The Fishing Boat Harbour at Fremantle is exactly what it sounds like: a working harbour where the fishing boats come in, and where several fish-and-chip restaurants and seafood markets have set up along the waterfront to take advantage of that proximity. Cicerello's and Kailis' are the two main establishments and have been feeding Fremantle visitors for decades, offering fresh fish — snapper, barramundi, samson fish — alongside lobster, prawns, and oysters from the WA coast. The setting is the point: plastic tables, seagulls eyeing your chips, boats bobbing in the harbour.
This is not fine dining. It is the kind of seafood eating that Perth does better than most cities precisely because the supply chain is very short and the standard of WA seafood is high. The Western Australian rock lobster (crayfish in local parlance) is particularly worth ordering if you are here when it is in season — it is sweeter and better than most people expect. Come for lunch on a weekday to avoid the weekend queues, eat outside, and bring cash. The harbour is a 15-minute walk from Fremantle train station, or you can walk the waterfront from the town centre. It is one of those places that looks unpromising in photographs and delivers completely when you are there.