Fides Bar and Grill — Restaurant in Melbourne

WHAT APPALLING CUSTOMER SERVICE from the owners of this horrible restaurant. My wife’s response to your idiotic comments are below. I am Vesna’s husband and i was seated across the table and in the presence of our family. You escalated the situation in a terrible manner rather than try to offer a replacement meal. In fact you and your father seemed to enjoy being such a bully. Your surveillance videos will show that i tried to calm you both down but no, bully bully bully… My family and friends will certainly NOT be coming back to your restaurant and we have no more time to waste with you. I just want to say (in Turkish) sizin gibi utanmaz insan hiç görmedim. Yazıklar olsun size. Yarıbuçuk yemeklerimiz için verdiğim $400’ı hiç bir zaman helal etmiyeceğim. …… RESPONSE FROM VESNA This is a pathetic response from you! In fact what is alarming but not surprising is that there have been a number of other similar adverse reviews about your restaurant in the recent past.

As I mentioned in my initial comments I am a mature person and I would never let myself get so low as to use offensive, indecent or inappropriate language. You clearly did not listen to my complaint about the poor quality of my meal and rather than offer a sensible solution you became irrational and continued to insist the food was fine and insisted I leave the premises because you thought i had used the F word. How pathetic! My family of 7 mature people including my 94 year old mother in-law and my husband witnessed your rude argumentative behaviour.

After you realised that you could not convince me that the inedible meal (meat) you brought me you became more argumentative. A few minutes later the owner of the restaurant (presumably your father) approached me angrily and with an intimidating tone of voice demanded that I leave the restaurant. I was in total fear of my safety. I didn’t know what to expect from his anger. At that point my mother in-law suggested we all get up and leave together. My family left their unfinished meals and stood up to leave with me. I was in shock and couldn’t believe what was happening and how far you went to kick me and my family out from your restaurant.

My family would have not left me alone. While we were getting ready to leave I was very distressed and upset at the situation and I said to you, “Shame on you for creating this drama”. In fact YOU were the one yelling from behind the counter. Again I would like to say, shame on you for creating such a terrible situation and without any consideration ruined our family’s beautiful day of celebration. I walked outside and my distressed family followed me. You mentioned in your response that I appeared agitated when I arrived… how crazy is that? How could you possibly make such a judgement apparently from your surveillance video. Why don’t you upload it to these comments so we can all see. In fact, my husband and I happily arrived together to greet our family.

I will repeat again, I felt threatened and intimidated by your father’s angry appearance in front of me, so close to my face, as witnessed by my family. He invaded my personal space and with such an angry tone of voice he instructed me to leave the restaurant. Again I ask that you upload your video of that moment so everyone can also see what happened.

We happily came to your restaurant and you kicked me out with so much anger and disrespect. After all that my husband paid the bill without any hesitation.

What a horrible experience! Never ever again will our family and friends come to your restaurant and risk the humiliation we all experienced, especially as...

We have visited House of Fides twice now and would highly recommend it. The staff are lovely and so friendly, service is great. They were quick to provide bottled water and take orders for drinks and food or happy to return a little later if more time is needed to make your selection, we requested more bread during our meal and it was provided promptly, we didn’t even have to ask for another bottle of water on the table, it was brought as soon as the first was empty. The food is delicious, I’m a fussy eater as I cannot eat spicy or hot foods. Also I’m not familiar with Turkish food so had no idea what I’d like. Decided to have a Gozleme so I chose the Kiyma, it came cut into 4 and a bowl of yoghurt which was ideal as there was 4 of us so we could all have a taste. Each piece was about the size of a slice of bread, it was so yum. We also ordered the bread with 3 dips. We love their bread & dips, we could choose from 7 different flavours of dip - beetroot, cucumber, eggplant, hummus, spicy salsa, capsicum, olive. The Mains chosen were Manti which is mini Turkish dumplings filled with lamb (and I mean itsy bitsy dumplings with a strand of meat inside) and a tasty garlic yoghurt on top - so nice and tasty but we all found there was too much of the garlic yoghurt on it that it drowned the dumplings so daughter couldnt finish the meal because it became sickly. I had about 2 tablespoons of it and had to agree with her. We think it would have been nicer with half the yoghurt served on the meal and a side bowl with more for those who like more; the Imam Bayildi which is a vegetarian dish was enjoyed greatly and we got the mix grill for 2 because it gave us the variety to try an array of different foods. A great choice for those not familiar with Turkish food, we each had a lamb skewer, chicken skewer, lamb cutlet, kofte which is a large lamb meatball, which Were all absolutely delicious, it also came with a spicy chicken wing and sucuk which is a very spicy Turkish sausage that was too hot for me but my husband and daughter enjoyed them. The selection of grilled meats was served with rice, salad and cucumber dip. It was all cooked to perfection and we all enjoyed our meals immensely. You can even watch the lady at the front of the shop making the Gozleme. Decor - well it’s nothing fancy, certainly not what I’d call intimate, more cafe style with paper serviettes, no placemats or tablecloths, wood tables and wooden chairs, tables either butted up against a wall or with one side along a bench seat which runs along part of the wall. The atmosphere is pleasant enough, great for groups- small or large and great for families. But they will not split bills. Everything is very clean. They have alcohol, soft drinks, teas and coffees available. Price - well I think it’s between $$-$$$ out of 4, depends on what you order. Gozleme range $13-$15, Salads $9-$11, Manti $25, Imam Bayildi $23, mixed grill $62 for 2 people. Serves are a decent size so I’d be surprised if anyone left still hungry. Parking is off street.. We will definitely go back again when next we are...

Hi everybody, I'm not prone to writing reviews ... prefer to spend our time going back to the really good restaurants! Been around for a while on this mortal coil and, like most, really do like dining out. Unfortunately, H of F is not one that we will be going back to - at all. We knew nothing of House of Fides - having been invited by friends to join them for dinner. The "feel" & decor is good. Place looks great with "mama" up front doing the Turkish breads etc. But that's where it stops I'm afraid. Courteous staff if somewhat amateurish. Entree arrived, a selection of dips which was very light-on and as far as I could ascertain probably out of a Coles tub. Definitely not home-made…. But the bread, was good. (Upfront mama has got it nailed!) But only one little flat piece – around 15 cm diameter …. Nowhere near enough to handle the small quantity of dips. Then my main arrived, and again this was a very small serving … H of F take on Ugurtlu Doner. And at $29 – it was poor. This dish arrived some 20 minutes after the other five mains ordered by our friends. And it arrived dry and almost burnt. Wow, this was soooo under-whelming. But I didn’t complain… and I won’t be going back. Perhaps this place has changed hands recently… or… being a Tuesday night was staffed by people other than the usual crowd. So why have I posted this review … simply because of the great reviews that it has received here (I saw these afterwards and wondered what the hell had happened when we went)….. Something’s really amiss here! And the Aldi wine at $6.99 being put at ? from memory $32? Let’s hope for the owner’s family, it’s only temporary … and they pick up their game. As for me: It is THE worst Turkish meal I've ever had in Melbourne or in Turkey! It aimed to be somewhat up-market but was...