Restaurant Review - Cream

Cream, cnr Royal and Plain St, East Perth
view the menu here http://www.bestrestaurants.com.au/restaurants/WA-Perth-cream.aspx

I should start out by saying I love Cream. We've been there a few times, and each time it impresses me. Here's why:

1. This is a professional restaurant. When you book, you get a choice of sittings - the early or the late. No fannying about. Maria (manager) will call you the day before to confirm your booking. The staff are superb - friendly, attentive and knowledgable. By far the best service I've ever had in Perth. No uniforms, but it's obvious who the staff are. Our waitress was great and very good at adding a personal touch without imposing.

2. Wine list. I'm not sure if Natasha C is still doing the wine list, but it's an impressive mix of Australian and international wines, chosen because they are good. None of this " please Fosters, write me a wine list with all your generic products" crap. Good stuff available by the glass too. And it's somewhere you can find a reasonably priced bottle of good wine that will match your meal and not get 'tude if you don't buy the Pol/Grange/whatever. Anywhere that has an Ata Rangi Pinot on the list gets snaps from me!

3. Food. I'll go into what we ordered in a bit, but basically all the food is good because the person who makes it loves what they do. It's my understanding that chef and owner John Mead makes almost everything himself from scratch, and it shows. Attention to detail and love of food = great small, focused menu. We had the New Norcia bread with pate and onion chutney to start - a perfect match of textures and flavours. The onion chutney was slightly sweet and the pate was mooth and creamy. We also shared an entree - a perfect puffy souffle and lightly grilled scallops. I had a special for main - duck pie. Very sexy buttery pastry with duck and fruit (possibly fig) filling on top of mash and greens. Not huge, but perfectly filling. I was sorry when it was gone, because it was so good.

No room for dessert, unfortunately, but they all looked really attractive.

4. Decor and atmosphere - Cream is quite small, but it feels intimate rather than crowded. There's a small bar at the front ( small small - seats about 6 people) so we went for a cocktail before dinner. The cocktails were well made - you can see, it's an open bar- and simply presented. The lighting is low without feeling dim and it's not loud, possibly because of the furry walls. The walls are really cool, and match the colour scheme (red, maroon, brown wood) and lighting. It's welcoming and stylish without being over-designed or pretentious.

5. The total bill - I liked this part too. Not so much paying it, obviously, but the prices are reflective of what you get. The money is well spent because I always leave so happy and full and think about how good the food is for days afterward. I think any of the Meads 'restaurants' and certainly the Raffles would be more expensive for two mains, shared entree and bread plus a bottle of wine and two cocktails, and the quality of their food is below par. I won't even talk about their staff.

The only things I didn't like:
The toilets. Out the side door, down the apartment block corridor (ugly tiles and all-over beige), around the corner and into the shared loos. Not so atmospheric. Plus a bit of a lengthy stretch if you've had a few in heels.
Taxi! The staff were super-efficient in calling our taxi and it arrived straight away, so I wasn't quite past my "I'm so full if I move I might slosh" place. Then there was a bit of a mix up where we got charged for another table and this then had to get reversed. This is the only reason Cream gets 9/10 rather than 10.

Get thee to Cream. However it may ruin you for sub-standard food, service and wine lists forever... and then you'd have to keep going back.