Despite its everyman quality, this CBD favourite also helped advance wine bar culture and modern Italian cooking in Perth.
After more than 14 years of feeding and watering guests, popular CBD tavern Lalla Rookh Bar & Eating House has announced that it will close at the end of 2026.
“Fourteen years goes fast when you’re doing something you love,” says director Patrick Ryan.
“When we opened, we wanted to create a warm, unpretentious Italian restaurant and wine bar that the CBD could call its own.
“What followed was incredible food, extraordinary wine, late nights, long lunches, celebrations, farewells, first dates, last drinks and everything in between.”
Or, in short, Lalla Rookh behaved just like any good pub: understandable, perhaps, when you consider that its basement address in Allendale Square has housed some famous CBD watering holes. (Hello Emporio, hello The Black Cat, hello The Foxy Lady.)
And while Lalla Rookh could still heave like any good public house worth its salt and vinegar chips – after-work drinks on a Friday were, pre-COVID, a heck of a time – it was also a quiet mover and shaker.
Its dedicated 20-person wine store, for instance, was a prototype for the modern-day wine bar.
Take a bow, Jeremy Prus: Lalla Rookh’s other director and a wine professional long regarded as the sommelier’s sommelier. (Prus, it’s worth mentioning, was also an early adopter of “natural wines”.)
If the occasion called for chips, pizza and other ballast to stave off the effects of all those beers and cocktails, they were there.
But for those that were in the mood for dining, the kitchen could oblige with sharp modern Italian cooking from chefs such as Joel Valvasori-Pereza (Lulu La Delizia), Alexandra Haynes and Calum Mackechnie.
Incumbent chef Michael Barnes is upholding Lalla’s reputation for approachable, quietly polished Italian flavours.
But despite ticking the boxes for both quality and quantity – the space can hold up to 550 guests – Lalla Rookh, like many venues in the CBD, had been affected by Perth’s new corporate culture.
Working from home hurt the lunch trade.
Changing attitudes to alcohol and cost of living pressures dampened consumer spending.
Factor in increasing operational costs on the back of rising fuel and ingredient prices and the words “perfect storm” come to mind.
“That’s the reality across the industry right now, not just us,” Ryan says.
While closure announcements often seem like they’ve come out of leftfield, Ryan and Prus say they’ve spent the last 18 months closely watching the market and crunching numbers, especially as they’ve approached the end of their lease.
Despite healthy discussions with their landlords, team Lalla Rookh say it wasn’t possible to come to a solution that worked for both, so their focus has now switched to celebrating the bar’s legacy and finishing strong.
“We feel like it’s the right time to conclude this era of Lalla Rookh at Allendale Square,” says Ryan, who is planning on adding classic Lalla Rookh dishes to the menu and hosting special events ahead of the pub’s closure.
“The focus is getting through to the end of this year, and then we’ll look at what the next iteration of Lalla Rookh looks like.”
Lalla Rookh’s final service is on Wednesday, December 23, 2026.
