The Old Brewery

Our city, Our river, Our restaurant.

Dining near water always has an air of luxury about it and taking in an iconic view while you dine in a landmark building adds a sense of occasion to a meal. Roll all this together with a restaurant that provides excellent food and service and you're describing Old Swan Brewery - iconic, luxurious, charming and delicious.

From a design perspective the decision to go for industrial chic is hardly surprising. The building with its historic brickwork and the fact that it is once again brewing beer provide an ideal backdrop for a simple style that lets the building's charm speak for itself.

The choice of wooden floors, simple dark wall colours and solid jarrah furnishings, counterpointed with sparkling glassware, solid heavy silverware and crisp white linen achieve the air of understatement characteristic of real quality.

It also presents the breathtakingly close river views as the main focal point, and allows the presence of the micro brewery, gleaming and visible through a glass partition, to add character to the restaurant.

More than just providing visual distraction, the brewery adds something spectacular to The Old Swan Brewery dining experience.

If you've yet to be surprised by how well different beers can be matched to the dishes you order, I recommend issuing the beer-matching challenge to The Old Swan Brewery team.

The Vietnamese poached chicken with shredded vegetables and crispy noodle salad is a delicately spicy dish, offset elegantly by the OSB Pale Ale that sooths and cleanses the palate enabling each mouthful of the dish to surprise your tastebuds.

Matching the fish of the day (Barramundi in our case) with the rich hoppy, malty OSB Pilsner saw the dish and beer flavours working to enhance the enjoyment of each other.

The grilled marinated silken tofu with an Asian mushroom salad is incredible. Made to a recipe that comes from a Thai monastery, it's enough to melt the taste buds of the most skeptical carnivore. It goes especially well with the OSB Witbier, a Belgian-style wheat beer with slight orange and coriander notes.

The final masterstroke in the beer-food combination is the dark bittersweet Valhrona chocolate tart with wattle seed biscuit and Grand Marnier and Strawberry salad, served with an award winning rich dark OSB Porter on the side. (Be prepared for the sort of taste sensation that stops your conversation for a while.)

If you're not yet feeling confident about ordering or describing boutique beers this is a great place to start with the beer menu describing the characteristics of the OSB brews and the staff all familiar with their characteristics.

The beer list doesn't end there though. The restaurant offers a great range of Australian and international beers and wines and the full bar also offers a playful array of cocktails.

I've also only just started on describing the menu, that extends to clam and mussel squid ink fettucini, sesame crumbed tiger prawns with green mango salad, char-grilled Linley Valley pork T-bones with fresh fried chilli vegetables and plum sauce, seared kangaroo loin, roasted spatchcock, Prickly ash duck breast, poached Tasmanian salmon and more.

The restaurant also prides itself on its catch of the day fresh fish and its fillet and rib eye steaks each served with fresh juicy side dishes. There's also a children's menu of smaller simpler meals and three kinds of bread served warm with olives, feta, duckkah and/or dips.

Perched on the riverbank the Old Swan Brewery has a holiday feel about, echoed in the way that it's relaxed enough to accommodate groups looking for something other than the formal dining experience. The restaurant prides itself on its tasting plates that change daily in order to bring its customers delights made from the freshest and best produce each day.

Delicious morsels that make regular appearances on the tasting plates include Fremantle sardines in chilli dressing, risotto cake with homemade pepperonata (capsicum chutney) Thai beef salad, Moroccan chicken, sun dried tomatoes and warm crusty bread.

Whether you're finishing a meal or just in for a brief stop, it's worth ordering a cappuccino, latte or flat white just to marvel at the mastery of the baristas.

Our cups arrived with an impressive swan swirled into its froth, a fine detail that draws you to the conclusion that the Old Swan Brewery Restaurant is an establishment well worthy of its location - a place with both recent and ancient history - that is, in many ways, the beautiful heart of our city and an ideal place to raise a glass to good fortune.

By Kayt Davies