Lady Sevin — Restaurant in Melbourne

Went to Lady Sevin today for brunch and got a seat straight away. We ordered a coffee, a milkshake and 2 hash stacks. Coffee and milkshake came out quickly and were good, however the food took a while to come out, considering it didn't look too busy and not many customers seemed to be ordering food. There was also a lot of staff working.

When our food came out, all 4 of our poached eggs across our 2 dishes were overcooked (yolk was hard boiled - which from reading other reviews now, seems to be a common issue). We kindly asked for the eggs to be re-made, which the staff were very kind about. However, when the dish came out for a 2nd time, the eggs were then undercooked. We could see raw egg whites throughout the poached eggs.

We kindly informed the staff again and showed them our plates where we had pushed the raw egg whites to the side for them to see. We mentioned not to worry about it and we would go elsewhere. They were apologetic and offered to re-make it again, so we decided to stay and asked to get fried eggs instead of poached eggs on the meal. By the time the food came out for a 3rd time though, we were pretty put off and wished we ended up leaving instead.

All of the staff, including the ones in the kitchen, looked extremely young. The girls were lovely so the service was fine, however there didn't seem to be a manager on site. If you are going to have young staff cooking in the kitchen, they need to be trained better, especially when your menu is centred around breakfast/brunch, so a poached egg is something they should be able to make consistently. I'd also suggest a manager or owner be on site at all times in case issues come up.

We were also asked if we wanted to order anymore drinks while we were waiting, but weren't offered any compensation for it so didn't bother. Considering we had to send back our dishes twice, I would have expected a coffee or something small to be offered to us while waiting. Definitely wasn't worth the $60+ we ended up spending on our meals and the time wasted waiting for it. We also noticed a 15% public holiday surcharge note under the window menu when entering, but didn't know about the 10% weekend surcharge until we went to pay and asked for a receipt. The surcharge itself is fine, but we don't remember it being prominently displayed anywhere. We may have missed this note on the physical menu, but...

We came here with our baby to eat today. The food was so bad we ordered calamari and chips the calamari tasted fake ! I’m not too sure where they get their produce from but it was really disgusting I also ordered the pancakes for our little one but they were dry. We also ordered a bowl of chips and the chips won’t even cooked. Our salad wasn’t washed you could tell the difference between washed salad and unwashed salad. This restaurant does not have a proper chef at the back. it’s just young girls mucking around .. I also heard one of them say "someone didn’t like our smoothie" and then the girl at the back said "oh how rude" and then they both started to laugh.. very immature. … I feel like they need proper mature staff and a good chef that knows how to cook.

This is our second time coming to eat here and it’s our second time being disappointed.

We won’t be...

A nice country cafe with a bit of the City in it. Good coffee, and they apparently do some of the "different" types of "coffee" that city folk like, though I haven't tried them myself. I've found the staff to be friendly and available.

It's also worth mentioning that having the seating space and keeping it clean is something I don't take for granted anymore - if you think about it, most coffee and food venues (Whittlesea and elsewhere) seem to be turning into tiny takeaway or "3 tables on the footpath" operations - and I mean no offence to those doing what they can with what they have. It is to me a big "plus" to be able to expect a place to sit most times, and not just a tiny 'smoking section' squeezed between the front door and the road. This place is lucky/smart to have the tables and still be, after all, on two of the 'main' streets...