PERTH is an expensive place to live, there’s no doubt about it.

But a few weeks in Europe recently gave me some perspective as to where we sit in global terms as an expensive location in which to stay or eat out.

The measure of just how expensive any given city is starts with the cost of accommodation.

In Australia, for about $400 a night, you can stay very comfortably in most CBD five-star establishments, except for during certain festive occasions such as Cup or Grand Final weeks in Melbourne.

Camera Icon Perth QC Tom Percy. Credit: News Corp Australia

By contrast, in Rome and Paris recently, the $400 budget would barely get me into a very modest, non-CBD, two or three-star hotel.

At the height of the mining boom, Australian hotels (those in Perth especially) were right up there with the most expensive places around, but more recently it seems to have levelled out.

To stay at the equivalent of one of the major hotel chains that operate in Australia you would have to pay up to double what you would here.

There are cheaper options available if you look around carefully, but they are inevitably inconveniently located and well below par compared with their Australian counterparts.

And as to food, the price comparison isn’t always that easy because the fare on offer is so different to what we have come to expect at home.

At first glance the average Parisian or Roman cafe or trattoria doesn’t look that much more expensive than your average Perth restaurant or pub (after doing the euro to dollar conversion). But on closer examination the servings are invariably smaller, and the quality and choice is distinctly inferior to our own.

The selection of fish and meat in particular is fairly grim.

Nowhere is there anything remotely like the snapper, red emperor or dhufish, which we are spoiled with in WA. Just nothing at all. The available shellfish, while not that expensive by our standards, is pedestrian by comparison.

And if you fancy a decent steak or cut of lamb, don’t hold your breath. It’s procurable, but pricey, and doesn’t start to approach the quality you would expect at home.

Dining out every night at some fairly respectable establishments I never saw a T-bone or a rib-eye feature on a single menu. (One place we went to in Cinque Terre was offering “air dried horse with rocket and parmesan”, but we decided to pass on that.)

Camera Icon Horse anyone? A cafe in Italy. Credit: News Limited, TriggerPhoto

The salads on offer are also sadly tres ordinaire. They are very standard affairs that would be put to shame by the average suburban WA pub.

At the end of my trip I felt as though I was in serious jeopardy of coming down with scurvy if I ate one more pizza or bowl of pasta, and was firmly of the view that when it comes to French or Italian cuisine, as to quality, variety and price we are surprisingly — but decisively — ahead of the pack.

By any standard our better Italian restaurants and cafes, particularly the established ones in West Perth and Northbridge, are world class, and more than competitive price-wise.

But there are other intangible things that we sometimes take for granted in Perth. Like not having to pay to go to the toilets at public and private facilities; not having to pay a “cover charge” (as it is called on the bill) for service; and not having to endure the unnerving spectacle of uniformed soldiers with loaded sub-machine guns on patrol as you eat dinner.

While the last is, I suspect, a luxury we may not enjoy for much longer, it did serve to remind me that as expensive as Perth may be these days, the figure on the bottom line of the bill is just one aspect of the true cost.

— Tom Percy is a Perth QC and can be heard at 7.40am on Thursdays on 6IX.

Follow him on Twitter: @percyqc