It’s hard to miss Corner 33…
After all, the new café isn’t just perched on the corner of Canning Highway – but emblazoned with a bold cherry-red awning and stripe of red across its exterior.
And while the exterior is boldly vibrant – what’s inside balances bold flavours with a more gentle, welcoming kind of comfort.
“We want people, when they arrive, to just feel comfortable – that’s our main driving force,” says Will Nguyen, who co-owns the café alongside friends Khai Hoan Vu and D’Angelo Nguyen.
“We noticed around this area it’s a very relaxed neighbourhood, so we wanted to dive into that – give people another option, to sit around and chat with their friends and family. And you can see that in our food as well: it’s hearty meals, everything is big portions! It’s comfort, for sure.”
“We want to be the local, neighbourhood diner – that’s the vibe that we’re trying to go for.”
Will’s expertise is more behind-the-scenes, focusing on the marketing and business side of things, while chef Khai takes the lead in the kitchen, bringing his experience working in Japanese kitchens (Nobu, Melbourne’s Komeyui) to the diner-inspired menu.
That means the signature “Benny 33” is served with not just 12-hour braised beef short ribs, but onsen eggs and mis hollandaise. Avo on toast is given a makeover with whipped ricotta and a yuzu miso glaze, while the signature pancakes – thick, fluffy, golden, and able to convert this pancake skeptic into a believer – are drizzled in a soy-spiked maple honey syrup.
(Pairing the fluffy pancakes with old-school crockery and retro furniture, the diner influences are hard to ignore – but the team’s passion for generous portions drive the more American-leaning point home.)
Japanese Influences are a little more overt in the “After 9AM” menu, which features a chicken katsu sando, katsu fish burger and curry beef shepherd’s pie – although the chicken katsu features a spicy gochujang aioli, and the katsu fish burger undoubtedly draws most of its influenced from a super-charged, platonic ideal of a filet-o-fish.
“We didn’t plan to be a Japanese-influenced place,” laughs Khai. “It was just meant to be Asian, but to be honest my Asian is really just Japanese food – so it turned out that way and we just ran with it!”
“It was mainly just our favourite foods, and because Khai had a background in the Japanese place, he would add his influence, his knowledge into it,” adds Will.
“I just looked at food where I was like ‘Wow, I really want to eat that!’,” continues Khai. “Whenever I want to eat something like a katsu sando, I want to find a decent katsu sando that I would love to indulge in.”
“If I cook for someone, I want to make sure it’s the best, and I want to make sure it’s from the heart. So everything I’ve produced so far is literally something that I would want to eat personally!”
With a background in cocktails (he and Khai met while working at a CBD bar together), D’Angelo adopts a similar approach to the specialty drink menu.
“My background is in bartending, so coffee in general is fairly new. But in terms of getting ingredients right, down to the T, we just want to get everything right from the start – the syrup, the milk, where we’re sourcing ingredients. We want to make sure everything is done the right way.”
“Anything that comes out, we all have a say in it, we all test it – a lot of our dishes and drinks we’ve tested many times, over and over again ’til we get it right. And that’s just what we do, we want to make sure everything comes out right.”
The technicolour menu of specialty drinks hits all the right notes coming into summer: coconut matcha cloud, Mont Blancs, yuzu matcha tonic. For those more inclined towards a goth colour palette, the black cloud hojicha, topped with salted black sesame cold foam, was a highlight – but the traditional Vietnamese iced coffee topped with salted vanilla cold foam was what we found ourselves daydreaming about for the week after.
Working with friends isn’t always easy, but Will credits the collaborative effort as one of the highlights of the process – with plans in motion for evening service collaborations with chef friends in the new year, including Stephen Chen from Nieuw Ruin and Azabu head chef Zac Koo.
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“It all just feels good – it’s stressful for sure, but it’s a good stress! We’re very privileged.”
“We all have a strong passion with our creativity, and we felt like Corner 33 was that hub to showcase that creativity, with all of our different departments.”
“We just want to gain as much knowledge as possible. We’re still very young, we’re still learning, absorbing everything – that’s the whole point. It’s good that it’s us three, because if it was just one of us, no one would be able to. We’ve got each other’s back, we can lean on each other.”
Corner 33 is located at 126B Canning Highway, South Perth.
Image credits: Perth is OK! / Sally Hall