Welcome to Gino's Cafe

Good range and generous sizes.

Pleasant staff, friendly and helpful

Nice Italian cafe. Old school.

Nice place for breakfast. Good coffee.

Of the several italian cafes on the cappucino strip in fremantle that I used to frequent often, Gino's is the last remaining. A return visit with a friend on the Queen's Birthday Holiday saw the cafe quite busy but with plenty of tables to spare.

On this occasion we decided to go with the blue cheese gnocci and the chicken and avocado salad. The bread came out before we'd even decided which table to sit at followed very quickly by our mains, as oppose to my last visit which had involved a rather long wait. Waiting for our drinks took a little longer as there was a fairly long queue at the drinks counter and I had ordered a fruit whip.

The fruit whip was lovely although my only complaint would be that the menu doesn't give options for flavours as the fellow that took our order wrote down orange and mango flavour without actually asking. It was ok because I liked the flavour, just would have been nice to know that there were other choices.

I normally avoid anything that involves blue cheese as the smell usually puts me off completely, however I decided to give it a go this time because I wanted gnocchi but not with a tomato based sauce. I was pleasantly surprised by the mild flavour although the sauce itself was very heavy and although the portion didn't look all that big it was a bit of a struggle to finish the last couple of pieces. My friend's salad also looked very tasty, consisting of a generous amount of grilled chicken, a whole avocado, pine nuts and gourmet lettuce. They went a little overboard with the balsamic vinegar but the serving seemed just right and not a disproportionate amount of lettuce to the other ingredients.

Overall the bill came to just under $50, which included the 12.5% public holiday surcharge. I didn't mind paying the surcharge so much since it does cost a fair amount extra to hire staff on a public holiday and they only applied the surcharge to the food. Other places we looked at along the same street were charging 15% and including the drinks.

Gino's is a cafe style restaurant situated on the café strip. It is a great place for a coffee and soaking up some of that Freo atmosphere.

I have only ever been here for breakfast and coffee at other times although they do serve both lunch and dinner menus. The breakfasts are excellent, but service can be very slow as it does get exceptionally busy at weekends. With Gino’s it is all about location and atmosphere and good food when you eventually get it!

To celebrate the end of exams, Kefka and I decided to hit the streets of Freo. Not wanting fish and chips this time we wandered up the cafe strip and decided on Gino's, an Italian cafe that has been there as long as I can remember. Its always been busy, no matter what day of the week or time, and this day was no exception. We got there after 1pm and most of the tables outside were chockas, and being a warm day we chose a table inside near the window. Which in hindsight made us quite difficult to spot for the waitstaff.

You have to order at the counter, and are then given a number to put on your table, with menus to be found next to the counter as you line up. We chose to have the gnocci Bolognese and the calamari panini. I must admit I was disappointed at the lack of tortellini on the menu(which I had last time I was there several years ago) and the choices of pasta seemed to be more of a choice of type of pasta rather than sauce ie. penne, linguine, spaghetti, fettuccine or gnocchi.

After we sat down, the waitress brought out a bowl of thickly sliced Italian bread. This is complementary for anyone that dines here and was a nice touch while we waited for our orders.

Unfortunately the food service was otherwise quite slow, as I didn't see many plates come out very regularly and we were waiting for more than half an hour before our meals finally arrived. As it was getting towards 2pm, despite the bread for appetisers, we were quite hungry. And due to our choice of table, the waiter bringing our food didn't see us as he came out and went to look around the other side of the restaurant and outside in the alfresco area before finding us so my calamari panini in particular was lukewarm at best.

The food itself was excellent, the serving size was just huge. The calamari, went cold very quickly, as it generally does, but it had been dipped in lemon juice, lightly floured and fried and was quite tasty. The actual panini was too big to actually eat as it was so it more of calamari, fries and salad with panini bread. The salad was fairly average and the fries were cooked very nicely, and weren't too greasy and quite crispy. The gnocchi looked very appetising as well and got the thumbs up from Kefka. It had a very generous amount of sauce to accompany it and the gnocchi was fresh and tender.

The prices were also quite reasonable, with the menu options costing between $11-20. Pastas averaging about $17 and panini, foccacias and bagels about $13 including fries.

As a bustling cafe on the cappuccino strip in Fremantle there is almost always certain to be buzzing with conversation and I don't think have ever seen this place empty, be it people dining together or just having a coffee.

I went here with fellow reviewer Helor for lunch on a Friday. It's quite a nice place. The restaurant didn't seem cramped despite the large amount of traffic typical of Fremantle - I expect the high ceilings helped out there.

You pay up front at the counter, which was less than five minutes of queuing, and the waitress was quite nice and called us darlings.

We were brought a few complimentary slices of bread and butter while we waited, which was very nice... unfortunately the wait was a bit longer than expected - felt like a little over 30 minutes... The bread was gone within 10.

Anyhow, the food was very good. I had the gnocchi Bolognese, which was a large serve and very tasty. I wont mention what Helor had (gotta save some details for her review!), but she didn't manage to finish it all. ;)

Prices were good - not super-cheap, but the food was well worth the price.

All up, a very nice lunch, despite a bit of a wait.