Brighton Schoolhouse — Restaurant in Melbourne

Food: I opted for the pulled pork benedict. I loved everything about this dish. The eggs were poached to perfection, the potato rosti were crisp and delicious and the beetroot hollandaise just balanced the dish nicely. I'd never had pulled pork as part of a breakfast before, and it complemented the eggs beautifully. I was actually surprised how much pork I got. It was soft and just fell apart in my mouth. It's also plated beautifully. Coffee is delicious too.

Atmosphere/service: Set in an old church school house, this cafe is pretty stand-out when you walk along Church Street. There is a good atmosphere surrounding the cafe, it almost feels like a hub of the community, you are drawn to its bustling outside seating area, and the venue is popular with couples, friends and families alike. There's also a lovely indoor seating area too. Service was lovely, but very slow, and this is the only thing letting Brighton Schoolhouse down. We must have waited over 5 minutes just to receive menus, and another 10 before our coffee order was taken.

Would I recommend it: Overall, we had a really enjoyable experience at Brighton Schoolhouse. It's a little more pricey than other brunch spots, but you get top quality brunch and beautiful surroundings. It's well worth the extra $$. I can't wait to go back and try some of their other items on the menu, and maybe some of their delicious...

Unfortunately, If I could give it zero stars I would. We were 6 people and the place was practically empty on a Sunday at 11am so it’s not like they were busy. First of all with the drinks - the coffee was cold so it had to be remade and they forgot one order of tea. Okay that was fine we moved on. Then the food - we ordered eggs on toast with 2 fried eggs, it only came out with 1 egg so I let the waitress know and she said “sorry about that”, then I saw her walking around so I got her attention and asked whether the other egg would be coming and she acted surprised and quickly went to order another egg…then we had eggs benedict that had no hollandaise sauce, so we brought it to their attention and she argued with us and said the hollandaise should be there, we asked her to look at the plate and then she went and got some hollandaise. So even basic customer service is missing. The food was not worth writing about, large portions but not delicious at all. In this day and age most places should have Wi-Fi but this place did not (or the waitress didn’t know any about it).

Oh and for those visiting with kids because they read a review that it has a playground - those reviews are really old and there is no longer a playground, even though we called to double check before making the restaurant and the lady who answered said that yes there is a playground, so again...

The Brighton Schoolhouse has a very large outdoor seating area and they have beautifully transformed a church into a trendy cafe. We visited on a Sunday afternoon at around 2:45. Ordered Oreo Freak shake, chocolate milkshake, Oreo milkshake and a banana berries smoothie for drinks and Benny, pork belly, chilly soft shell crab burger and charcoal waffles. I was very excited when my Oreo freak shake arrived as it has marshmallows, a waffle cone, ice-cream and everything that makes your mouth waters. I was quite disappointed when I took a sip and it tasted like milk mixed with plain vanilla ice-cream... there was no Oreo flavour or any sweetness to it. The Oreo milkshake has very mild Oreo flavour in it and the chocolate milkshake has no flavour at all... The smoothie on the other hand was quite nice! Food took a while to arrive, presentation was again very nice. The Benny was quite average, although I must say the bread was very nice and soft! Chill soft shell crab burger and the pork belly has nice flavours. Unfortunately we couldn’t enjoy the the charcoal waffles as it has an acquired taste compared to normal waffles. Overall I’d say it was quite disappointing, I would give it another try when I’m in the area again and hopefully this was a one off experience as other...