Print Hall

Perth’s new BHP building (Brookfield Plaza) has bought with it five new bars (all within 100 meters of each other). Each bar is unique and nothing like Perth has ever seen (not in the CDB anyway). The newest, and largest by about 3 floors, is Print Hall. Located in the heritage listed Newspaper House on St Georges Terrace, Print hall is not your average pub. Spread out over 4 levels, there are two bar areas (including “Bob’s Bar” on the roof), a cafe (with in-house roasted coffee) and two dining areas – The Print Hall dining room – an upmarket restaurant and The Apple Daily – serving South East Asian street style food.

The Cafe and Apple Daily are opening up on the 9^th October, but everything else is open, so I headed down for a mid-week lunch with a few mates. The decor is brilliant; they’ve done a great job of paying homage to the buildings former life as a Newspaper Print House. The main bar is sat in the middle of a massive open space with an abundance of natural light flowing in from the windows just beneath the ceiling. There’s also a multitude of memorabilia around the joint including floor-to-ceiling gloss covered newspaper wallpaper in the stairwell leading up to Bob’s Bar.

As we were just having a quick lunch, we sat at a small table near the bar and ordered a few beers and some food from the bar menu. We were provided with table service which was great, although our waitress seemed a bit confused as to whether we were allowed table service in the bar area. Our food came out within 20 minutes which was fairly decent considering just about every table in the bar (and restaurant) was occupied, however, my drink still hadn’t arrived. Turns out it had been poured and was left sitting on the bar for the waitress who must’ve forgotten about it. I wasn’t too fussed given that the bar had only been open a few days and teething issues such as these will hopefully be ironed out within a few weeks.

The bar menu is quite small food-wise but it does have a good selection of tap and bottled beers as well as an impressive wine list. The restaurant has a much wider selection of food, including a degustation menu, but given it was a mid-week lunch, we didn't have the time.  Most of the bar food seemed to be tapas style and given we were all quite hungry we all went for the steak sandwich. I was quite surprised when it came out as it was closer to steak on toast than a “Steak Sandwich”, nevertheless it was delicious. Good quality steak cooked a perfect medium and the addition of beetroot made the whole thing taste great. It would be good to have a small description for certain menu items letting patrons know exactly what they’re ordering, but for $17 it wasn’t bad value at all given the quality of ingredients and how good it tasted.

I have been back to Print Hall twice since the review (its right around the corner from work) and ventured up to Bob’s Bar on the roof, which is awesome. They have a bar in the centre of the space with a mini kitchen, cooking up small tapas dishes and gourmet style hot dogs. Bob’s Bar is named after former PM Bob Hawke. It even has one of his most famous quotes lit up in a big neon sign above the bar; “Any boss who sacks anyone for not turning up today is a bum”

On all occasions staff have been friendly and helpful. They’re really putting in a big effort to kick things off on a good note for Print Hall and it’s working. Value-wise I think Print Hall is pretty good, Pints (yes actual pints – not schooners) were just over $10 and the bar food was reasonably priced. It’s definitely not cheap, don’t get me wrong, but if you get the quality/service expected for the price you pay. I can almost guarantee you I’ll be back within the next week and will definitely be returning once the Apple Daily opens.