Lulo Spice & Bar — Restaurant in Melbourne

After reading some rave reviews about lulo, we decided to give it a go last night. There were 3 of us and we wanted something light, so we ordered the famed quail, the churizo sausage, roasted mushrooms and another dish with anchovies, capsicums and zuchini.

The Food (2/5)

The 1st quail dish was raw on the inside. The flesh was still red and I tested it using my knife to see if it would cut through. It did not which means it was still raw. I was not very happy at all to be served raw poultry. Luckily the waiter had the sanity to apologise and replace it without putting a charge on it.

Replacement quail was fine. This time they cut into the quail to make sure it was cooked. The presentation would have lost points but at least it was tasty.

The chorizo sausages were ok. Nothing spectacular but we liked it that it wasnt as salty as a normal chorizo would be.

The mushrooms were good. Right texture, juicy, but perhaps a little too much onions. It feels there was more onions than mushrooms.

The dish that i forgot the name was what i describe experimental. Capsicums were too spicy, anchovies were fine, zuchinis great, yellow capsicums ok, and the accompaniment paste we dont have a comment for it. Overall mixed feelings.

Bread. Ok this one's funny. I actually have a picture of a slice of bread that they brought to us that was filled with flour. The bread was not kneaded properly. I saw it as soon as the plate touched the table and confirmed it when we tore it open. I have a picture below. Would you serve that?

Service (2/5) For an above average place I'd expect someone to be at the door at all times organising reservations and tables. I think I was standing a full 10 seconds to get the attention of staff to see to my table.

Waiters need to be more attentive. The only reason why I didnt leave a tip was because the amount of times I had to raise my hand and wave franticly for service. I mean the place is not a stadium and If I counted correctly there were at least 4 to 5 floor staff for only 10 to 12 tables.

Overall the experience was rather unsatisfactory given the rave reviews they have received. Perhaps their standards are slipping somewhat. Unless there was something to encourage me to return to lulo again, I don;t...

This place has just been bought and all the earlier reviews with nice looking food no longer apply. The food has changed. The new owner said hi to us, but, by far this is now the worst food on glenferrie road. The cocktails were tiny, gone in one big mouth. For the record, this is no longer the tapas bar it once was, It looks like the original from outside but this is Indian that’s NQR spice & bar. The cost for our meal was $199 We had the birria nachos - This was cold and a horrible experience… beans appeared to be ones from a can and the juice was making everything wet while the so called 14 hour birra meat nachos was more so a 1 hour beef steak that was almost cut in half and cooked like an old irish stew but lacking any flavour. And I repeat : THIS IS NOT BIRRIA, this was not nachos. I felt gross eating the cold fat on the slimy steak and said to myself this can’t be real, prompting this review. We had dumplings- These were 6 plastic tiny dumplings like the ones you buy in a packet and try cook at home, with limited success, but with a mayo side (pictured below) The last was lamb kebab- This was around $48. 6 Indian style spiced meat fingers like chivapchachi or koftas. I’m just appalled, one, with myself for putting us through this ordeal and two, that this food is considered good enough to serve. Not one thing was hot - the nachos with the chunks of steak were ice cold as if it came out the fridge and not defrosted properly. The whole experience left us feeling duped. we simply should have eaten anywhere else and saved $200. I couldn’t look the owner in the eye as I paid, as I thought he had tried to feed us such terrible food for that much money. I feel bad for him as this venture will surely fail, but not soon enough. I challenge any person to eat there and be honest to the contrary. This place is empty and the street is...

Look don’t get me wrong, the chef did a wonderful job the food was amazing and very flavourful, the vibe of the place generally speaking was very good,

However we went in there for my fathers birthday lunch with 11 people, the entire restaurant was practically empty and we were there from 12:30-3pm ish, which we found a bit off. the food prices on the website are outdated and the portion sizes are small. between 11 people we had multiple sides and starters across the table and we noticed that the waiter was taking significant advantage of our group size adding on extras of each starter we did not order ultimately racking up the bill to upwards off nearly 900 dollars. Including bringing out doubles of each main when we only ordered one per person if not less. the drinks at this place as-well are also significantly more expensive that standard but that’s to be expected given the location. I personally think if it’s just you and one or two other people this place is fine but the upselling and getting taken advantage of is not worth the quality of the food no matter how good it may be.

On a side note, i want to reinstate that the food was incredibly good and flavourful we tried basically everything on the menu and not one thing on the menu was at fault, this review is strictly for awareness about the service standard this place upholds because taking advantage of large groups when your restaurant is practically empty should not be ok.

also i only took a couple of photos so look below for those, i recommend the birria tacos and the butter chicken tacos they were delicious and ask for the nachos with beef brisket, that would be a more affordable option that is still delicious while being less complex...