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Cicerello's is still the Fremantle fish and chips that everyone ends up at
Lifestyle

Cicerello's is still the Fremantle fish and chips that everyone ends up at

Paper plates, free aquariums and a boardwalk over the harbour.

Everything Perth
12 October 2026 · 5 min read

There are fancier places to eat seafood in Fremantle. There are quieter ones too. But ask someone from Perth where to take a visitor for fish and chips and the answer, sooner or later, is Cicerello's.

The restaurant sits on the boardwalk at 44 Mews Road, in the middle of Fishing Boat Harbour. The business traces its history to 1903 and describes itself as a third-generation, family-owned Fremantle operation. It is open from 9.30am to 8pm every day of the year except Christmas Day.

Fremantle Fishing Boat Harbour with Cicerello's and its boardwalk umbrellas across the water
Fishing Boat Harbour on a winter afternoon, with Cicerello's umbrellas lining the boardwalk.

How it works

This is counter service, not a white-tablecloth lunch. You queue under a wall of digital menu boards, order, and carry your meal to a table inside the big timber-framed hall or out on the boardwalk over the water.

That set-up is a large part of the appeal. Nobody is waiting on you, nobody minds how long you sit, and nobody looks twice at a pram, a sandy towel or a table of twelve.

Customers ordering at the counter at Cicerello's beneath digital menu boards
The order counter. Pick from the boards, pay, then find a table.

The food

The menu is built around the thing the place is famous for. Fish comes fried or grilled, and around it sits the rest of a traditional harbour menu: prawns, crab, local lobster, chilli mussels and full seafood platters.

The Deluxe Fish & Chips is the classic order: two large battered fillets laid over thick-cut chips, with coleslaw and a pot of tartare. It arrives on a paper plate. That is not a complaint. It is exactly how fish and chips beside a working harbour should arrive.

If you would rather use a spoon, the seafood chowder is the other dish regulars talk about. The large bowl comes loaded with mussels in the shell and prawns, with a crusty roll on the side for the last of it.

A large bowl of seafood chowder with mussels and a crusty bread roll at Cicerello's
The large chowder, with mussels in the shell and a roll for mopping up.

Portions lean generous. Over winter the restaurant ran its "Australia's Biggest Fish and Chips" promotion, a $58.80 platter of wild-caught hoki and chips meant to feed two or three people.

The aquariums

The feature that sets Cicerello's apart from every other fish and chip shop is in the middle of the room. The restaurant says it hosts WA's largest private free aquariums, and the long tanks of coral and reef fish run right beside the queue.

For parents this is the secret weapon. Children who would otherwise be climbing the furniture will stand with their noses to the glass until the food is ready.

A long aquarium tank inside Cicerello's Fremantle, next to the menu stand
The aquariums are free to look at and sit beside the queue.

The setting

The other thing you are paying for is the harbour. Fishing boats tie up a few metres from the tables, the Norfolk Island pines of the Esplanade stand behind, and on a still day the water does most of the decorating.

It is also a short walk from the rest of a Fremantle day out, which is why it works so well as the lunch stop between the markets, the Maritime Museum and Bathers Beach.

Cicerello's Landing seen from the water, with a blue fishing boat moored in front
Cicerello's Landing from the water, with a fishing boat moored out the front.

Cicerello's or Kailis?

You cannot write about Cicerello's without mentioning the neighbour. Kailis Fishmarket Cafe is a short stroll along the same harbour, and which one is better is among Perth's longest-running food arguments.

The usual case for Cicerello's is that it is the bigger, cheaper and more relaxed of the two, with the better view and the aquariums. The usual case for Kailis is that it is a little more polished. Plenty of locals settle it by alternating.

Who it suits

  • Families: the aquariums, the space and the paper plates make this one of the easiest places in Fremantle to feed children.
  • Visitors: if you have friends or family in town, this is the postcard version of fish and chips in WA.
  • Big groups: counter ordering means everyone pays for their own, and there is room to push tables together.

It suits a quiet, lingering dinner for two less well. It is big and busy, and at weekend lunchtimes you should expect a queue and a hunt for a table.

The verdict

Cicerello's is not trying to be the best restaurant in Fremantle. It is trying to be the place where you eat fish and chips by the water with whoever you brought along, and it has been doing that for longer than anyone alive can remember.

Go on a sunny weekday if you can, order the fish and chips, sit outside, and guard your chips from the seagulls.

Need to know

  • Where: 44 Mews Road, Fishing Boat Harbour, Fremantle
  • Open: 9.30am to 8pm daily, closed Christmas Day
  • Service: order at the counter, dine in or take away
  • Also at: the Mandurah foreshore
  • Phone: (08) 9335 1911

This article draws on Cicerello's published information and on photographs taken at the restaurant. Hours, menus and prices can change, so check with the restaurant before you go.

Photo credits

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