The Rose and Crown Hotel, is a stunning heritage building set on a leafy Swan Street in Guildford. It is the second oldest operating pub in Australia. The grand old building, which is over 175 years old, has been restored beautifully.
We’ve visited the historic hotel many times over the years for family meals. It’s somewhere we like to have long lunches, drinks with friends and take overseas guests to. We just love any excuse for a bite to eat in the shady beer garden. Little Chef also discovered every child’s favourite dessert, “Frog in a pond” and devours on a warm summers day.
The Rose and Crown is also lovely in winter. We’ve often stopped by on a chilly day and eaten indoors, by the roaring fire. But the highlight is definitely the beer garden, I cannot rave enough about it! If you’ve never been, do yourself a favour and go and have a lazy afternoon in the sun dappled garden.
On this day I was meeting my parents for my birthday. We wanted to meet somewhere near the Swan Valley that had good food, but was casual enough for kids. We sat in the beer garden with a glass of wine, while Little Chef busily chatted and coloured in. It’s also a good spot for a bit of plane spotting as the pub sits under the Perth Airport flight path, so there’s lots of low flying jumbos, which excited Little Chef.
We all had a delicious lunch. My Dad’s master stock pork belly was the pick of the bunch. A generous slab of flavoursome pork belly is served with tender grilled Freo octopus, a herb salad, crispy pork scratching and an apple gel.
As well as our main dishes we shared some hand cut chips with smoked aioli too – possibly the chunkiest chips I’ve ever had! They were very tasty.
There’s a decent choice on the kids menu. Little Chef picks the fish and chips. The fish is really good quality and there’s plenty of fries to dunk in the tomato sauce.
He finished his lunch with a yummy “Frog in a pond” a freddo frog in lime jelly. For kids, there’s plenty of high chairs, as well as changing facilities and free kids colouring packs to keep them amused too.
Each part of the hotel oozes with history, especially in The Cellar.
Found down a steep staircase, the little bar is hired out for private functions and that’s where you’ll also find the old well.
We all enjoyed our lunch. The menu is more than your standard pub fare, it’s executed very well and is well and truly in gastro pub territory. The food is consistently good, which is why I’ll be back again and again for family meals.
Find the Rose and Crown at 105 Swan Street, Guildford.
Find more family friendly restaurants
Find more things to do in the Swan Valley
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Amanda Carlin has her own food and travel blog. Established in 2013, “The Chef, His Wife and Their Perth-fect Life” has enjoyed an exciting name change in 2021, as “The Chef’s Ex-wife” embarks on new adventures with Simply PERTHfect. Amanda loves getting out and about in Perth and WA, as well as brunching, tapas or something a little fancy in equal measures. With her son “Little Chef” in tow, Amanda always has plenty of family friendly eating options to recommend too! Be sure to check out Simply PERTHfect.
