I’m predicting “restaurant apocalypse,” a seasoned operator told me last year. As the economy in Western Australia gets a doctor’s note, the message from some media sources is hospitality boom and bust. In quick succession, we’ve seen the doors close on a number of our high-profile restaurants, and many more feeling the times. But listing venues doesn’t tell the full story.

It’s painful when a business calls time, some deserving to trade on; others built in the boom that can’t survive leaner times, their model or concept found wanting. Joel Valvasori-Pereza is clear on the essential ingredient required and in many cases missing. “Focus, would be the key word,” he says bluntly. Having taken a step away from CBD dining at Lalla Rookh, he’s out on his own in Subiaco. His pasta bar, Lulu La Delizia, a hit which seems to be bucking the trend of the opening bump, then slump.

“Places open without having the calibre of people to execute a vision. Perth’s dining scene has exploded, but has it exploded with places consistently to the standard of Melbourne, Sydney or other dining cities? No, not really.” It’s rare that you’ll hear this view expressed. It’s a truth many of us know in Western Australia but haven’t said. I’ve often felt Perth had an emperor’s new clothes attitude; raising up and lauding, with any hint of dissent seen as knocking the hospitality industry. You see it elsewhere, but it’s pronounced in Perth. Criticism for the sake of criticism will always be snide, but well thought out, it can be a valuable commodity. Years of the city being bagged, rightly or wrongly, may have caused this polar swing when we started to see a real change but the essential truth is that hospitality isn’t an easy business and if you can’t take the heat; I think you know the rest.

“Things have gotten tougher for everyone in Perth,” says Valvasori-Pereza. “It’s not as easy as what they got used to, but there can be as much positive taken from a change in the economy as a negative,” he says. “A change means everyone has to work harder, try harder, to win their share. That can have a really positive effect in the right hands.“

Valvasori-Pereza’s own experience backs his point. “I was fortunate to be in Melbourne over the GFC, so I saw the effect that it had on the dining scene.” At Balzari he was able to weather the storm, drawing on the methods of any savvy chef. “We changed the ingredients we used. Got crafty with offal and lesser-known cuts, without lowering the standard” he says. That’s now as much his signature style as his housemade pasta. Valvasori-Pereza’s view is one I agree with. I saw in London that same contraction and on a bigger scale. It does raise the game and sharpen the mind. Perhaps this is part of building a resilient dining scene; where harsh, sometimes unfair lessons are learnt and remembered.

At the same time there’s added perversity that a lacklustre menu, a six-figure fit out and good PR rises above the likes of say Fuyu. David Coomer’s pan-Asian joint (hands down my best meal of the last year) is one restaurant closure that truly takes a bite of the city’s dining scene. In recent weeks we’ve also seen the closure of Greenhouse, where Matt Stone leapt into the national consciousness, and Arthouse Dine, John Parker’s bar come restaurant at the Art Gallery of WA.

Parker’s story is one that we perhaps don’t think of when we see that the doors have closed. Since opening The Standard two and a half years ago, Parker has gone on to open a string of successful operations across the city. At Arthouse he was raising the game for the gallery, working with them to create an experience that went beyond functional cafeteria. He was canny, sitting on a short lease, looking at what could work and what wouldn’t, with a view to securing a longer renewal and investing in the space with a typically ambitious concept. “As with these things you need to tender, which we did,” says Parker. “We were excited about what we could offer and the way we could work with the gallery on a long term basis. We received a one paragraph response to tell us that we were unsuccessful.” And with that, the doors closed. Talk is that the space went to an interstate operator, based on an offer of a higher rent. It’s a shame that a local operator with a proven track record, vision, and a deal on the table for rent and a percentage of takings loses out. Parker was understandably angry, but being the consummate professional, he seems to have put it in the past and is looking to the future.

“Fine dining will never die, you know that,” says Hadleigh Troy, adamant about what until recently was his beat. While, Restaurant Amuse, much loved and awarded, closed in March it was less of a sign of the times and more about impending lease renewal, and in Troy’s words a shift of priority towards building a family. “It will keep evolving but it will never die. If you want to go out for a special occasion you want to go somewhere that makes you feel good and that is fine dining. There’s nothing wrong with all these other places but I don’t want to spend a special occasion in a small bar.”

Troy also sees room for more players in Perth’s fine dining space but tempers the view. “How many places are actually at that level? I’m not convinced by corporate fine dining. It’s clinical, soulless. You know? The owners aren’t there. I prefer to go down the road, to a place where you know the owner, the chef, and get a bit of love. But then that’s just me.”

The future is far from bleak. In the sunshine capital, we can look forward to Troy’s next move; musing that after ten years of “doing dego” he “wouldn’t know what to do in an a la carte place.” With nothing left to prove he’s taking his time. ”I don’t actually know what’s next. Maybe a morning place; I’m still trying to work it out.”

Valvasori-Pereza sees the future as being closer to home. “I’ve got a couple of good people in my stable. As a business owner, I’d like to look to the future with them. Andrew McConnell does a good job of bringing people through his ranks and doing new things with his own people. I’d like to nurture a few of my guys into things like that.”