The Principal Bar & Restaurant review: Midland pub earns solid grades for affordable tucker and sharp service

Who’s your favourite principal? Professor Albus Dumbledore? Miss Trunchbull? Seymour SKINNNEEEERRR! Mine might just be The Principal in Midland, a bar and restaurant partly housed in a 1901 brick and metal building that does Mediterranean-leaning pub classics and has a wee wine shop full of Swan Valley drops tucked in its nether regions. The heritage-listed venue gets its name from the fact it was once the home of the headmaster of one of Midland’s oldest schools. The principal in question was Mr Richard Hand. I bet students of the day struggled to come up with any ribald nicknames. The heritage part of this Midland pub is attractive — all high ceilings, wooden floors and wooden furniture. The extension is more like a suburban shopping centre cafe. Metal chairs squeal on the hard floor like fingernails on a blackboard. There’s a nice alfresco area, although calling the beer garden that might get you clobbered by one of the locals chain-smoking outdoors under one of the large umbrellas. Midland has mostly resisted gentrification. On our stroll from the train station, where a young tradie tried to sell schoolkids video game controllers out of his backpack, we passed massage parlours, tattooists and a few folks getting a head-start on the long weekend. All seemed under control at The Principal, which sits opposite the Midland Gate shopping centre. In the old part of the building, two long tables of work colleagues enjoyed a feed on the company slate, while couples and mates were sprinkled throughout the rest of the building. One of the two floor staff let us pick our table, the start of what was surprisingly superb and sharp service for a pub where you order at the bar. Our waiter was excellent. He knew when to hold our mains, checked in and indulged in a little banter without it getting awkward. The Principal has around a dozen mostly uninspiring wines by the glass, including piccolos of Yellow Tail. Let the Yanks drink that stuff. There are some bottles and beers from Mandoon Estate in nearby Caversham worth trying. We shared a bottle of Old Vine Grenache that was brilliant value. It’s well worth popping into the teeny wine shop to find something. Part of the reason why we sent ourselves to The Principal was because Plating Up WA runs throughout June. The Midland pub is among 45 local venues showcasing local produce, in their case big, juicy Shark Bay scallops in the half shell, baked with lemon-zested chorizo and chimichurri, with a garden salad for $25. As we savoured these delicious morsels fashioned by head chef Ken Enriquez, Aussie singer-songwriter Alex Lloyd’s big hit Amazing played over the venue’s sound-system. “Food was amazing,” I hummed as I licked the shell (surely, such behaviour would earn me a dozen tastes of the cane back in Mr Hand’s days). Our other starter was the Tennessee wings ($18), four Pluck-a-Duck-sized crispy AF chook wings offering subtle-to-no spice served with a jalapeno mayo. These were greasy finger lickin’ good but nothing fancy. Be careful picking up a glass after handling these guys. A smashed vessel might earn you a few days of detention. One of The Principal’s most popular dishes is the pork and prawn salad ($26), a substantial bowl of pork belly and tiger prawns on a salad of baby spinach, cabbage, julienned carrot, sliced radish, mint and coriander, sprinkled in sesame seeds and fried shallots, and drizzled in Thai nam jim dressing. While I can see why this is top of the class, the pork belly lets the dish down — it had no crunch. Make that pork crackle and this is an A-plus lunchtime offering. The Principal is not a finalist in this year’s coveted WA’s Best Steak Sandwich competition, run by the Australian Hotels Association, but they should consider entering in 2026. For a very reasonable $27, the Midland pub plates up a 150g porterhouse steak smothered in tomato and capsicum relish, caramelised onion and melted cheddar cheese in a charred Turkish panini, with well-salted golden flat-cut chips and tomato sauce. There was nothing too funky here. Chef clearly sticks to the curriculum. The sandwich was fangable, that is, easily bitten through without dragging the steak out with half the accompaniments, leaving you with a bread roll. Like most of menu, the price is right and the food is good. We finished with the sticky date pudding ($14), which was, crucially, not served hot enough. Both the sauce and pudding needed a few more spins in the microwave so that the former soaked into the later. Instead, the sauce sat on top of the pudding like a sad, increasingly gelatinous toupee. That was a pity, as the cake had a good balance of ginger and other spices. We would have sent it back for a blast, but the vanilla ice-cream was melting and our bottle of grenache had somehow sprung a leak. Quick note: when we arrived, they did not have our booking. This is the second time that has happened recently, both times with the same Sydney-based mobile app. Please get in touch if you’ve had a similar experience. This is not a destination dining experience, unless you live in Midland. If that’s the case, then being sent to The Principal might just be the best thing that happens to your day. The Principal Bar & Restaurant 23 Cale Street, Midland OPEN Daily, 10am-late CONTACT 9250 2995, theprincipal.com.au BOOKINGS Yes THE VERDICT Midland bar, restaurant and wine shop nails pub dishes with a Mediterranean flourish. Visit the wine shop bursting with decent Swan Valley drops and avoid the by-the-glass options. If Alex Lloyd starts playing, I’m sorry. 13.5/20