The Mantle Piece

The Mantle

Kailis Fish Market Cafe Relaunched as a Contemporary Seafood Market

The Fremantle Fishing Boat Harbour stalwart reopened with a new 80s-inspired look, dedicated raw bar and focus on underutilised fish and seafood.

George Kailis was 12 when he first pulled on the gumboots at Kailis Fish Market Cafe, the restaurant his father Victor opened at Fremantle Fishing Boat Harbour in December 1986.

“I only started [working] so young because it was the only way that I could see my dad,” he says. “He worked so much.”

Last September, Kailis wrote the restaurant’s next chapter when it unveiled the new, updated Kailis Fish Market Cafe with dedicated fry, raw bar and barbecue sections together with bar and sweet sections.

“Times have changed as has the local hospitality scene,” says Kailis. “Kailis Freo is aging so it’s time to go to town on it. I

love the business like a child so this is a very passionate project for me. We will be totally embracing the simplicity of who we are as a fish and chippery in a market style setting.”

Encouragingly, the new cafe will join the growing number of venues shining a light on traditionally underused, value-formoney species such as mullet, herring, and garfish.

The plan, according to Kailis, is to buy a market bin of something interesting each morning at market and serve it as a lunch special until sold out.

Renowned seafood chef Peter Manifis will oversee the food at the new Kailis Fish Market Cafe – promising news for those that remember Manifis’s South Perth seafood restaurant, InContro. Whiting, whitebait, sardines and fish wings – a once-discarded off-cut that’s now found favour among eaters and chefs – are among the things that will go into the fryer; prawns and lobsters will get a star turn on the barbecue; the raw bar will serve oysters, crudos, poke bowls and

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ceviches. Chowder will be served inside a sourdough roll, San Francisco-style, and the kitchen team are fine-tuning special dishes including a sea urchin waffle and raw seafood cocktail.

While the cooking is updated, Kailis looked backwards for design inspiration and describes the rebooted cafe’s aesthetic as “80s fish and chip shop meets New York City Jewish deli”. Paul Lim from Mata Design – the same studio that transformed Kailis at Trigg Beach into Island Market Trigg – was behind the makeover and insists the new space is free of cliched fishing nets, ropes and other tired seafood restaurant clichés.

Kailis Fish Market Cafe, which seats around 550 guests, (currently less due to the virus) is an accessible take on the waterside seafood restaurant.

Those ordering from the fry section (the largest of the market’s four dedicated counters) can choose from seven different fish fillets. Fremantle sardines and Shark Bay king prawns – shell and head on – are in the whole-seafood fry section. A

fish fillet burger headlines the appealing “in-a-bun” section that features, among other things, the criminally overlooked chip butty.

From the raw bar and grill station, in addition to classic cold seafood (shellfish, crabs, shucked-to-order oysters), guests can hook into bright crudos – big eye tuna, perhaps – dressed with olive oil, finely diced red onion and parsley. There is also a rock lobster and lettuce salad, grilled Shark Bay cuttlefish, savoury waffles, deep-fried fish wings and whole Rottnest Island herring.

The drink list has been put together with speed and accessibility in mind. There’s a gin and tonic on tap, and three house-bottled cocktails (Espresso Martini, Cosmopolitan, Negroni). A sharp 50-bottle wine list from Nina Throsby offers sharply priced Vouvray and Beaujolais by-the-glass. By-thebottle prices start at $23.50, and recommendations for wine and seafood matching are available. www.kailis.com