Smith + Daughters

The 4 course dinner was absolutely delightful - the food was gorgeous, and incredibly well made and paired with each other. I found the best meal of my life here; the sweet and sour red cabbage - rich and warm, the absolute vibe of Autumn. Bianca was fantastic, very informative and such a lovely conversationalist! Thanks again to Shannon for letting us chat with her for a bit, they should get rid of the phrase ‘never meet your heroes’! And thanks to the rest of the team as well, everything was beautiful! Can recommend to vegans and non-vegans. Great with gluten free! Can’t wait to come back Xx

I'm not one to leave reviews but I really feel I need to on this occasion. After not managing to get a booking on our last two trips to Melbourne, my partner and I finally made it here this time. We had such high hopes for the place and thought the menu looked amazing. The service and atmosphere were both great (hence the 2 stars) and we were quickly talked into getting the 4 course menu, as it was an opportunity to try more dishes. I'm gluten-free and we were told everything would be. Overall, the food was underwhelming. Almost all of the dishes that we actually ate were bland and there was a lot of fried food, which left us feeling uncomfortably full very quickly. The fried tomatoes were tasteless, black eyed pea fritters were over fried, fell apart when you cut them, tasteless, and crunchy. We ate beans to start, and beans for the next course - both of which were massively lacking flavour, the plantain was badly cooked, and the rice had hard crunchy bits in it. One of the meals wasn't gluten free (the gumbo), so my partner ate it and really didn't enjoy the fake prawns. We were completely stuffed after the second course and couldn't believe we still had mains and dessert to go. We had to ask for the food to stop coming out as we had already overeaten. The food kept coming out anyway, which was uncomfortable and we had to scrape it into boxes to takeaway. We weren't served the collard greens until too late on in the meal (and they were cold), and the salad was the very last thing to come out before the dessert. A chef should understand the energy content of their dishes and plate up portion sizes accordingly. We were given enough food for 4-5 people. Additionally, if negative feedback is given at the time, it should be dealt with. Leaving with boxes of food that we don't want and paying in full for pretty rubbish food ruined our evening. We won't be coming back and hope this review, and other recent negative reviews, help you to consider making changes to your menu.

Amazing Gluten Free and Vegan food. And wonderful service from Ruby. Love you folks. Will be back!