Secret Kitchen Westfield Doncaster — Restaurant in Melbourne

For those who wish to swallow your dimsum whole, pour steaming hot tofu dessert down your throat, be treated like cattle, or take away large batches of ordered food because you're told to leave, then Secret Kitchen is the place for you!!

Our family no longer visits Secret Kitchen yumcha venues which have turned a southern Chinese tradition into rudely managed money making mess.

Historically, Yumcha used to be a place you'd get together with family and friends and enjoy tea and tasty dimsum in a relaxed, albeit premium restaurant. You would expect to savour the dimsum flavours and wash it down with hot tea, catch up with friends and family and end up feeling full after enjoying some sort of dessert. Patrons pay the premium to feel relaxed, connected, and full.

Secret Kitchen has turned into a venue completely unsuitable to enjoy food with family and friends.

I would strongly suggest smaller venues where you aren't treated like cattle.

Our particular experience included:

We called to book yumcha with our extended family of 12 people and were told there are three sessions on the weekend. We booked a 10am session and was told it was 1.5 hours through to 11:30am. Thinking there was plenty of time, we were 10 minutes late with elderly and kids. By the time we were all seated it was around 10:15am. The restaurant was half full. Some dishes were made to order (e.g. rice noodle roll) which arrived around 10:40am. At 10:45am we were told that it was the last order for food... we were a little shocked thinking that it was a little early since we'd have until 11:30am... So we ordered 8 TOFU FA (dessert) which arrived sporatically through to 11:09am. At 11:10am, we were told we needed to settle the bill as we had to leave by 11:15am. This was to allow the waiters to clear the table for the next session. We had to take away almost a third of the food and had to swallow the piping hot desserts. $400... to be treated like cattle...

The shocking part was, before we even left the restaurant to settle the bill, the table had already been cleared and setup for the next round... An extremely welcoming and respectful...

I visited this establishment in isolation by myself a few weeks ago. Then, a week later, with my partner three days in a row for lunch during one of two Yum Cha schedules.

As a reader and potential third-party interest, do you sense a pattern here?

To save you the pain, yes, please visit for the Yum Cha experience, and you should have a definite splendid experience for you, your friends, and your entire family.... though as long as you review the suggested tips below.

This venue caters to everyone's needs.

The best first tip is to book ahead, though I wished they had two queues instead of one jumbled together as there was a combination of booked and unbooked individuals.

Second best tip, upon your booking for either the 11.30 or 1.30 session for Yum Cha lunch, ensure you arrive early because if you arrive late, you might miss out on certain food offerings.

As for the third best tip, there are those specific Asian minorities that jump the queue and pretend that a queue does not exist. Make sure to call them out for doing that.

The fourth tip, which is just important as the third, is to bring some noise cancellation headphones as other patrons, especially of those ethnic minorities from the third tip; you will immediately identify them easily enough... they will speak loudly and rudely, feeling entitled to do whatever and however they feel without consequence.

The headphones will save your hearing for better engagements with the restaurant staff.

As for the last tip, which is also important as the previous tip, just as important as the previous one before that... upon leaving and lining up to pay for your excellent meal, the same identified patrons will again push themselves in front of you.

As for the dinner experience, it is much different from...

This is my latest semi-annual visits to my family in Doncaster East. Had been to this restaurant many times before. Ate there 3 times within 3 weeks on this visit. The Chinese New Year banquet with the special set menu for 10 people was terrible. Every table had the same meal which were mass produced and tasted terrible. Chalk that one up and gave them the benefit because it is a festival banquet and the restaurant was full.

Visited again on Feb 2, also table for 10. Had a good meal including a $200 plus coral trout.

Ate there a third time on Feb 9 with just my immediate party of 4 from Canada. Ordered a $200 plus coral trout again by selecting a lively one from the tank. What was cooked and brought to the table was a much smaller fish. Notify the staff and their explanation was it shrank from cooking. Knew that they tried to pull wool over my eye, but took that with a grain of salt. The fish has no taste and felt mushy. It was obvious that the kitchen had switch ours with a smaller dead fish (the charge for fresh fish was by weight). Complained again, Raymond who appeared to be a senior staff came to the table. I asked him to taste the fish himself. He did not but said he would investigate. He returned and said he had spoken to the kitchen staff and apologized that the fish had been overcooked. But overcooked fish should not be tasteless and mushy. It should still have taste but with a much firmer texture. He sent us a small plate of complimentary dessert with 4 small pierces of red bean pudding as a gesture of his apology.

Swear never going back to Secret Kitchen again. Also informed all my Melbourne family members who are regular customers and their friends about my terrible experience.

Many other restaurants to choose from in...