REALLY good eateries are popping up in the most unexpected places.
Who would expect to find a high-end chef, more at home in swish international restaurants, in the semi-industrial hinterlands of South Freo.
For Kenny Austin and partner Hana Jestribek, Little Hawk on Strang Street is the answer to a long held wish.
“I was always looking for my own place,” Austin says.
The decor is simple, with polished concrete floors and a faux grass deck out front, softened by garden boxes and protected by shade sails.
And using packing crates as tables and chairs fits with the industrial feel of the area.
Austin figured he’d be cooking for tradies, and was keen to give them something beyond the ubiquitous meat pie.
“But people have been coming from all over Fremantle,” he says.
The menu has a good selection of dishes made in-house, including gourmet beef sausage rolls, an Italian pork, potato and lentil version, an osso bucco and a lamb shank pie, along with a chicken and leek and white wine one ($7).
“Everything is made in-house, including the bread,” Austin says
• Kenny Austin
Dave D’Anger and his Pommy dad ordered the roast vegetable and lentil burger ($12).
The huge, but unassuming meal soon disappeared.
“The best veggie burger I have had, and plenty of it,” the father-in-law said.
Junior agreed: “It didn’t need a side of chips. It was bloody beautiful and the roll was really good and crunchy on top,”
I ordered the curried vegetable samosa ($11 with salad), and for good measure tacked on a mushroom arancini ($3).
The samosa, stuffed with assorted veggies including cauliflower, peas and tomatoes, had a wonderfully spicy flavour.
The beetroot salad, with baby spinach, eggplant and lentils was magnificent, and the cheesy arancini had me wishing I’d ordered more.
We finished-up with a raw peanut chocolate slice ($4), and chocolate hazelnut brownies ($6) that were so big we took one home for supper.
“The coffee is very nice,” the father-in-law said, then paused, and summed up the meal with the finesse of a Yorkshire coal miner.
“I tell you—that was a bloody good meal that was.”
by JENNY D’ANGER
Little Hawk
14 Strang Street, Beaconsfield
0403 863 299