Beaconsfield Wine Bar Reopens With Kyo Kim in Perth

Beaconsfield Wine Bar is worth watching for Kyo Kim’s cooking: garlicky, soy-enriched beef tartare tucked into bitter radicchio set the tone before the builders arrived, and the reopened Perth south bar now has a kitchen built to give that menu more range. Kim, the Korean-born chef who has led the kitchen since last year, moves from a modest back-of-house setup into a larger, new-look workspace with new equipment, more hot plates and more fridge space.

The change is practical, not decorative. Kim has already sent out tagliolini with earthy Shaoxing wine and tofu parfait alongside the tartare; the added capacity should let him push the hot-food repertoire beyond pasta while keeping the easy rhythm that suits a neighbourhood wine bar. If food is your reason for visiting, the larger kitchen is the detail that matters.

What the Beaconsfield Wine Bar Makeover Means at the Table

Owner Matt Sharples puts the shift neatly.

“The bar has sort of grown up and become what it is now.”

Matt Sharples, owner of Beaconsfield Wine Bar

That maturity shows in the way the room has been adjusted for drinking, eating and lingering. Window counter seats give solo guests a proper perch, built-in ledges keep bottles and plates from crowding the table, newly installed shelves hold food and wine books, and upcycled bentwood chairs bring a familiar, lived-in curve to the refreshed room.

For readers who choose a wine bar by what happens once the first glass is poured, particularly useful change is what the renovation allows at the table. A room does not need theatrical polish to become more compelling; it needs a kitchen with enough control over heat, cold and pace to let a chef’s palate come through clearly.

A 50-Seat Room Reworked for Longer Evenings

Sharples built the original space with room to evolve.

“When we first opened the bar, we had no idea where it was going to go so we designed it with the intention that things could move around and change.”

Matt Sharples

The refreshed version keeps that flexibility but gives it a more settled grammar. A seat in the window can hold a solo glass without making it feel like a compromise; ledges make shared bottles and small plates easier to manage; the bookshelves reward slow browsing over a second pour.

Nothing here suggests a wine bar trying to become formal. The appeal is more precise: a small room learning how its regulars use it, then making those habits easier. Choose the window counter for a solo glass; choose a table if plates from Kim’s kitchen are the point of the evening.

What Kyo Kim’s Bigger Kitchen Changes

More heat and more cold storage can sound prosaic until the first busy service. In a compact venue, those details decide whether a plate arrives with snap, whether mise en place can stretch, and whether a chef can broaden the menu without losing precision.

Kim’s cooking already has a point of view: savouriness, bitterness and texture, with the occasional cross-cultural accent used with restraint. The beef tartare brings soy’s depth against radicchio’s edge; the Shaoxing tagliolini leans into warmth and earth; tofu parfait asks to be taken seriously on texture alone.

The renovation gives that language firmer support. More hot plates ease the pressure when several tables want warm food at once, while expanded refrigeration gives the kitchen more room to prepare and hold components with confidence. Expect the strongest payoff when you order warm dishes and small plates rather than treating the bar as a one-glass stop.

Walk-Ins Still Shape Beaconsfield Wine Bar

Access remains part of the charm. Most of Beaconsfield Wine Bar’s 50 seats^# will continue to be held for walk-ins, while the makeover has also made more tables available to book.

That balance matters in Perth’s south. Locals can still arrive on instinct, but diners making a deliberate trip to Beaconsfield now have more certainty. Too much structure can make a wine bar feel stiff; too little can make it hard to recommend for a planned evening. This sits in the useful middle.

The play is simple: book if Kim’s food is the reason for crossing town, walk in if the night starts with the thought of one glass and no fixed end point.

Perth’s South Adds More Wine-Led Openings

Fremantle has movement of its own. Emma Pegrum and Tom Van Beem, the owners of Northbridge’s pioneering Wines of While, ran a temporary Cafe Music pop-up in the former Prestige Italian Cafe on Phillimore Street during Fremantle’s Arrival Festival, which ended June 6, 2026.^#

Cafe Music may return in some form, but the venue’s future is open-ended.

In Beaconsfield, Canadian chef Shauna Shapiro is now at Ripple Brewing from Thursday to Sunday with Shapiro’s Shop, rotisserie chicken by the quarter, half or whole, plus sides, a fish finger sandwich and a plant-based schnitzel.^# Shapiro is known locally for time at Madalena’s and for Polly’s Bagels, a pop-up shaped by the cooking of her Jewish grandmother.

For wine drinkers, Beaconsfield Wine Bar remains the more focused address: small scale, a clearer kitchen brief, and a room newly tuned for bottles, plates and unhurried evenings. If your south-side list is getting longer, put this one in the chef-led wine bar column.

Beaconsfield Wine Bar’s next chapter will be measured quietly: one plate from Kim’s larger kitchen, one glass at a time, and a neighbourhood room grown just enough without losing its ease.