Latest news with #Goolwa
Perth Now
29-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Perth Now
Perth wine bar's dessert best $16 you'll spend all year
Scrawled in chalk above our heads: 'The best thing since sliced bread'. Sliced is crossed out, replaced with 'barbecued'. Truer words were never spoken, nor scrawled on a restaurant wall. The barbecued bread with whipped butter at Mt Hawthorn bar and wood-fired eatery Sonny's is the best thing since someone in the Middle East decided they had some grains to grind 14,000 years ago. The charred carbs arrived straight from head chef Sofika Boulton's kitchen, smelling like campfire and served with butter so light it threatened to float away like a dandelion. Opened late 2022 in a former Commonwealth Bank branch by experienced Perth bar and restaurant manager Jessica Blyth, who named the joint after her rescue greyhound, this Mt Hawthorn favourite feels like a hipster's retro lounge room. Ferns, monsteras and other pot plants compete for space among bric-a-brac. Yves Klein art prints and provocative Grace Jones posters adorn walls. Sonny's menu switches up every few weeks, sometimes small tweaks, other times it's entirely fresh dishes. Boulton uses ingredients from her own or local gardens. Blyth gives the chef complete creative freedom in the cramped kitchen. After the bread to end all bread, we had the raw beef ($24). This turned out to be Italian-style steak tartare, or carne cruda. Sonny's in Mt Hawthorn. Credit: Supplied Boulton dry ages a whole sirloin in the diner's cool room for a week to reduce moisture and enhance flavour, before the meat is hand-diced, then dressed with a yuzu and Meyer lemon vinaigrette. The cruda is then served with a warm butter emulsion and covered in shaved pecorino and toasted pepper. Citrus prevents the chunky-cut steak and egg yolk from being too rich. This dish is the best tartare in town, and I can't believe it's not tartare! The grilled market fish was a coral trout, caught in Exmouth, and served with roast chicken butter and hand-harvested Goolwa pipis from South Australia ($40). The gorgeously firm fillet of fish was enhanced by the sweet, nutty saltwater clams, while diners should save some barbecued bread to mop up every, single, last drop of the savoury beurre blanc. All three sides sounded delectable but, on Blyth's recommendation, we nabbed the slow-smoked aubergine with macadamia butter — yes, Boulton uses a lot of butter. She knows what side her bread is … something something … on. Anyway, macadamia butter made from grilled eggplant purees plus blitzed raw macadamia nuts, seasoned with sherry vinegar, was piped onto the slow-smoked vegetable, which was surprisingly chewy. A must-have side dish for $18. The one misfire of Boulton's rustic yet spectacular cookery was the charcoaled kipfler potato with smoked butter (more butter!) and Geraldton wax ($18). Sliced lengthways, the spud was too hard, too dull, too bland. Too bad, because the rest of our meal had us in raptures. Did I mention the bread and butter? Sonny's in Mt Hawthorn. Credit: Supplied For dessert we had the Basque cheesecake, which had a burnt top sprinkled with salt — basically, salted caramel. Under the lid, the cake had perfect consistency, creamy but firm. The best $16 you'll spend all year. You'd struggle to find a better iteration from Bilbao to Pamplona. We paired the cheesecake with a delicious Pedro Ximenez from Chouette in the Swan Valley, a solera blend going back to when Pedro Almodovar released High Heels. Readers may recall I reviewed Sonny's about two years ago. Why have I returned so soon? Two reasons. Firstly, Boulton is rightly regarded as one of Perth's best and brightest culinary talents. Last time I ate here, she was working at Bar Rogue, which has also been reviewed. (Head to the Food Hub section of to sift through 600-plus restaurant reviews.) Clearly, her love of fresh produce, fermentation and wood-fired cooking is sympatico with what Blyth hopes to achieve in her impressive first foray as a restaurant owner and operator. Secondly, it's a great room, great service and now truly great food. While it might be named after a pooch, Sonny's has not gone to the dogs. Sonny's in Mt Hawthorn. Credit: Supplied 126 Hobart St, Mount Hawthorn Wednesday-Thursday, 4pm-late. Friday-Sunday, midday-late. Yes Super cool neighbourhood bar and restaurant. Two years after opening, Sonny's hums along with excellent wood-fired dishes and a vibrant drinks list. If you can't decide what you want from the concise and ever-changing menu, go for the $70 per person chef's selection.
Perth Now
28-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Perth Now
Neighbourhood bar and diner is better than sliced bread
Scrawled in chalk above our heads: 'The best thing since sliced bread'. Sliced is crossed out, replaced with 'barbecued'. Truer words were never spoken, nor scrawled on a restaurant wall. The barbecued bread with whipped butter at Mt Hawthorn bar and wood-fired eatery Sonny's is the best thing since someone in the Middle East decided they had some grains to grind 14,000 years ago. The charred carbs arrived straight from head chef Sofika Boulton's kitchen, smelling like campfire and served with butter so light it threatened to float away like a dandelion. Opened late 2022 in a former Commonwealth Bank branch by experienced Perth bar and restaurant manager Jessica Blyth, who named the joint after her rescue greyhound, this Mt Hawthorn favourite feels like a hipster's retro lounge room. Ferns, monsteras and other pot plants compete for space among bric-a-brac. Yves Klein art prints and provocative Grace Jones posters adorn walls. Sonny's menu switches up every few weeks, sometimes small tweaks, other times it's entirely fresh dishes. Boulton uses ingredients from her own or local gardens. Blyth gives the chef complete creative freedom in the cramped kitchen. After the bread to end all bread, we had the raw beef ($24). This turned out to be Italian-style steak tartare, or carne cruda. Sonny's in Mt Hawthorn. Credit: Supplied Boulton dry ages a whole sirloin in the diner's cool room for a week to reduce moisture and enhance flavour, before the meat is hand-diced, then dressed with a yuzu and Meyer lemon vinaigrette. The cruda is then served with a warm butter emulsion and covered in shaved pecorino and toasted pepper. Citrus prevents the chunky-cut steak and egg yolk from being too rich. This dish is the best tartare in town, and I can't believe it's not tartare! The grilled market fish was a coral trout, caught in Exmouth, and served with roast chicken butter and hand-harvested Goolwa pipis from South Australia ($40). The gorgeously firm fillet of fish was enhanced by the sweet, nutty saltwater clams, while diners should save some barbecued bread to mop up every, single, last drop of the savoury beurre blanc. All three sides sounded delectable but, on Blyth's recommendation, we nabbed the slow-smoked aubergine with macadamia butter — yes, Boulton uses a lot of butter. She knows what side her bread is … something something … on. Anyway, macadamia butter made from grilled eggplant purees plus blitzed raw macadamia nuts, seasoned with sherry vinegar, was piped onto the slow-smoked vegetable, which was surprisingly chewy. A must-have side dish for $18. The one misfire of Boulton's rustic yet spectacular cookery was the charcoaled kipfler potato with smoked butter (more butter!) and Geraldton wax ($18). Sliced lengthways, the spud was too hard, too dull, too bland. Too bad, because the rest of our meal had us in raptures. Did I mention the bread and butter? Sonny's in Mt Hawthorn. Credit: Supplied For dessert we had the Basque cheesecake, which had a burnt top sprinkled with salt — basically, salted caramel. Under the lid, the cake had perfect consistency, creamy but firm. The best $16 you'll spend all year. You'd struggle to find a better iteration from Bilbao to Pamplona. We paired the cheesecake with a delicious Pedro Ximenez from Chouette in the Swan Valley, a solera blend going back to when Pedro Almodovar released High Heels. Readers may recall I reviewed Sonny's about two years ago. Why have I returned so soon? Two reasons. Firstly, Boulton is rightly regarded as one of Perth's best and brightest culinary talents. Last time I ate here, she was working at Bar Rogue, which has also been reviewed. (Head to the Food Hub section of to sift through 600-plus restaurant reviews.) Clearly, her love of fresh produce, fermentation and wood-fired cooking is sympatico with what Blyth hopes to achieve in her impressive first foray as a restaurant owner and operator. Secondly, it's a great room, great service and now truly great food. While it might be named after a pooch, Sonny's has not gone to the dogs. Sonny's in Mt Hawthorn. Credit: Supplied 126 Hobart St, Mount Hawthorn Wednesday-Thursday, 4pm-late. Friday-Sunday, midday-late. Yes Super cool neighbourhood bar and restaurant. Two years after opening, Sonny's hums along with excellent wood-fired dishes and a vibrant drinks list. If you can't decide what you want from the concise and ever-changing menu, go for the $70 per person chef's selection.
ABC News
26-05-2025
- ABC News
Communities impacted by SA's algae bloom take stock of destruction
South Australia's unprecedented algal bloom has brought death and destruction to the state's marine environment and impacted its tourism and fishing industries. The crisis has forged new connections among coastal communities that are waiting to see if the long-awaited arrival of stormy weather and cold temperatures will break up the algal bloom that was first reported in March. A group of surfers, divers, residents and Indigenous elders walked along some of the south coast's wild surf beaches at Victor Harbor on Saturday. They talked about what they had seen over the past few months. Ramindjeri and Naruunga elders Cedric Varcoe and Angelena Harradine Buckskin created and helped to organise the event with local environmental group The Wild South. They welcomed the groups of walkers as they made their way from Victor Harbor to Goolwa. Mr Varcoe said it was important for people to yarn about the effects of the lingering algae and rising water temperatures. "The main concern is the amount of our sea creatures washing up; we call them our Ngaitye because they're part of our Dreaming, part of our culture as Ramindjeri people," he said. Mr Varcoe and Aunty Angelena said the message behind the event was about healing the waters. They were pleased it had brought together people from all walks of life. Ron and Stefi Phillips, who took part in the walk, were relatively new to the community of Victor Harbor. But Mr Phillips has dived off the coast of South Australia for many years. He said he dived a local reef just days before the first impacts of the bloom were seen in March, watching and observing some of the fish and other marine life present. "A week later I could see some of them lying on the beach, which is a bit sad," he said. "We were coughing and one particular day … we were walking along and there were quite a few dead creatures and the next day I still had a burning throat," Mrs Phillips said. The couple attended a community forum in Middleton in April to find out more about the karenia mikimotoi algal bloom. Since then they have become part of the movement of citizen scientists who upload pictures of what they find on the local beaches to the iNaturalist citizen scientist database. Some walkers carried a message stick as they journeyed. It will be decorated and then taken to Naruunga Country for another Walk for Water event, to be held at Marion Bay on June 7. Surfer Scott Murdoch was entrusted with the message stick for the first part of the walk. He said he spent a lot of time on the south coast and loved the landscape. Mr Murdoch said he felt sick after being exposed to the bloom and watched with dismay its impact on wildlife. "I just wanted to show that it's important to protect these places," he said. Adelaide violin teacher Freya Davies-Ardill, who grew up in Goolwa, was one of volunteers who helped make the event happen. She was busy organising food and entertainment at the halfway mark and joined the walk for the final leg from Ratalang at Port Elliot to Goolwa. Ms Davies-Ardill said she hoped the events would send a message to the South Australian government about the importance of directing funds into research and on-the-ground efforts to document the extent of the damage to the coastal and marine environment.
