Perth Halal Desi restaurant fined $72,000 over nine food breaches

A Belmont restaurant that markets itself as a trusted source of authentic Halal Desi food has been fined $72,000 after inspectors found nine serious food-safety breaches that went to the basics of running a safe kitchen. The case against PIND Restaurant, at 43 Belvidere Street in Perth’s east, centered on failures that any shift manager would recognize as operational red flags: pest control gaps, food stored in ways that risked contamination, potentially hazardous food kept at the wrong temperature, and kitchen equipment that was not maintained to a clean standard.

The City of Belmont prosecuted the case after council inspectors made at least two visits in the space of a week in November 2025. By April 10, 2026, the WA Department of Health had convicted the operator, PAK Global Pty Ltd, over breaches of the Food Standards Code and the Food Act. The restaurant said it would appeal both the finding and the penalty.

For workers inside the business, the fallout is immediate. A pest-control failure can trigger extra cleaning, disposal of stock, and tighter delivery checks. Temperature-control breaches can force food to be binned and prep schedules to be rewritten around fresh batches and shorter holding times. Poor kitchen cleanliness also points to supervision problems, because it usually means the breakdown was not a single mistake but a routine that was allowed to slide across multiple shifts.

The case also adds to the pressure on restaurant operators across Western Australia, where health regulators have kept a public offenders list for 24 months after conviction. That list is designed to keep food-safety failures visible long after a fine is paid, which can matter for bookings, staffing confidence, supplier relationships and reopening plans.

The $72,000 penalty sits below some of the state’s bigger food-safety sanctions, but it is still a serious hit for an independent restaurant. PerthNow has reported that the largest restaurant food-safety fine in WA to date was $215,000 plus almost $2,000 in costs against Metro Indian Restaurant in Subiaco in 2019 for eight breaches. Nandos in Willetton was also fined $160,000 in 2024 for hygiene problems including a rat infestation.

PIND Restaurant’s public profile makes the penalty harder to ignore. The venue had 231 Google reviews and a 4.5-star average, a reminder that a strong front-of-house reputation does not shield a kitchen from enforcement when basic controls fail. In a trade already stretched by turnover, burnout and thin margins, the case shows how quickly compliance breakdowns can become a direct business cost.