbing wall. Can’t make it to the showgrounds mid-week? The show runs through to the 26th of March, so you’ve got plenty of time to make it down.
Ocean Film Festival World Tour
The tenth anniversary of the Ocean Film Festival World Tour documents the beauty and power of the deep blue through a series of short films spotlighting ocean-related sports, the underwater environment, marine creatures, and oceanic adventure and exploration. Held at the State Theatre Centre from March 22nd – 25th, each film festival session runs for just over two hours. Follow up the film session with gelato from Chicho Gelato next door, or a beverage at The William Street Bird across the road.
Thursday, March 23rd
Perth Design Week
Design talks, design exhibitions, design discussions, design gatherings; it’s a mammoth calendar of — you guessed it — design for Perth’s inaugural Design Week. Over the course of the week, hear from some of the leading designers here in Perth as they talk through the spaces, places, and things they’ve conceptualised and built, and the unique challenges they came up against in the process. See some of them in action at the Icons exhibition at Council House, and plenty of the ones that never made it past the concept phase at WA Museum Boola Bardip’s Perth Unbuilt Exhibition.
Say Cheese – Dinner With La Delizia Latticini
Servo Leederville and La Delizia Latticini have partnered on an all-out, four-course celebration of formaggio, and mamma mia, che bellissima cena. Using La Delizia Latticini’s specialty soft curd cheeses — handmade by third-generation cheesemaker, Domenico Boccia — Servo head chef Damien Young has crafted the perfect, cheese-forward ode to Italy. Start the night with pizza bianco and a chinotto spritz before moving on to a more hearty pork cotoletta and Caprese salad, paired with a cheeky french gamet. Mangiamo.
Into The Woods
Into the Woods is the fairytale, comedy, and opera collab you didn’t know you needed. The modern-day operatic adventure (broaching the line of musical) follows along as a baker and his wife embark on their quest to break a witch’s evil curse and find their ‘happily ever after’. Along the way, they meet several fairytale characters — Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, and Jack (of the beanstalk fame) — who are each on their own journey to ‘happily ever after’, too.
Opening on March 23rd, the opera has a limited season to April 1st.
Kitsch Wine Dinner
Spend the night under a frangipani tree, sampling wines and food from Clandestine Vineyards and Kitsch Bar. The wine dinner will be led by Perth locals and Clandestine owners Nick and Trudy Stacy, who have a wealth of experience in the wine-making world. They’ve worked alongside the kitchen to perfectly pair four Asian street-food-style dishes with their wines, bringing out the best properties in both.
Friday, March 24th
Jerry Fraser at Shui
Perth’s official King of Oysters, Jerry Fraser, will moonlight at Shui Subiaco for a one-off, four-hour shuck-fest. Start your weekend with a post-office glass of bubbles and a half or full dozen. Fraser is regularly shucking soft, creamy Albany rock oysters and plump South Australian oysters — query him what he’s got on the evening he’ll give you the run down in between a joke or two. If your afternoon rolls into dinner time, grab a menu and order a few of Leigh Powers’ much-lauded Asian-inspired dishes.
Saturday, March 25th
Fremantle Dockers v North Melbourne
Pull out the caps and scarves because football is making its return to Optus Stadium this weekend. Kicking off the AFL season here in Perth is the Fremantle Dockers, playing their round two match against North Melbourne. If the last three times these teams have met are anything to go by, this weekend’s match will be a great result for West Australian fans.
Comedy Double
Belly laughs will abound when two of Australia’s most revered comedians come together for HEADLINERS at The Rechabite. If a set by Rove McManus wasn’t enough to hurt your sides, it’ll run back-to-back with a cracking set from Troy Kinne, too. Between them, the duo have more than 30 years of experience on the stage. McManus successfully transitioned his stand-up career into a long talk-show stint, thrusting him into the global spotlight and cementing him as one of Australia’s most well-known comedians. Kinne is no stranger to TV, either, making a number of guest appearances on Have You Been Paying Attention.
Sunday, March 26th
West Coast Eagles v GWS Giants
They didn’t have the best year last year, so rallying behind the West Coast Eagles as they play their first home game of the season is as important as ever. West Coast will be coming up against GWS, who won by 52 points the last time they faced off. If they can keep the momentum up from round one — where North Melbourne narrowly defeated them in the final quarter — you’ll be on the edge of your seat until the final siren.
Drop the Sherry Bomb
Some like their whiskies peated. Others prefer theirs with a smooth, spicy finish. The latter is the focus of Drop the Sherry Bomb.
Take a liquor-filled trip across Europe to the home of Scotch whisky — Scotland, of course — and to Jerez, Spain, as you sample five pours of sherry-matured whisky from the Scotch Malt Whisky Society (SMWS). Perth SMWS ambassador and Terrarium Perth owner, Alexander Stucken, will be there for the journey, answering any questions you might have along the way. A light dinner from the Terrarium kitchen will be served alongside the pours. Then, it’s a sweet, sticky glass of Pedro Ximénez to finish. It’s like Christmas cake in a cup.
Perth Classic Car Show
Cars lovers will descend on Ascot Racecourse this Sunday to see Perth’s largest display of classic vehicles at the Perth Classic Car Show. More than a century of motoring heritage will be on show, from wooden-wheeled veterans right the way through to modern-day sports supercars. It’s not just cars, either, with vintage buses, scooters, military vehicles, bicycles, and even prams, on display too.
* This article includes some events that have been sponsored. We stand by all of our weekly event recommendations
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Lead image: Ryan Ammon
