Lillian Brasserie — Restaurant in Melbourne

After much hype and research I was excited to finally try Lillian Brasserie. Upon entering we were greeted by two lovely team members who said our table wasn’t ready and encouraged us to go to the bar and have a drink and we happily obliged. Service was good, nice wine selection but was extremely loud. We waited 30 minutes for our table and only were shown our table after we personally enquired why it was taking so long. We suspect they were waiting for us to order yet another drink in order to spend more.

We were finally shown our table and were greeted by a lovely waiter who kindly pointed out dietary swaps in our menu which I greatly appreciated.

The sommelier promptly arrive and handed us the menus but already turned to the “fine and rare wine collection” pages and unbeknownst to us, we didn’t realise there were cheaper wines available. We were not offered tasting but instead slightly forced upon to drink the expensive wine.

When discovering there was more affordable glasses the sommeliers lack of interest in us was adamant.

.After another long wait we finally had our orders taken, by this point it was an hour after our reservation and we were starving.

The restaurant was extremely busy and the lack of customer service really started to show.

For some reason our plates were removed and when our dishes arrived we were forced to eat of small serving dishes which was awkward.

The food itself was lovely, nothing to fault except presentation. Despite going through dietaries upon arrival one of our mains was served with dairy very evidently part of it.

By this point we felt well and truly like a number on a busy service night and declined dessert. Like the sommelier, when we did this it was very easy to see our server was quite annoyed and simply chose to never return to our table.

For $300, I expected a lot better and was left...

I think by now everyone has heard of Society/knows someone who has been/has been themselves. I am yet to go but when deciding where I wanted to go to dinner I was tossing up between there and Lillian and I am so glad I chose Lillian.

Although it took me a good 10 minutes of figuring how to get into the actual restaurant from the street (directions are on their website which I was not aware of lol) as soon as I got inside I was blown away.

There are multiple seating areas throughout the fantastic terrace like restaurant, you can sit in the wine room, main room or at the front.

The energy was perfect, it was moody and exciting and certainly foreshadowed the great food and service that was to come.

The staff were amazing, so knowledgeable and just a bit of fun which always elevates the evening.

The food was phenomenal, there were so many options to choose from (which was the main reason why I chose Lillian over Society) every dish was somehow better than the last and I could have kept eating all night. Considering the prowess of Lillian I was surprised that the food was not more expensive, it was by no means inexpensive but I guess I thought it would be more!

The drinks were amazing with an extensive wine list which is to be expected but they certainly outdid themselves. The alcohol was on the more expensive side which made it hard to justify purchasing much when you know much it costs to buy from Dan’s or something. I wouldn’t say this is a critique as it was to be somewhat expected but more of a heads up to those reading his review.

I think Lillian is the perfect place for a celebratory dinner or a nice date night - probably not somewhere to come for a bite to eat.

I highly recommend and would definitely return (once my credit card...

We went to Lilian Brasserie for lunch, and got their sharing 5-courses Seasonal Menu @135pp which consisted of green olives/potato crisps, cured salmon/burrata/veal carpaccio, sirloin/roast chicken/fries/greens, pavlova/lemon meringue tart. Despite being told the portions were “generous” (spoiler alert: they were not, which was to be expected for this sort of restaurant, but it was simply unnecessary to tell us so), we got the additional spanner crab linguini anyway (48$). The highlights to me were the veal carpaccio, served with capers almond and a touch of horseradish the flavours simply worked well together, and the crab linguini that was elegantly paired with lobster oil & tarragon. The rest were average; sirloin, cooked medium, was tasteless, roast chicken had a single flavour of acidic, desserts lacked creativity. Food aside, service was absolutely horrendous; we had to: ask for food menu, ask to order, follow up where food was, wait so long in between courses, ask for the bill, ask to pay. It took us 3+ hours to complete a mere 5-course meal, it was that slow. And no it didn’t include tea/coffee time as we were not offered. Some staff were friendly, one was like “we don’t usually allow set menu for only 4 people, it’s usually a minimum of 6 but we’ll allow it for you” and “we don’t usually allow kids to dine in here, it’s mentioned on your booking confirmation but we’ll allow it this time” (checked my booking confirmation, 16+ for dinners only). Thanks for making all these exceptions guys! Just for next time, we’d be happy to dine elsewhere no need for all...