WA pioneered the modern craft brew pub. Venues like this are leading the way forward

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“Hey Cali-Veza,” I say, sotto voce, to the resinous, bitter lager in my glass. “I think I can see your place from here.”

Cali-Veza’s place, the microbrewery at the back of Found Subiaco, is about five metres from where I’m sitting in the beer garden.

Locked away behind glass, this cathedral of gleaming steel shining against orange flooring presents clean, well-lit and welcoming. If I ever had beers of my own, I’d want them to grow up somewhere like this.

Despite only opening in late 2024, Found Subiaco already feels like a place firmly entwined in the suburb’s social fabric. Day or night, weekday or weekend: a diverse crowd animates this airy, 300-person hacienda that flies the flag for (brew) pub culture.

Think alfresco seating; house beers at nice prices; lots of rock in the jukebox; plus other details from the blueprint established in the mid-80s by Fremantle’s Sail and Anchor, Australia’s pioneering craft brew pub.

It’s not all beer barn clichés, though. A dedicated unisex bathroom has been erected alongside the usual male and female toilets. A warm vanillin scent from Margaret River’s Luminessence perfumes the little boy’s room: a welcome change-up to the chemical stank of urinal cakes.

Considering the size of Found, management could be forgiven for succumbing to QR code ordering yet, pleasingly, guests buy food and drinks the old-fashioned way – at the bar. It’s one of many details that suggests Found is an operation fuelled by quiet ambition.

Running your finger over the menu confirms that hunch.

Modern-day pub cooking, by nature, requires a big wingspan and Found’s carte is no exception. (It took three visits before I felt I had a firm enough grasp of the food to write this review.)

But while the menu’s breadth is notable, equally remarkable is how much of it that Colombian-born chef Juan Zambrano and his team nail while working at pace and at volume.

You want tavern hits and edible nostalgia? There is fish and chips starring saddletail snapper entombed in a batter made with house lager and paired with chunky crushed – not mushy – peas that I wish there were more of. There is fried chicken. There are toothpicks spearing young Manchego cheese, olives and pickled things: a vegetarian, no-anchovy Gilda that crossbreeds the Basque pintxo classic with a Family Circle hedgehog canape. Who says the West Aussie pub, circa 2026, can only reference British pub culture?

Contemporary wine bar small plates feel like the menu’s other major throughline, as demonstrated by dishes that feel like subliminal advertisements for Found’s sister venues. Tricolour corn chips paired with a vivid tomato salsa would taste right at home at seaside Mexican cantina, El Grotto.

The retro red sauce glamour of Si Paradiso is channelled via nduja-spiked pastas and pizzas fashioned out of long-fermented dough to yield sturdy, LP-sized discs of terrific chew, flavour and puffy crusts. Think of it as high-level, Neapolitan pizza fan fiction written by Peruvian pizzaiolo Jefferson Carbajal that’s built for sharing rather than individual consumption.

At lunch, that same dough gets pulled differently to yield puffy, pita-style wrappers for “sandos” freighting combinations such as airy ruffles of mortadella plus lush La Delizia stracciatella.

While the sandwich strikes me as more oversized taco or rui jia mo (“Chinese-style hamburger”) than especially Japanese, that doesn’t change the fact that these riffs on Italy’s pizza sorriso are one of Subi’s finest solo lunches.

My favourite plates, however, are those enrolled in both the old and new schools. Crunchy potato sticks – pommes paille in French – scattered over a saucy steak tartare called to mind so many packets of crisps sold across the pub counter. Juicy, dainty lamb koftas buzzing with cayenne chilli reframe the kebab as less regrettable post-pub decision and more essential in-game purchase.

The size of the operation, however, means Found’s dining experience occasionally loses its footing. Dry miso eggplant was oddly flavourless. Angus sirloin, while grilled medium-rare as requested, lacked all-important char: a symptom, methinks, of an underperforming hot plate or steak that wasn’t dry enough to develop a decent crust.

Such missteps, though, are the exception rather than the rule. All things considered, Found finds that sweet spot between the (brew)pub our mind’s eye remembers through rose-tinted glasses and the realities of modern-day drinking and dining. A big part of that comes down to the chatty bar staff and the easy-going, everyman energy they bring to the table. (Or bench. Or high top.)

Theirs is precisely the casual, West Aussie brand of hospitality that we all hope to encounter at the (brew)pub yet it feels like it’s getting harder to find.

I’m stoked I’ve Found at least one place keeping the dream alive.

Good Food reviews are booked anonymously and paid independently. A restaurant can’t pay for a review or inclusion in the Good Food Guide.