Wellington Seamarket is a fresh seafood market and fish and chip shop with its flagship store on Cuba Street, Te Aro, where it has been trading for over 20 years with fresh fish landing daily. The business has since grown to three Wellington-region stores — Cuba Street, Lambton Quay, and its newest location in Porirua — with a fourth store planned for Lower Hutt.
Alongside the physical shops, Wellington Seamarket runs a seafood home delivery service, offering local fishers' daily catch across categories including crabs, crayfish, lobster and scampi, fresh fillets, mussels, pāua, prawns, salmon, scallops, shellfish, squid and octopus, whitebait and whole fish. Orders for home delivery must be placed by a daily 9am cutoff Monday to Friday, with no weekend deliveries, and are shipped chilled around the Wellington region or couriered nationally with ice packaging.
The fish and chip side of the business is pickup-only, with each store offering fish of the day, premium fillets, lunch specials, burgers, chips, fritters, Kiwi favourites and shellfish. The Porirua store, located right next to Mad Butcher, has plenty of seating for eating in as well as takeaway, with staff cutting and preparing fish to order in front of customers.
Wellington Seamarket started as a single fish market on Cuba Street, and more than 20 years later that Te Aro store remains the flagship, still known for fresh fish landing daily, experienced staff and quality product. Over time the business has expanded into a small network of Wellington-region stores while keeping its focus firmly on fresh, local seafood.
The original Cuba Street store at 220 Cuba Street, Te Aro, anchors the business, open long hours seven days a week. A second store sits at 146 Lambton Quay in the CBD, handy for a fresh fish or fish and chips stop while out and about in town — customers there often mention staff member Salvi as especially knowledgeable and happy to chat about seafood. The newest store is in Porirua at 4 Norrie Street, right next to Mad Butcher, where the team cuts and prepares whole fish to order in front of customers, and there's plenty of seating for eating in as well as taking away. A fourth store is planned for Lower Hutt on Pretoria Street.
Beyond the physical stores, Wellington Seamarket runs a seafood home delivery service, sourcing from local fishers landing daily. The range covers crabs, crayfish, lobster and scampi, fresh fillets, mussels, pāua, prawns, salmon, scallops, general shellfish, squid and octopus, whitebait and whole fish. Popular individual items include albacore tuna, wild-caught blue cod, blue moki, omega-3 rich blue warehou, bluefin tuna loins, butterfish, deep sea cod and line-caught Cook Strait gemfish. Orders for delivery need to be placed by 9am Monday to Friday, with no deliveries running on weekends. Seafood destined for the Wellington region travels in chilled vans, while orders further afield are chilled below zero, packed with ice in a polystyrene box, and sent by courier.
While the home delivery service ships fresh seafood around and beyond Wellington, the fish and chips menu is strictly a pickup affair at the stores themselves. The lineup keeps things classic: fish of the day, premium fillets (or 'fillet of the day'), lunch specials, burgers, chips, fritters, a Kiwi favourites selection and shellfish options. It's built around simple, hearty portions rather than anything fancy — fish and chips the way Wellingtonians expect it.
On Google, reviewers have called Wellington Seamarket the best fresh wet fish market in Wellington and a genuine Wellington icon, with particular praise for the crumbed fish and potato fritters at the Cuba Street store, and for staff who are friendly and knowledgeable about the seafood on offer. Multiple reviews also note the steady stream of locals coming in just to buy fresh seafood, not only for fish and chips.
Wellington Seamarket asks that any issue with an order be flagged within 24 hours of receiving the product, so the team can put things right. The seafood home delivery service is dispatched from the business's export grade processing facility, which is why, at this stage, pickup is only offered for fish and chip orders rather than for the wider seafood delivery range.
Whether it's a classic fish and chips lunch on Cuba Street, a fresh fillet picked up on the way home from the Lambton Quay CBD store, or a home seafood delivery stocked with the day's catch, Wellington Seamarket keeps its offering centred on fresh, local seafood across its growing set of Wellington stores.