Locals hardly recognise their surroundings as Steve’s these day because owner Murray McHenry has given the old Nedlands pub a serious makeover.
Major renovations have helped bewilder the regulars who gather in the front bar. Even Steve’s Café has been given a hairdo and polish.
The café is a great spot on a wet and windy Sunday and generally the food is hearty nosh and reasonably priced.
A late Sunday lunch saw a group of us head for this dining room on the embankment of the Swan River.
Baskets of freshly-made Turkish bread went well with the day’s potage of ginger-spiced pumpkin soup ($5.50).
The pie of the day ($12.00) was a hearty dish but it begged the question: when is a pie not a pie?
Steve’s Café’s version was typical of many today, particularly in the café scene.
This tasty, Guinness and beef pie wore a savoury, puff pastry chapeau and looked magnificent.
These ‘café pies’ don’t have a pastry base and come to the table in their dish. Pie or simply a hot-pot with a cap?
Bottom or no bottom these are pies, a version English cooks would call ‘deep-dish’.
With the deep-dish pie came a swag of golden oil-fried potato chips and a pleasant salad.
The small menu offers a lamb fillet served on sweet potato with a mint jus ($17.50), Tuscan chicken breast filled with spinach and brie and dressed with a sundried tomato and pesto sauce ($17.50), vegetarian lasagna ($15.50), polo con vodka ($15.50 large, $10 small) – chicken breast and spinach in a cream vodka sauce – spaghetti marinara $(15.50), kangaroo and emu medallions on beetroot mash with caramelised bush fruit ($14.50) and a daily hot pot ($14.50).
