AFTER a complete renovation of the James Street site of Northbridge’s long-running Fishy Affair Restaurant that closed its doors last year, the premises has been transformed into another seafood-focused eatery: Fish Monger Seafood Restaurant.
Owner Julie Velzen’s industry experience includes setting up and running three Outback Jack’s Bar and Grill locations around Perth, including the restaurant a couple of doors down from Fish Monger, where she spied the newly-vacated Fishy Affair site and made plans for a seafood restaurant of her own.
Running the kitchen is head chef David Walker, whose experience includes Caversham House, Indiana Tea House and Dear Friends, and whose ‘keep it simple’ ethos allows the quality of the fresh produce to speak for itself.
Velzen said the aim of gutting and remodelling the site was to provide a modern fresh feel, with a similar approach taken with the food, which includes mainly WA produce, with a couple of exceptions.
“In designing the menu with our head chef, I had a few dishes which were non-negotiable points and they were things I had seen around the country and thought were a bit different or liked for different reasons,” she said.
“One of those would be Moreton Bay bugs and I don’t think there are many restaurants in Perth that do them, so they were actually quite difficult to source, but it was one of the things that we wanted on the menu and it has proved quite popular.”
Oyster lovers may be interested to know that the restaurant offers no fewer than eight different oyster dishes, as well as holding “Oystermania” Thursday nights, where patrons ordering a main dish can enjoy oysters natural for $1.50 a pop.
There is a lunchtime menu of smaller, lower-priced dishes, as well as salads, vegetarian options and a few non-seafood items.
The larger-than-average mains menu includes a choice of fish and chips options including king snapper, groper and dhufish, seafood risotto of WA tiger prawns, mussels, clams, baby squid and octopus, as well as seafood platters for one or two.
Christian Wilkinson