Abacus Bar & Kitchen — Restaurant in Melbourne

We were invited to Abacus which is one of the most instagrammable spaces in Melbourne. The super high ceilings with beautiful dangling pendants lights create a really contemporary environment and the greenery is abound making for quite a lux setting.

The menu is not your typical brunch fare, it’s definitely elevated to rather fancy standards, perhaps a little too fancy for my tastes. I had the avocado on toast which was served on a vibrant beetroot sourdough which was pretty cool with some squacqerone cheese. This is a fresh Italian cream cheese which was yummy.

Our sweet dish however was a little strange for a lunch menu item, rhubarb and cinnamon donuts with liquid nitrogen. This is really more of a dessert even with the presence of the tart rhubarb. I think this dish would have been more enjoyable had I not eaten it post the avocado toast as it sat in the liquid and became extremely soggy post the theatrical smoke show. Regardless while it’s certainly a pretty dish it is most definitely not a substantial lunch item so for $23 don’t expect to be full.

Original review Was popping to the Prahran market to buy gourmet goodies for Dinner En Blanc and stumbled on the super dooper Abacus. Open less than three months it's already cemented itself as a go to brunch spot with its beautiful open space.

There was quite a line when we arrived at around 12.30 so given I we starving I used the time to Insta stalk the dishes and aid my selection. Less then ten minutes passed and we were ushered to cool (open) windowsill seating. The menu was all things eclectic think charcoal toast, fennel nips and volcanic rock (what does it all mean??) so I decided on the special which was rolled oats milled and roasted to order (faaaancy) with roof honey. Wow. Finally a stunning breakfast dish sans flowers.

It was absolutely beautiful, well balanced and really delicious. The mint gave it a little something to balance the sweetness but why you no destem the strawberries?? My friend ordered boring old scrambled eggs on toasts (hooray they give you two pieces of bread) with a side of tomatoes and another side of mozzarella. It came out looking spectacular.

They must be some seriously free roaming chickens because I've never seen eggs that yellow. The cheese was super fresh too (of course I tried some it looked amazing). My other even more boring friend had Vegemite on toast which is usually unremarkable but the house baked bread was apparently excellent.

There was also a dj spinning which sounds kind of off for brunch but was actually really cool. The giant to the ceiling fig tree was stunning and the woodfired oven took pride of place for the nighttime pizzas. Interiors and food...

I had the worst experience in this restaurant. I took my partner as a pre birthday party, I made a booking and red all the reviews to have a good experience.

We arrrived at 7.30, we ordered oyster, lobster cigar, fresh cavatelii , squid ink linguini and two margaritas. After around 50 minutes we received the oyster which the taste was really bad and average for the price of 7 dollar each.

Then the lobster cigar was alright but nothing that exciting. Then we were waiting for another 40 minutes to get the food. The pasta with the squid didn’t even had the ink or much squid, again for the price, you expect much better.

I honestly have never returned a plate in my life, but the cavatelli was really bad, we couldn’t even eat it, the mushrooms wasn’t even cooked and the taste was with no flavour at all.

We waited for 1.30 hour to get our mains to return a plate. The staff didn’t even gave any explanation until the last minute. Also, the “manager” was really unprofessional not even trying to make something to fix the problem. By the way, the table next to us and behind also were having the same issue.

Plus, people that arrived much after than us, got their food straight away in front of us, again with no explation from the staff at all.

You can tell the lack of professionalism not only from the manager but also from the kitchen. The bill was $130 with the 20% of public holiday surcharge, which is really expensive for a dinner like that because I ended hungry. They didn’t even offer us a discount considering the horrible service, so it would be probably be refunded, but it wasn’t.

I was trying to give a good time to my partner as a pre birthday dinner, but was horrible! I am really disappointed and I hope that you really can improve this, considering the kind of vibe and quality that your website offers as a gourmet restaurant.

If you’re going to open on public holidays make sure to have enough staff and professional chefs at...

Edit: Changing review from 2/5 to 1/5 after seeing blatant fake 5* reviews

Coming here again after a really pleasant first experience, but vastly disappointed after coming back.

TL;DR: Service during entree was good. After dinner, it was non existent. Food overall was below average at best, steak was tough, fish had bones. Lobster cigar was good though. Not to mention 10% Surcharge on a Saturday.

Things were going pleasantly at the start. Quick and attentive service, got our drinks and entrees rather quickly. Received the lobster cigars, cucumber, salmon and octopus to start. Lobster is delicious as always. The rest werent as delicious in comparison, but serviceable. Loved the ikura on the cucumber, but had an overwhelming tang. Salmon was a bit dry, and muted. The octopus was not bad, but preferred the accompanying crispy potatoes that were served with it.

We later ordered our main; a porterhouse, fish of the day (rockling), and the shrimp linguine. Food arrives promptly. This is when evrything went downhill. The porterhouse that we ordered to be medium rare was tough and hard to chew. Accompanying fries were oversalted which my partner stated. The rockling itself was fine, apart from finding 2 bones in the fillet. The accompanying pipis were bitter and 2 of the 5 pipis had a sandy texture. The shrimp linguine was bland but felt immensely better in comparison after having the other 2 mains.

After we were served these mains, the waitress serving us never came back to check on us. Only service we had was when we stood up to pay for the bill. Bit peeved by the 10% surcharge on a Saturday.

Really disappointed with the food and service that we received today, especially in comparison to the last visit which we had flawless...