‘Dullsville?’ Justin Blackford repeats the question under his breath. Then, towards a rum-crammed shelf, he shoots a grin that’s simultaneously born of laughter and mild exasperation, his hefty beard following every twitch of his expression. He recovers and continues: ‘That’s definitely no more. That’s been and gone. The whole centre of Perth has really been revived.’

In fact, Blackford, as the founder of Food Loose Tours, is on a mission to showcase Perth’s newly booming food and drink scene. Not 10 minutes before, he had led me across a gravelly car park to an unmarked door surrounded by graffiti and nonchalantly declared the word ‘Bluestown’ into an oblong peephole that clattered open. That secret password had allowed us entry into Sneaky Tony’s, a buzzing, hidden, rum-focused cocktail bar down a laneway (that’s Australian for alley) in Perth’s Northbridge district.

And yet here I was, surrounded by the revelry and blues-tinged rock’n’roll of a Friday night, raising the Dullsville’ tag that once plagued the city.

A bit of background: back in 2000, travel guide Lonely Planet had declared the capital of Western Australia ‘Dullsville’ – and this did not go down well.

Frontpage headlines in local media ensued, as did an endless ream of conflicting examinations of just how unremarkable Perth actually was.

Yet in truth, Perth had never claimed to be the centre of excitement or a food and drink hub. It’s a sprawling city of just over two million, where an easy, breezy small-town atmosphere prevails. Tourists have been drawn here to take in the postcard views of Cottesloe Beach, sample Fremantle’s heritage or enjoy the green expanse of Kings Park, often on the way to Western Australia’s more marquee attractions: Margaret River or Monkey Mia, Pemberton or the Pinnacles.

But was it a bit unexciting? ‘Ten years ago that was fair,’ concedes Blackford, cocktail in hand. ‘The city used to be a ghost town on the weekends. Now the opposite is true.’

That’s because Perth is a different place from what it was a decade ago.

Fuelled partly by a change in licensing laws, partly through the money flowing from the state’s mining boom, small bars and creative restaurants have helped to transform the city into a happening foodie hub. And this change is most pronounced in the centre of the city.