Perth Voice Interactive

BEAUFORT STREET is back on the up, with chef Maurício Ferrari Paroni opening up a steakhouse in the old Pony Club tapas bar.

The building has lain empty since 2011, and over the years it has become emblematic of declining consumer confidence in Mt Lawley.

But the property recently changed hands and a new real estate agent Burgess Rawson was brought in.

Mr Ferrarri Paroni’s restaurant, “Gado Brazil Steakhouse,” opened up in late August after internal refits (his parents even travelled over from Brazil to help give it an authentic homestyle feel).

A chef from Brazil, he’s also run the well-loved Mamma Mia Pizzeria in Clarkson. But he’s dreamed of opening this kind of steakhouse since he arrived in Australia from São Paulo 14 years ago.

“I saw the gap in the market and I said ‘that’s what I’m going to do,’ and I worked towards that goal.”

His pizza business helped him build up the capital, and he says at last he found “the perfect spot” on Beaufort Street.

“It’s actually the best location we found, that we’ve been dreaming about for seven or eight years.”

Encouraging

In contrast to the previous tenant’s tiny tapas nibbles, he’s doing an all-you-can-eat, wood-fired BBQ set up (Gado means “livestock” in Portuguese) and so far punters are loving it, flooding his Facebook page with reviews averaging 4.8/5 stars. Already some people “have come three or four times already”.

He says he doesn’t just want it to be a meatfest so they have a lot of vegetarian dishes that’ll be appreciated by the inner-city type diners.

“We’ve had a lot of vegetarians come in! When I designed the menu that was the idea…to cater to anybody. It has been working very well.

“When I go to a barbecue place I don’t want to just eat meat, I want to get a bit of everything and get a proper meal.”

Burgess Rawson’s sales and leasing consultant Luke Randazzo says the new tenancy is “a positive result given the property’s size, history and prominent Beaufort Street location”.

He says it’s “hopefully an indicator for more positive activity on Beaufort Street”.

Beaufort Street Network’s new chair Joshua O’Keefe says “it’s an encouraging sign that an exciting new restaurant has moved into a prime location on Beaufort Street that has been vacant for several years.

“As an organisation that is working to enhance Beaufort Street and support local business, the BSN is optimistic that this is a sign of growing confidence in our Highgate/Mount Lawley precinct.”

The network’s recently gone through a reboot with a new executive committee, and Mr O’Keefe says BSN 2.0 is “focussed on striving for success for the iconic strip and advocating for the businesses that have weathered the highs and lows of the retail and hospitality industries over recent years”.

by DAVID BELL

WOOLWORTHS could be moving into the Highgate area.

The grocery giant has paid about $7.2 million for the block at 80 Bulwer Street, technically listed as the suburb of “Perth,” but spiritually it’s pretty Highgatey.

The supermarket giant also bought the land to the rear for a reported $3.97 million, giving it a huge block to work with.

With Woolworths’ plan for a Dan Murphys in Maylands knocked back a couple weeks ago, we asked Woolworths Group HQ if they were planning to stick one in Highgate, but it sounds like a supermarket is on the cards.

“Woolworths can confirm we have recently acquired property at Bulwer Street, Highgate as we believe there is an under supply of supermarkets in Highgate and the surrounding areas,” said a Woolworths spokesperson.

“While we’re still evaluating our planning for this site and have not made any further decisions yet, we look forward to engaging with council and the community in due course.”

There is a modest-sized IGA a few hundred metres away at Weld Square, but the nearest of the “big two” supermarkets is the Woolworths in the CBD (not easy to get to for Highgate folk) or the Coles at North Perth Plaza.

by DAVID BELL

IT’S been six months since commissioners took over for suspended Perth city councillors, and chair Eric Lumsden says they’ve “identified homelessness, carparking and better customer service as issues to focus on.

Mr Lumdsen told the August 28 council meeting the commissioners had met with a host of stakeholders in the past six months including ratepayer groups, neighbouring local governments, the property council, the Committee for Perth and Tourism WA.

He said one key issue was “addressing homelessness on the streets of Perth”.

Mr Lumsden says over the next six months the commissioners will focus on “active stakeholder engagement, and this includes improving where appropriate our customer service in terms of our approach to customers…”

UWA’s reputation as the state’s elite higher education facility has taken a pummelling in the latest university rankings.

Freo boutique uni Notre Dame thumped the historic Crawley learnatorium across a range of categories, while  students at Edith Cowan in Mt Lawley – still “Super-Tafe” to some wags – were far more contented with their experience.

Notre Dame was awarded a five-star rating in half of the 14 performance categories in The Good Universities Guide 2019.

Thrilled

While UWA scored well for demand, retention and student-teacher ratio, it seems the students who participated in the survey weren’t so thrilled with their experiences in the lecture theatre.

UWA failed to score any five-star ratings in the “education experience” field and finished behind every other uni in Perth.

The guide placed Notre Dame best in the country in the overall experience category and second for student support, skills development, teaching quality and learner engagement.

To achieve a five-star rating in any category, graduates’ ratings need to fall in the top 20 per cent across all universities.

Notre Dame pro vice chancellor Selma Alliex, who heads up the Fremantle campus, says she’s very proud of the university’s achievements and that students rate their experience so highly.

“We can’t get better feedback than that,” Prof Alliex says.

The nursing expert, who completed her PhD at Curtin Uni, attributes the individual attention given to students including free counselling and an open door policy amongst lecturers for the uni’s soaring review.

UWA vice-chancellor Dawn Freshwater wouldn’t be drawn on comparisons with other universities, playing down the importance of the guide’s ranking system.

“We are delighted at these five-star ratings, but our sense of achievement is not about rankings, but in what we seek to make possible for our students,” Prof Freshwater says.

Experience

If the “education experience” category were a running race, Notre Dame sprinted ahead, ECU followed not far behind, Curtin crossed the line at a jog midway, Murdoch got lost amongst the masses and UWA went for a stroll.

Notre Dame scored higher than UWA, ECU, Curtin and Murdoch for its graduates’ full time employment rates, scoring 79.1 per cent, above the national average of 70.6 per cent.

ECU ranked third in the country for overall experience, skills development, student support and teaching quality.

Students from both unis needn’t worry about eating carrot sticks and two-minute noodles forever, as each scored above the national average for a graduate’s starting salary of $58,000.