The humanity. The humanity. The new Claremont Hotel in the leafy, stockbroker-infested western suburb was heaving with punters just days after it re-opened a couple of weeks ago. Talk about pent-up demand.

A couple of months ago we opined that the swank, no-money-spared, $12 million refit of the verandaed old pile would be a game-changer for the western suburbs.

We were right. Thirty years ago many of the area’s local pubs – the Shenton Park Hotel, Swanbourne Hotel, The Coronado – became seniors’ homes or doctors surgeries. Sign of the times.

Sure, there’s lots of good bars and a few upscale restaurants in the west now, but apart from the Cott and the OBH on Marine Parade and the divey old Albion Hotel on Stirling Highway, pubs went the way of the dinosaurs.

The era of the local boozer band pub disappeared along with these sticky-carpeted favourites. Ever since, there’s been a gap waiting to be filled.

The freehold of the Claremont is owned locally. The long-term leaseholder and operator is Australian Venue Co, an eastern states hospitality group with hundreds of pubs in its portfolio. They are behind the stunning back-to-bricks interior design and the expansion of The Claremont’s footprint into a mega-venue with a licence for 1500 patrons.

The interiors remind us of the venues of Australia’s first hospitality billionaire, Sydney man-about-town Justin Hemmes, whose pubs are the Australian benchmark for design and aesthetics that draw people like a moth to a lantern. Hemmes is a renowned good time guy and his venues reflect his energy and appreciation of beauty. The Claremont has nailed a similar aesthetic.

The small details are what accumulate to create a pleasing, cohesive experience. The menu design, for instance, is brilliant: simple bold typography, lovely drawings on the front cover reminiscent of old bistro or New York steakhouse design. The list is easily navigable and it doesn’t resort to the infantilising (and irritating) use of “smalls” and “bigs” to differentiate between entrees and mains.

Cleverly AVC has re-designed the pub to include a range of areas to suit all tastes. There’s a downstairs public bar for blokes in work clobber and those who just love a front bar with cricket on a big screen.

There’s a wood-panelled lounge area with Scandinavian-inspired furniture and clubby, muted colours. It’s quieter.

There’s a massive deck upstairs which tumbles into an outside area. It’s where all the cool kids and occasionally their hip, well-heeled parents hang (awkward).

On the ground floor there is a restaurant, the only section of the sprawling hotel which offers table service and a special menu – an addition to the hotel-wide menu which is available everywhere – of steaks, a seafood tower and a cheese chariot.

There’s more beers than you can poke a breathalyser at and a competent, well-priced wine list. The food? It is serviceable and good. There’s nothing remarkable about it, but you won’t be disappointed. The kitchen does a fine job of sending out pub faves with a twist.

One of those twistier dishes, sticky eggplant, is a wonderful black and glossy roast of sliced eggplant with bold flavours of reduced soy, kombu, crisp garlic and lime caramel.

Shark Bay prawns were just four defrosted prawns on a plate with a pot of Marie Rose sauce – allegedly pimped with whisky, which we couldn’t taste – and two compact, crunchy quarters of gem lettuce nicely dressed and seasoned. The prawns were first class but not big, $28 seemed a little expensive for such a low-effort dish.

Taramasalata – the Greek fish egg dip which you can buy in supermarkets in lurid pink tones despite no Greek version ever being that colour – was okay. It was straightforward and properly salty but lacked the fishy funk of the real deal. A bit more lemon in the mix would have perked it up too.

It was served with pizza fritto, fried pizza dough squares, which missed the target by a fair margin. They were tough and like chewing work boots. Note to kitchen: try your food before you send it out. Please.

A 250-gram Stirling Ranges sirloin was impeccably grilled just shy of medium-rare. It came with chips and a first-rate bearnaise sauce with belting tarragon flavours and proper vinegary top notes. The steak came with pink peppercorn butter which was also a stunner. Lovely.

We had to order the louchely named Bush Chook Roll. It is a signature of sorts for the new pub and it didn’t disappoint.

A fluffy hotdog roll was crammed with moist pulled chicken and a separate jug of chicken gravy which was more of a jus. If you’re going to riff off Chicken Treat’s famous chicken roll, the gravy should be thick, raunchy with chicken booster-induced flavour and more bold than the just acceptable and thin jus.

Mind you, as a wetting agent for chicken and bread, it did the job nicely. We wanted bigger though: bigger flavour, bigger texture, bigger chicken stock cube flavour.

The menu also offers a steak sandwich, a burger, fish and chips, salt and pepper squid, a schnitty, and fried chicken. A highlight of the menu – which we didn’t get to taste – is their charcuterie plate, sourced exclusively from super chef and small goods maker Melissa Palinkas’ Ethos Deli.

For dessert, crème caramel and “old school banana split” top the bill.

The hotel offers a children’s menu and each child gets a gift bag with colouring book and other goodies. Great touch.

On a personal note, my go-tos in the western suburbs are Il Lido, Vans and Al Lupo, but when you just want a beer and a catch-up in a pub – albeit a gentrified, stylish pub – The Claremont is a venue that makes it easy for customers to simply drop in and plug into the venue at any level they wish. Sometimes you don’t want a sommelier or even to sit down, you just want easy peasy.

2023 will be Perth’s year of the pub. The Claremont is a great start, a game changer and the best new opening in Perth’s leafy beachside suburbs in years.