My Favourite Freo Street - Henry Street

In this popular Fremantle Shipping News feature – My Favourite Freo Street – we ask a range of Freo folk to nominate their favourite street and tell us why they chose it. In this contribution, Rosslyn de Souza* explains why Henry Street is her instant pick – There’s Something About Henry, she says!

Let me take you on a gentle meander from #5 to #54 Henry Street. This short stretch—lined with small businesses, apartments, galleries and surprises—is quintessentially Freo.

It’s perfect for a slow wander, especially when you’re showing off the town to visitors who think they’ve already “seen it all”.

Once home to merchant family–owned warehouses servicing the colony, Henry Street (and its close cousin, Mouat Street) has gracefully reinvented itself. Today, it hums with the presence of the University of Notre Dame, blending academia with café culture, creativity, and community.

We begin at Phillimore Street, just past the School of Health Sciences, where you’ll find DaRawNature Studio Gallery – Fremantle’s best-kept secret. At #5, an unassuming A-frame sign invites you off the pavement and quite literally up the garden path. Follow the tunnel and you emerge into the most delightful garden, home to an arts-infused café that feels like a discovery. My pick? The chai latte. And if you’re lucky enough to visit on the right week, the intimate two-hour jazz session every second Thursday night is not to be missed.

Directly opposite stands the Lance Holt School. Back in the day, two of my younger grandchildren attended here – and Lance Holt graduation nights are legendary. Nestled between colonial buildings, the school uses every centimetre of its compact campus, with students frequently spilling out into Esplanade Park for junior school playtime. Watching them walk there in double file is about as cute as it gets.

Further along is the Rialto Holiday Apartments and Emporium, lovingly run by Maria and Steve Gorman. Years in the making, this limestone beauty was well worth the wait. Hand-constructed walls and a serene inner courtyard reflect the couple’s Mediterranean heritage, while their eclectic home wares are dangerously hard to resist.

On the corner sits New Edition Bookshop—a Freo institution in its own right—while across the road the soon-to-be-refurbished Orient Hotel is preparing for its next chapter as a Japanese restaurant. Watch this space.

At #34 you’ll find Winterwares, the darling of the street: handmade ceramic tableware and workshops that quietly steal hearts. Next door (same address, even!) is Darling Darling, a tiny bar with room for just 30 patrons—another delicious secret.

Between the two lies a charming, tree-lined pedestrian thoroughfare, privately owned yet publicly accessible, linking Henry Street to Pakenham. It’s open weekdays from 8am to 4pm, then locked away for the weekend like a well-kept secret.

Further on are the Paper Bird Children’s Bookstore (exquisite) and the UND medical library. Across the road, the recently refurbished library in the Michael Wright building invites you in—quiet elegance rules here, but respectful visitors are welcome.

Back over Henry Street is the Moore Contemporary Gallery, currently showing Jane Ryan’s Boom n Bark. Exhibition Manager Pete Volich and Jane herself kindly showed me around—proof again that this is a village tucked inside a town tucked inside a city.

Next door, the Moore Café lives up to its excellent reputation for good food and impeccable service. It never disappoints.

Scattered along the street are beautifully styled apartments, offices and an art gallery framer called Finishing Touch. What a treat it would be to live here!

Give yourself at least an hour to soak it all in. Finish at the corner of Henry and Marine Terrace at the Bistrot Café, with its shady courtyard and access to Esplanade Park across the road, where you’re bound to be cooled on a hot day by the Freo Doctor!

There’s Something About Henry is also the title of a book by C. E. Lemieux Jr—surely available at New Edition Bookshop.

See you there?

By Rosslyn de Souza

*Rosslyn de Souza has been a resident of Fremantle since last century! For many years she worked behind the scenes on community projects until the Covid 19 global ordeal hit. This had a profound effect on her outlook and she decided to take a more public profile around Freo and to lead by example. For her untiring contribution she was awarded the 2025 Fremantle Citizen of the Year. For much more about Rosslyn, tune into our Podcast Interview with Rosslyn De Souza – Fremantle Community Warrior.

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