Danish Nosh Bakery Cafe — Restaurant in Melbourne

My friends, girlfriend and I have gone to Nosh together for years. The meals were always tasty and fair value, the baked goods are solid, and the blokes behind the counter are great. But I've never seen a place just become so disappointing, purely by becoming so inconsistent.

A bunch of us went from regulars to going every handful of weeks to going every handful of months. It got to the point where I'd half-jokingly show a mate, "Hey, on their menu this meal has 5 ingredients, right? Watch this," and then I'd order it and every time what I ordered was missing ingredients. "Didn't it say that'd have crushed nuts, fruit and cream cheese on it?" Yes. Yes, it did say that.

Even if they're smaller ingredients, it's a bummer to go, "Oh, literally 40% of what was advertised, what I ordered, and what I paid for isn't on the plate...again. I was looking forward to that."

And it just kept happening. No acknowledgement or apologies or "Hey guys, sorry we're out of X, would you like some extra Y?" or "Oh, sorry, just letting you know we're still waiting on our supplier." Instead we'd go, be disappointed, go elsewhere for a while, come back and things just don't improve. Mate, you guys used to be so consistent. What changed? Are you teaching teens to cook in the kitchen the last year or so and not quality-checking the meals as they go out the door anymore, or is it the same chef that just stopped checking or caring?

After another months-long break going elsewhere, some of us recently went back in to give Nosh one last try to redeem themselves; we were given squished-down thin challah toast with burnt bits sticking out of it, a pale barely-seasoned sickly-looking smashed avocado with a wet hunk of raw tomato tossed on top (literally just somebody took a pale thick chunk of fresh tomato and just chucked it on last minute), another meal was missing several of the things it said it'd have, and my own meal came without two of its five ingredients (one of which was the entire reason I ordered...

Have been a customer for quite a few years. More recently I don’t visit as often but have still supported the business sometimes every couple of weeks but nevertheless am a customer. Upon a simple request associated with a bagel purchase I was met with sarcasm from the owner, which was frankly quite rude. It took him 10 seconds but he made me feel like I was asking a lot. I think if you own a business you should appreciate any business that you get as customers never HAVE TO come to you and err on the side of caution when trying to be funny or tell customers off. Unfortunately will not be visiting again. *EDIT Seeing ‘manager’s’ response below: Wow you are super defensive and very much into blaming customers and not taking ownership of your errors in judgement. Not everyone is comfortable giving such feedback on the spot so it is hardly ‘vindictive’ posting where one feels comfortable doing so. And you are wrong as being a customer for a few years I certainly know who the owner is and it was not an employee as you seem adamant about. You don’t even know what the incident was but really tend to blame customers (see every response you have to negative comments below). How about just owing it and trying harder next time....

What differentiates this place is all of the items are made fresh daily by hand and with love. Old school in such a good way, no machines churning out mass produced perfectly duplicated bagels and no gelatine or preservatives used in the cakes or pastries. I tried the delicious apple strudel which was one of my favourites and its real strudel pastry stretched in the right way not a store bough puff. They are passionate about making everything in person for freshness and what’s really impressive about that is the sheer variety they are making.

We were excited to encounter some pastries we hadn’t tried before such as some poppy seed based danishes and a chocolate covered honey cake. These were both really yummy, very European and not wildly available around Melbourne so I strongly recommend trying. Another one i found special was the coconut macaroon- definitely one to take home or enjoy in house with an extremely well made coffee...