A spirited blend of new and old, Sarah and Liam Atkinson’s neighbourhood destination in Mount Lawley remains a bastion of French(ish) dining and wining.
15.5/20
French$$
It may take your eyes a few moments to adjust to the darkness of Le Rebelle. Don’t be alarmed. Once the low-lit room fades back into focus, I think you’re going to like what you see.
You’re going to see a tri-level space with ground floor booths, a handsome Art Noveau timber bar on the mezzanine, plus more tables and chairs on the floor above. You’re going to see unopened wine boxes stacked everywhere: a sign of a commitment to good drinking at all price points. You’re going to see smiling, sharply dressed people. (But Perth being Perth, you’ll probably spy some not-so-sharply-dressed folks, too.) You’re going to see an operation full of energy, confidence and customers, even on a Wednesday.
Being busy on a school night is just one way this bolthole lives up to its name and subverts conventional restaurant thinking. Yet six years after Sarah and Liam Atkinson introduced Highgate to their vision of a neighbourhood bistro, Le Rebelle’s definition of raging against the machine feels less enfants terrible and more dining traditionalist.
Some of those smiling, sharply dressed folks include the aforementioned Sarah plus Phillip Koch and Simon Carthy: experienced career waiters who understand that being themselves and getting the measure of guests is pivotal to delivering sincere, personable hospitality.
The meal format is also built along classical lines: think entrées, mains, desserts and diners ordering for themselves. Still, a chef’s menu ($96) is available for the decision-phobic, and no one’s going to stop you from passing plates of ricotta gnocchetti ($36) around the table. Cote du boeuf and other large-format cuts of meat also grace the chalkboard specials menu.
That last sentence hints at Le Rebelle’s biggest nod to yesteryear: an allegiance to French cooking. Once the crown ruler of the culinary universe, cuisine française has been steadily ceding ground to other cooking styles.
To the everyman familiarity and regional diversity of Italy.
To the Women’s Weekly and CWA nostalgia of yesteryear Australia.
Lukewarm execution of predictable, made-by-ChatGPT menus hasn’t helped the cuisine’s plight either, yet when prepared with thought, French food is every bit the serious art form that American author Julia Child proclaims it to be.
While previous menus have included detours to Italy and Switzerland – bigoli with cuttlefish and the fried Gruyere fritter known as Malakoff, say – Le Rebelle’s current carte sticks largely to assured, quietly inventive riffs on bistro staples. Staples such as wickedly silky duck liver parfait ($10) topped with a zippy jelly of port and leftover citrus rescued from the bar. Or a saucy steak tartare ($32) freckled with grated horseradish and spiked with Cognac: an old-school kitchen hack not typically utilised in Perth.
Vitello tonnato ($26) might be more Piedmont than Paris, but tender, rosy swatches of veal eye fillet draped across a chunky tuna-infused mayo speaks to Le Rebelle’s firm grasp of technique, as does its formidable sauce game.
Legendary French chef Fernard Point hailed the saucier as the soloist in the “orchestra of a great kitchen”. I’m not sure if head chef James Knubley has a dedicated sauce cook on his roster, but if the nutty, crystal-clear beurre noisette served with grilled whiting ($46) is anything to go by, Le Rebelle chef-patron Liam Atkinson has passed on plenty of cooking wisdom to his charges.
Wagin duck with bearnaise and frites ($52) is a P-Town classic, not least because of how well the sauce’s richness and acidity work with the crunch of the well-seasoned frites. (The fries also ride shotgun with the burger and steak tartare. If you order includes too much fried potato, staff may suggest switching them out for another carb to avoid frites fatigue. Respectfully wave away such advice.) Just as crucial to the dish, though, is the glossy jus that the dry-aged bird sits in: an understated detail that’s easy to miss.
Equally easy to overlook is the brilliance of the house sourdough baguette ($5): a lacquered thing of bubbly beauty that’s chewy rather than crusty as most Perth baguettes tend to be. It’s sawed into thick lengths and served with a lush, gently funky butter that, as a duo, tastes like anything but subsistence food.
House-baked bread also stars in the Instagram-famous crab toast ($12) featuring a mayonnaise-bound marble of seafood mounted on a raft of brioche. I’m not sure if it’s correct to describe a two-bite snack as tall as a Lego figurine as “statuesque” but it feels apt in this instance. The offer of crab toast on the dessert menu (“round two?“) alongside dense crème caramels ($18) and other traditional sweets further illustrates the Atkinsons’ capacity for madcap thinking.
Yet despite such eccentricities – see grungy, Basquiat-style artwork, plus an untethered soundtrack that swings from swamp funk to cool Womack & Womack covers – Le Rebelle has the substance to back its freewheeling, brazen style. True, its menu might not be as large or far-reaching as previous seasons, but by keeping the edit tight, the focus shifts to consistency rather than constant (re)invention: just the salve, I think, for these uncertain times when life presents us with excuses to celebrate.
For some, the Atkinsons’ fidelity to how-things-used-to-be will be irresistible. For others, the draw is a kitchen and floor team that knows when to follow the rules and when to flaunt them. Some, naturally, just want tasty things on plates and in glasses. Whichever category best describes you, I think you’re going to like what you see at Le Rebelle.
The low-down
Vibe: some things old, some things new, some things borrowed, some things (red, white and) blue.
Go-to dish: The Crab Toast (capitals are the writer’s own)
Drinks: a cool, democratic cellar featuring European and Australian wines across all styles and price points, plus French café-style cocktails.
Cost: about $200 for two, excluding drinks.
Restaurant reviews, news and the hottest openings served to your inbox.
Max Veenhuyzen is a journalist and photographer who has been writing about food, drink and travel for national and international publications for more than 20 years. He reviews restaurants for the Good Food Guide.
