gistfile1.pl

#!/usr/bin/env perl

use Mojolicious::Lite;
use Mojo::ByteStream 'b';
use Mojo::JSON;

use utf8;
...

our $dbh = DBI->connect("dbi:mysql:dbname=cli;host=localhost",
	'user', 'pass',
	{ PrintError => 0, RaiseError => 1 });

$dbh->do("SET NAMES utf8");
$dbh->do("SET CHARACTER SET utf8");
$dbh->do("SET character_set_connection=utf8");
$dbh->do("SET character_set_client=utf8");
$dbh->do("SET character_set_server=utf8");
$dbh->do("SET character_set_results=utf8");

get '/' => sub {
        ...

        my $rows = $dbh->selectall_arrayref(q{
            select title from contract where id = ?
        }, {}, $id);
        
        grep { grep { $_ = b($_)->decode('UTF-8') } @$_ } grep { $_ } @$rows ;

	$self->render( 'rows' => $rows );
}

Если обернуть запросик в b("..")->decode('UTF-8') рендерится нормально.