Blue-sky days, warm evenings and another roll call of new openings to tick off, revisit and discuss with your friends: this summer in Perth is looking like another ripper. While P-Town is home to plenty of big-night-out bars and restaurants, not every outing needs to be a direct hit to your back pocket. For a tenner or less – and sometimes nothing at all – you can listen to great music, soak up some art and help earn some eating credits for the tasty (well-priced) snacks you’re about to eat. Happy holidays, Perth.

Pick up a $5 banh mi

Head out to Mirrabooka to visit Ben Thanh, a family-run Vietnamese joint selling three flavours of banh mi (pork, chicken or sardine) for just $5 a roll. Our pick has to be the pork roll with meat reliably roasted by proprietor Anne and her husband Chung, popped on a fresh baguette slathered in pate, gravy and mayo. While you’re in Mirrabooka, check out the other venues in the hidden foodie hotspot that should be on your radar.

Update: Ben Thanh is closed from December 12, 2024 to February 4, 2025, reopening on February 5.

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Play original arcade games all night

On Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays, all of the Palace Arcade outposts host a Super Session where guests can play unlimited arcade games for just $10 if you purchase your game card between 4pm and 6pm. (The other offers are for $10 chicken wings on Wednesdays and $6 schooners from 4pm to 6pm weekdays: handy information for those with a little more money to play with).

Snack on tacos by the beach

Cancun. Tulum. Acapulco. Scarborough? WA might be a long way from the Mexican coastline, but beachside cantina El Grotto is duly qualified to play out those Mexican summer holiday fantasies. While the breezy bar is home to all manner of food and drink temptation, every Tuesday you can score mushroom, chicken, fish or pork tacos for only $4 a pop. The million-dollar views of the Indian Ocean, meanwhile, are complimentary.

Take part in one of Australia’s great arts festivals

From shutting down highways to letting giants run loose throughout the CBD, Perth Festival has a reputation for thinking (and doing) big. Best of all, many of these big ideas and events are free for everyone in the community to enjoy. Check out the festival’s website and start planning your Perth festival experience now. In 2025, it's running from February 7 to March 3.

Eat some of Perth’s best gelato

2024 was a big year for Carly and Chez De Bartolo, the owners of Chicho Gelato. In addition to the couple’s seemingly endless collaborations with friends and brands, they also opened a third space in Mount Lawley – meaning that between the Mount Lawley production lab, the Cantonment Street outpost and the OG Northbridge headquarters, guests have an abundance of opportunities to taste truly outstanding gelato.

Explore Perth’s lesser-known beaches

Cottesloe. Scarborough. Trigg. All popular beaches, and for good reason. But sometimes, one seeks the beach for solitude, not crowds. The solution: find new stretches of shore to (temporarily) call your own. West Coast Highway, Marine Parade and Cockburn Road are dotted with beaches, bays and other bodies of water worth checking out. With any luck, we’ll be racking up plenty of beach time between Port Beach and Leighton: quiet, flat and perfect for dropping by on the way to or from Freo. (Bonus: there always tend to be spots in the car park just up from the main Port Beach lot). For further inspiration or forward-planning ahead of your next road trip, consider picking up a copy of Places We Swim.

Eat baked goods at Hyde Park

Since Seren and Ryan Chu opened Chu Bakery in 2015, nearby Hyde Park has become the bijou bakery’s unofficial outdoor dining room (and the backdrop for many a matcha choux puff). Several years on and the Chu faithful continue to stroll across the road to devour their pastries and compare notes with fans of Miller & Baker, another artisan bakery conveniently located near Hyde Park.

Listen to records played on a top-end hi-fi sound system

At the time of publishing this piece, a stubby of Peroni at Astral Weeks is exactly a tenner (slightly over the buy in for this piece but we’ll allow it). But that’s not the (only) reason to visit Perth’s first and only hi-fi listening bar. Instead, you’re here to hear records you likely don’t have played on a state-of-the-art handmade sound system you definitely don’t have, and to generally revel in the pleasures of drinking at a watering hole where the music isn’t just background noise – it’s (literally) front and centre.

Explore one of Perth’s urban parklands

Take your exercise out of the gym. While most people know about Kings Park, its cycle trails and Jacob’s Ladder, the suburbs are also home to green havens. In Victoria Park, there’s the Jirdarup Bushland Precinct, an oasis of native flora and fauna hiding in plain sight next to Kent Street Senior High. Closer to the coast, Bold Park in City Beach is another reserve that’s popular with runners and nature enthusiasts alike.

This piece was originally published on December 16, 2022. It has been updated to reflect changes to pricing and event times.