Cafe Vue

I’ve been a Café Vue lunchbox fan since high school. (Café Vue used to have a spot down in St Kilda Road right across from our school). A bit of a hit and miss lately though and the portions are shrinking every month! I love the novelty of the themed lunch boxes for those days when I can’t make up my mind about what to have but for the last 3 months they’ve been quite boring! I do love the décor and café it self though, perfect place to chill out and take a minute in your day.

This place has great coffee and good service, I haven’t eaten here as I usually come with clients or colleagues to have a business meeting — it’s got a great atmosphere for that. The range of macaroons at the counter always look inviting though! Since it was renovated it’s much better and the location is good too.

Too expensive, $ 4.70 for a large coffee that is not great, $ 10 for takeaway yoghurt… coffee and food average at best!

Each Friday night they have a mixology evening different theme each month. I went there for their Japan theme. I have not been there before so I didn’t know what to expect. The service was fantastic great trained staff, they knew what was going on what was in your drink what was on you plate every aspect of the restaurant. Mixology have 5 dishes 5 cocktails and 5 tunes to go with your meal all for just $ 95. The food was exceptional, not only did it look amazing but it tasted amazing.

Popped in for lunch and the place was not overly busy so we grabbed a seat. We waited a really long time just to get menus and even longer to order about 25 minutes.
The café was also very cold and generally quite uncomfortable.
The menu was interesting and there are plenty of options. The lunch box looked quite interesting but more food than what I was after.
I ordered the duck and barely and carrot salad it was really tasty my only criticism was that there was a bit too much oil.
Not a bad spot for Friday night drinks but can get crowded.

Popped in for a takeaway coffee, customer for a wee while at all venues. Waited 5 minutes with my cash in hand without any acknowledgement from staff, not a hello, not a «I’ll be with you I a sec». Annoying as I’d parked nearby just to get a reasonable coffee and walk to my meeting. Decided to go elsewhere today, where I was not surprised to find friendly service and a great coffee. Come on guys, it’s not that hard!

I’ve got to echo Donald Y’s review of the Café Vue lunch box. Mine featured:
Broad bean dip, water crackers
Eggplant, zucchini and olive salad
Traditional Maltese macaroni pie
Maltese Date tart
I had high hopes for the bean dip. I love bean dip. Sadly the stuff from Café Vue was as bland a bean dip as I’ve ever had. There was no flavour to it. It tasted what I imagine blended soggy cardboard may taste like. The three crackers weren’t nearly enough to finish the dip, but it didn’t matter.
The salad was way too oily and off-​balance. My portion was far too heavy on red onions and I’m a dude who usually enjoys the obvious presence of onion in salads. Conversely, it contained a single olive. It wasn’t a delicatessen-​style olive, but a pre-​pitted black olive of the Pizza Hut variety.
Our office had a bunch of lunch boxes delivered and it seems they ran out of the small cardboard chinese takeaway style containers they used for the salad half way through assembling the order.
As a result, they replaced them with larger ones placed on their sides. When we got our delivery, half the Café Vue cardboard lunch boxes were soggy with leaked oil running through them and soaked through to the outside of the boxes.
The Traditional Maltese macaroni pie was essentially cold lasagne with pastry on the top and bottom and penne pasta instead of sheets. It tasted as you’d expect, a cut above the dip and salad but still essentially a small slice of cold lasagne.
That made the Maltese date tart the winner by default. There was nothing wrong with it, the crumbly base and sweet innards were in fine proportion and it was nice to finish with the best thing in the box.
I don’t know if Café Vue were just having a bad day or not, but at $ 18 the lunch box definitely didn’t really represent value for money. Comparatively, I find Melbourne based lunchbox delivery specialists Goldilocks Lunchbox deliver better quality food at a lower cost.

I try to get here to sample their lunch box on a monthly basis!
The café is always busy but the staff are attentive and helpful. The food itself is fantastic. Some people will believe the lunchbox is not filling enough but I believe it’s the perfect portion size.
In April 2013, the dessert is a ‘Monte Carlo’. It takes just like the biscuit but its a pudding/​custard style dessert! DELICIOUS!
I also intend on coming back for drinks on a Friday night soon as well!
Recommended for those who want something a bit different to the regular sandwich option during available day in the CBD!

This place is great. It’s a cute little café that serves really lovely food.
I’ll be honest, the first time I went I was seriously unimpressed by the menu options, but I chose something I thought sounded alright and, as it turned out it was DELICIOUS. I’ve been back many times since then when I just feel like something delicious and easy and it never disappoints.
Another thing I love about this place is the staff, I think they’re great. They’re happy to have a joke with you, they don’t mind questions about the menu, they’re very good at sensing when you want as little human contact over lunch as possible.
Let’s be honest here; the food is really good and no one will ever deny that, but you can go anywhere for sandwiches and chips and mini burgers. But good food combined with good staff? That is something I am happy to return for, even if it is a little pricier then some other city options.

Had the Café Vue lunch box for $ 18. Wow, what a disappointment.
This is the June lunchbox menu:
Starter — Sweet potato, cumin and honey dip, potato crisps
Salad — Sundried tomato, shaved fennel, green bean, lemon vinaigrette
Savoury Roast beef baguette, whole grain mustard & caramelised onions
Sweet — Quince tart
The starter was satisfactory. You get about 6 – 8 small crisps to eat with a small tub of dip. Tasty but nothing amazing or complicated. Some bites of the dip had a very strong acidic tang which I couldn’t really work out was from what.
The salad was not good — overall it was very oily and tasted of what I’d call ‘old salami Greek deli taste’ (I have nothing against old Greek delis though).
Beef baguette was alright, bit dry but overall just bland. The meat looked like it was aged, but that really wasn’t enough to save it.
The best part would probably be the dessert. A small slice of quince tart, good with a coffee.
As I had lunch here with work colleagues alot of others also had the lunchbox, and were equally, if not more, disappointed than I was. For $ 18 I can think of many other places I would rather have lunch, even a fast food outlet. I do however have to give them points for the presentation — very well done.
If I ever return I would certainly order from their regular menu instead. Expected better from a Shannon Bennett establishment.

I like food, so it comes as no surprise that I like being able to eat. Working in the city makes deciding where to get lunch a hard one (from having to figure where you can get a table/​take away for under an hour and quality etc.). Yes, Café Vue is generally very busy during lunch hours (but they have delivery!). Their lunch boxes just make me happy and food wise, totally satisfied as it’s the best packed lunch ever.

Yeah yeah, big surprise… Café Vue serves — wait for it — café food. And the food is good. But being the younger sibling of the Vue family, you sort of expect as much. And being in the middle of the city with approximately a bajillion (technical term there, means ‘a lot’) other eating options surrounding it, a café here has much to compete with.
Anyway, that’s not what I’m here to tell you.
What I’m here to tell you is that every Friday night, Café Vue is host to a cocktail tasting evening where they match different cocktails (with a base spirit in common) to snacks. For $ 75 a person you get five courses of about half-​size cocktails matched to a tasty tapas-​sized dish. Think magic mushroom risotto paired with a Tonka bean whisky sour. Really, I couldn’t make this stuff up.
Each month sees the base spirit and the menu play musical chairs… so really, you should go back every month.
Just don’t expect to drive home. Or run a marathon the next day.