Dawson Bar and Restaurant — Restaurant in Melbourne

My family and I are always looking for new places to eat and we were very pleased when we stumbled upon Dawson. However this quickly changed when my mother and I went there for a late lunch this Saturday. Initially we were met right away and they were happy to great us handing over menus and ensuring we had water for the table. Although that is where it stopped. All service after this was slow, even though there weren't that people inside. (We took my dog and that was why we were seated outside.) My mother and I decided to order share plates and I thought since we were celebrating I would get myself a drink. Food was very average. Croquettes weren't too bad. The aracini quite dry inside. The fries were okay but the chicken tacos were a downright disappointment. Two for $15 dollars and they barely come with any fillings and there was just something not quite right with the taste. We couldn't even pick one thing that was the overall cause of the issue thats how bad it was. Usually at places like this we get another visit from the waiter asking how everything is and this gives me an opportunity to ask for another drink. This was not the case. We waited for another fifteen minutes however it quickly became obvious that no waiter would be joining us. Annoyed and very disappointed I decided we may as well just pay and go somewhere else to get out desserts to finish...

We were invited last weekend with a group of foodie friends.  The interior is quite large and split level with seating out on the street too, so it was quite easy to find a suitable table for any sized group.

The menu has a great range of brekkie and lunch dishes - including the Melbourne Brunch Staples that you'd expect to find plus a bunch of creative dishes displaying their own flare and creativity.  I love that Dawson also specialise in fabulous desserts (I think we tried them all...) - we particularly loved the Ruby Chocolate Sphere - nestled in a bed of pink fairy floss, you crack open the chocolate to reveal a delightful ruby mousse - heaven!

We ordered a lot of dishes and shared them around, plus a few of their delicious cocktails and LOTS of coffee (of course)!  The food was quite quick to come out and everything was really yummy and beautifully presented - perfect for the gram :)  You could tell that the ingredients were fresh and of high quality. The coffee is really good too, and they have a selection of milk alternatives.

I also need to mention that they do an express lunch with either a burger or pizza, plus a glass of wine or beer for only $20.

We've been to Dawson on several occassions and it's one of our favourite cafes.  Looking foward to heading...

I’d been hearing good things about Dawson amongst the local Kew community so thought I’d give it a go because I felt like pizza. Being vegan, I checked online first whether they had vegan options for pizzas which they did. Arrived with my family and it took about 15 mins to place the order. Then we waited for about 40 minutes to be told they didn’t have vegan cheese, right before the other mains came out for my family members. Woolies is a hop, skip and jump away from Dawson so the problem could have been solved easily. The only other vegan main is a seeded grain bowl thing which sounds nice but that’s basically lunch for me everyday. I had half a side of broccoli salad which was very nice and some fries which were REALLY dry. Was offered some free wine or coffees but we all wanted to leave at that point and I needed to find something to eat. We think they may have given us the broccoli salad for free but overall the customer service was really questionable. The wait staff were awesome and lovely (which has contributed to about 1.5 stars and the other half for the broccoli) but we were disappointed the manager didn’t come out and address it rather than get the two lovely wait staff deal with mistakes that were out of...