CERES Organic Cafe — Restaurant in Melbourne

Coffee is a rich roast of Fair trade organic, fairly well made. The food is pretty good, too: a mix of various-grain sandwiches using ingredients sourced straight from the Ceres gardens, slices and muffins to suit any brand of allergy or intolerance, and cooked breakfasts including free range eggs and bacon.

The atmosphere is lovely. Loads of urban hippie types with kids racing around the playground next to the café, and the clinks and murmurs of a myriad projects happening in the background.

The only let-down is that I've never had a smile out of the staff during three early morning visits so far. One of the reasons I go to a café before work is to get a chirpy grin along with my morning caffeine perk to set me up for the day, and so far the Ceres Café staff are only playing half a game. I hope they start to play on, because I do love everything else...

While the concept of the whole CERES complex is nice, the food and drinks in the café did not convince me.

The food is decent, but not great. I had the vegan tempeh broccoli wrap with a side of potato salad. The salad was good, but I didn’t really enjoy the wrap too much. My friend ordered the tomato and cheese croissant, which was good.

The hot chocolate was ok. Personally, I prefer hot chocolate with more intense chocolate flavor.

Prices are ok considering profits go into the project. But they should work a bit on their vegan...

Their food selection could be more health focused. A lot of the cakes especially look a bit industrial, not home made. It's at a farm, it could be something more like Friends of the Earth or Lentil as Anything for example. But unfortunately the food and service are kind of average and don't seem to be very connected to the farm. Their table system is also a bit confusing and the staff seem a bit stressed to find out exactly where you're sitting as soon as you come up to the bench. Coffee and atmosphere is...