Enter Via Laundry — Restaurant in Melbourne

Pros: Went during the Kerala seasonal menu period and the range of new styles of Indian dishes we got to try was great. They did a good job at incorporating dishes that are harder to find/not available at a standard Indian restaurant, so every dish felt like an adventure, and they were all well presented and at a good temperature. Each dish came with a detailed info card of the history and background behind the dish! Loved the flavour profile of every dish, and there were some pretty cool textural pairings for each so no two dishes felt too similar.

Cons: We regularly go to fine dining restaurants for celebratory milestones, so we are used to spending approx 200+ per person at least 4 times a year and we know what to expect at restaurants that charge that price per head, which typically is an indicator of elevated dining as well as service. whilst the food at EVL was great the service was average to poor at best. Couple of things to improve in general to meet fine dining service standards -which didn't hurt the general experience but definitely could have made it more memorable -would be more attention to detail, staff attentiveness and pacing of meals. Aside from these, for diners who aren't too fussy about service I think you'll still enjoy it:

1.booked the "yellow dining room" described to be more intimate than the communal "blue room" but got placed in the blue room anyway and didn't get an update on it as part of any reservation updates. Was fine, given it looked like maybe they didn't have as many bookings in the blue room so they just spaced us out anyway on the communal table. Maybe they had a glitch in their booking system.

No greeting. We got placed at our table, got given some menus and a little card about Kerala the region, and then was left alone for a good 15 mins. For management team considerations, we think it would have been good to hear the description of the menu to come from a staff member and maybe be offered drink recommendations to start

Background playlist was very quiet, impossible not to overhear guest conversations even when we were all speaking quietly. Again, I think maybe this was on purpose for the blue room where you are apparently encouraged to chat amongst each other but then it didn't make sense because we were all separated by a seat each.

No one prompted or asked us what we wanted to drink... We asked for a cocktail at the start, then they took away the drinks menu for the rest of the night and didn't ask or offer to give it back for the main meals 😅 which was so odd! It was fine though, we actually didn't plan on drinking much that night anyway.

The description of the meals from the staff could do with some refinement, even just to match the info cards. Our waitress kept saying "stuff" and "kind of" and at one point I think she was trying to find the word for "unique" but she said "a bit weird" instead 😆 we speculated that the team didnt get much of a script or much time to prepare for service perhaps - but for future reference for the management team, it would be great if general staff prep was more considered - especially when charging $200 per person. None of the staff made attempts to have any conversation with us. Maybe some people prefer this? But at most places we go to they ask us a few questions, not to bother us, more that staff can use the information they gather from those conversations to personalise the experience which typically makes the experience more memorable. Some questions and discussion points we felt could be woven into the staff experience could be: asking diners what the know/don't know about the region being showcased in the menu, asking about the occasion of the visit, asking us if we know the history of EVL etc

Pacing of the meals could be more refined too. It took ages in between meals, and perhaps it would have been OK if there were at least times in between where a staff member would check in with us to see if we needed a drink but they only ever came out to...

Kitchen Nightmare

Well after a long wait since the MasterChef episode, I was eagerly waiting for a night to be remembered which never eventuated in the end. The first warning was when we were informed that Helly was not cooking for the night as she was exploring new recipes in India. In the shared table format we quickly introduced ourselves and revealed our reasons to eat at EVL. A great bunch of experienced and sophisticated diners. The conversations flowed into the expectations for the night ahead with excitement. The company was the best part of the night. After a brief introduction to the menu the first round of tasting began with a flop. As we listened intently, the description of what we should expect for the night simply did not match what was on the plates. We all paused to discuss after each introduction to see if we missed anything during the introduction. The upside was I selected the wine paring and luckily it did not let us down. The second round followed as we eagerly waited for a sign that things might improve, and it did not live up to what was explained after each course. The matching wine was excellent on the palette. The third was a major disaster, a very dried - fried sardine and failed the test with warning signs. Everything after every course that followed went spiraling down after that and never recovered. My wife wanted to leave the table as she felt insulted by the standard of cooking which lacked the simple addition of salt and seasoning. The visual presentation of the dishes was excellent in their individual tiffin's and accompaniments. The portion size of the dishes was less than desired as we all discussed which McDonalds we were going after dinner. Then the disaster followed as the proteins were served. Starting with a platter of 3 small dishes with a small serving of rice. The Murray Cod was under seasoned, the Lotus root with tomatoes was less exciting and the sour element of yogurt was equally disappointing. The next round on tasting where the chicken drumstick was served in a runny liquid curry that resembled dish water, again failed to deliver the spices as promised, followed by 2 pieces of Goat which really was the bones without any meat on them to eat. Then the charcoal grilled lamb on a skewer was the biggest let down, lacking any seasoning with no signs of charring marks from the grill. It was dry as bone and tough which indicated there was no marinade or tendering prior to cooking. The sweet elements were simply a failure which ended the night. As we all looked at each other to agree that we certainly gave the chef a fair chance to deliver the goods for the night. The chef came out during the last course of the night and acknowledged that he burnt the rice and that is why the rice portions was small. We were flabbergasted that he did not attempt to put another pot on the stove to recover his first failure. I know things can go wrong in the kitchen at times and he gave up. And it showed by the quality of the meals we were served. The final course of Ladoo and Halwa was served in a beautiful box. It was a night to end all nights being a serve of soggy carrot halwa and a coconut Ladoo which could not make up for all the flaws of the meals served during the night. Summary, Helly your restaurant failed to deliver, your host, wait staff and chef let you down big time and perhaps they were not trained enough to live up to the reputation as you described in pictures and words on your website. I was hoping to bring many clients to taste each season, but my feet will do the talking for now and the people ahead will soon discover the...

My experience of dining at this venue was extremely poor, to say the least. Being an avid indian cuisine enthusiast and having visited India (Punjab, Varanasi, Bangalore, Calcutta, Sikkim, Chennai, Delhi, Mumbai, etc) numerous times to enjoy the culture and traditional fare, the dining experience at Enter Via Laundry left me disappointed beyond words. The dishes, from start to finish, did not reflect what the experience was marketed out to be. It seemed more of a scam to charge customers so heavily for food that just did not deliver in any aspect whatsoever. Everything was under seasoned, lacked flavour, and did not pay respect and homage to the cuisine of India, rather diminished it severely. I was not expecting traditional fare at all but there was no semblance of flavour, technique, creativity, none at all that tied it to Indian cuisine. It was merely random, with a native ingredient incorporated into it somewhere. It was neither here nor there. For those in Melbourne that think that this venue offers an informative experience into Indian cuisine, please do give it a miss as you will either be sorely disappointed or think that this is the real deal. My sentiments after this meal were that either the customers are being taken for granted and perceived as idiots, or that the owner is feeding off their popularity by hiking prices up without offering any real value or quality whatsoever.

I was really looking forward to enjoying this food, but after my experience I do not recommend it at all.

I also decided to once again look at the reviews on google as I had perused them prior to making a reservation and I felt like they were utterly misguiding.

Upon looking closely, it is very obvious that many of the reviews left for this venue are from people who have never dined at, or visited this venue. They are overseas residents all from the same location (Ahmedabad in India), and have copy pasted mostly the same review, "great food, amazing service" by slightly changing the words. If you check their location and where they were at the time of posting the review, you can clearly see that it was left from overseas. I am sure that this is against Google review policies as it is extremely misguiding to those who want to check the reviews before dining here, and falsifies the score on google. Without all the fake reviews the score would be close to 3/5 and seem more appropriate...