Elliot Moore stands amidst a melee of tradies. He’s close to opening Besk in West Leederville, a pub-cum-bottle-shop, two-and-a-half years in development. He’d imagined – as had business partner and architect Ben Braham – that opening would have been sooner, but anyone who’s dealt with old buildings and the bureaucratic hoops to be jumped through to open a hospitality venue knows the story.

In those years Perth has changed: an onward march of casual venues, the retreat from fine dining, openings and subsequent closures. It’s very much on Moore’s mind. He’s adamant that Besk isn’t a niche venue that’s skewed towards esoteric natural wines, craft beer and menus built on trends. As the co-owner of Belmont’s Mane Liquor, which has a reputation as being one of WA’s best retail craft beer offerings and collaborator with brewers and natty winemakers alike, that could be the assumption.

“We’re a neighbourhood pub,” says Moore. “A place to drop in for a pint, read the paper, watch the footy. It’s much more community minded, and less about natural wine and beer. But you’ll still find the cool stuff.”

True to that claim, they’ve got collaboration brews ready to be tapped. “Nowhereman is our neighbour, so we wanted to celebrate that ­– serve a plum farmhouse beer with great with food. And then Will [Irving] at Feral reached out to me and said, ‘Let’s do a beer together.’ So we’ve done a West Coast IPA.”

“We’ve got Yoda [chef Paul Iskov] from Fervor locked in for a dinner early on, and Guy Jeffreys from Millbrook is set to do an event with us in December. We’ll be working with La Violetta and Brave New Wine from Denmark, WA, and [New Zealand brewers] Garage Project, too.” Besk will also be one of only two venues in Australia tapping Cantillon special release lambic on the Belgian breweries’ annual Zwanze Day (September 28). It’s a formidable line-up, but then Moore has had time to plan.

Chef Gerrard Mitchell, attached to the project through the development long haul, is ready to fire up his custom-built JAGRD grill. Refreshingly, as Mitchell and Moore talk about the food, it’s unpretentious, with no mention of ‘concept’. There’s definite inspiration points: St John in London, a city where Mitchell worked for close to a decade before returning to his native WA, and The Builders Arms in Melbourne.

While some chefs pay lip service to the idea of provenance and producer relationships, I know Mitchell personally, and that there’s true commitment. “We’ll be buying at least a side of a pig or a whole pig, whole lamb, hogget or mutton and break it down here,” says Mitchell. “I’m working with Warren [Pensini, of organic and grass fed Blackwood Valley Beef] as to what he’s got, and how he’s got it. So using a number of cuts, not what’s on trend. We’ll buy a side and the menu will just say ‘grass-fed steak’. I’ll know I’ve got a certain amount of scotch, rumps, sirloins, and then we’ll be mincing for burgers, koftas, whatever.”

It is unabashedly a pub menu with staples such fish and chips, a schnitty and a decent steak, but Mitchell says he’s eyeing specials as a point of difference and a way of introducing more offal into the menu. While much of what Mitchell and his team will be doing is house-made – including baking sourdough, milk buns and flatbreads – he’s not averse to reaching out. Selected smallgoods from one time el Publico head chef turned butcher Sam Ward, now at Macabee Estate in the Avon Valley, and at the other end of the spectrum, vegan items from Kim Bourne at Maylands’ Little Shop of Plenty. “If there’s anybody that knows how to do raw, vegan food it’s Kim. Her cashew cheese is one of the best things you’ve ever eaten. Her lemon cheesecake is amazing. She’s the best in Perth,” says Mitchell.

Besk opens on August 12. Far from being the finishing line in this two-and-a-half-year development, it’s just the beginning.