Virtually all restaurants and most pubs and bars offer outside tables wherever possible and dining al fresco is very popular, especially in summer. Areas to check out include Northbridge, Fremantle, Mt Lawley, Leederville and Scarborough. All these 'strips' offer a variety of restaurants, cafes, pubs and clubs.

The range of food on offer is enormous, from lunchtime favourites such as food halls and sushi shops to upmarket restaurants for a classy evening meal. In between you will find something to suit all palettes and pockets, including some fantastic BYO curry houses and many venues and flavours reflecting the ethnic diversity of Western Australia's population. Keep an eye out for fancy restaurants offering specials for dining outside on week nights or during the day.

Seafood is fantastic all over Western Australia, particularly to Northern Europeans who are used to seeing prawns about an inch long. Over here they're huge by comparison. Fancy seafood platters are often surprisingly cheap and could hardly be fresher if they were still flapping. In the coastal suburbs and townships there are some legendary fish and chip shops to be found.

Western Australia is also home to the oldest wine growing region in Australia (Swan Valley) and is world renown for it's Margaret River Wine Region produce. Over the last twenty years, micro breweries have also become big here, with many breweries offering restaurant and bar facilities on the premises, perhaps the best known of these is Little Creatures in Fremantle.