Il Cibo

Do yourself a favour. Sit outside in the sun. Order the salmon eggs benidict, but with less sauce. Grab a latte, to go (for the extra height). Great breakfast spot. Walk down to freo.

This café is glorious for singles with a book or loved-​up couples who want to sit together enjoying the ambience, sipping a decent latte, listening to eclectic tunes and devouring something home-​made.
Il Cibo is NOT glorious if you have children. A babycino, folks, is made of milk froth. That’s it. A babycino, Il Cibo barista, is not made of boiling milk served to the top of a small espresso cup and plonked on the table in front of a toddler. Seriously, if it’s on the coffee menu, learn how to make it for safety’s sake…
… and also for the sake of peace of mind for Freo mothers who just want to eat a glorious muffin and enjoy a well-​made latte, while their toddler is quiet for five minutes licking the froth from the babycino cup. Just give me my five minutes, Il Cibo!
Enough said. I like Il Cibo… but only if I’m on my own!

Coffee was nice. Eggs benedict required DIY assembly which was strange, but not a huge issue. Needed more hollandaise! I could sit there with my book while waiting for the fella to finish his fun run, undisturbed. Food/​coffee came out quite quickly.

Not the best coffee in Freo but still good. It’s closest walking distance to my work so I could quite easily make it my regular for my morning cup of joe, but those prices and loveless service make that extra walk to Grumpy’s all the more worthwhile.
I do however love the rainbow of healthy, vegetarian lunch options — salads, tuna patties, chickpea patties… I would eat here every other day if prices were half of what they are, which is why it’s a fortnightly treat for me.
The sweets? Be delighted. Homemade passionfruit pavlova roulade, sticky date cake with butterscotch sauce and some extremely tempting plum and dark chocolate muffins!

Il Cibo is slowly starting to become a local hot spot in Fremantle, with very grand claims about the coffee being made. If someone tells me that their roast might just knock Hush off their pedestal of barista glory, I’m there with bells on a hands flailing whilst shouting «SHOW ME THE CREMA!» So anyways, my friend from work whom I consider a wise monk on all things gastronomical suggested I give this place a go.
My first impression is that they’re channeling the same aesthetic as Hush with their concrete floors and chalk board menu. However, Il Cibo seats a lot more hungry people, and their menu is definitely a winner. Gluten-​free and vegan choices, hello! I order a chickpea and coriander patty and find it quite fulfilling. Coffee is quite flavoursome, strong and has me in zing for hours. Oh, and WiFi is free too! If you need to get some work done, I recommend sitting in the front section as the tables are spacious, providing ample room to spread out with your lap top, and it’s less noisy than the other dining room.

Il Cibo provides the punters of Fremantle a relaxed contemporary café to enjoy a coffee and some modern Australian fare whilst watching the world go by. A favourite of many in the Fremantle locale, Il Cibo has deservingly earnt it’s place at the top for casual eateries in the area. The venue is divided up in to two rooms with an outdoor area providing a great al fresco area. The coffee is consistently great! There is a great range of healthy options to meet the demands of the local health and sustainably minded people of Fremantle, but there are also some fuller flavoured options. My boyfriend’s dad Storman Norman gives it the elusive two thumbs up and has become a staunch regular of the café. I find a good metric for a café of this kind is the all day breakfast, and as expected it delivered on flavour and value. The best element of Il Cibo is the menu as it is as well rounded as the historic Round House also in the area.

Il Cibo hits all the right buttons. Let’s start with the first one it hits, which is the design that hits you when you first enter. The place is divided into numerous zones: the front section, near the espresso machine, where those eating breakfast or enjoying their morning caffeine hit tend to congregate; the communal table, with its piles of communally-​read-​and-​torn-​apart newspapers; and the back section, beyond the counter, where the pumpkin-​and-​almond salad and Italian sausage rolls can be ogled and where one can take lunch looking out onto the street. The whole place is especially conducive to summer, when the large windows are opened and the outside comes in.
While the place is named after the food – «Il Cibo» actually means «the food» in Italian – the drinks are probably the biggest draw. And when I say the drinks, I really mean the coffee. Not that the rest of the drinks aren’t worth drinking. The juices are named after Hollywood icons: Dean, Frank, Audrey, Marilyn. There are various cocktails on offer. But the coffee is good, strong and addictive, and there’s much to be said for sitting beneath the wall of messages scrawled in chalk and various languages and taking your time with it.