Stella's Kitchen — Restaurant in Melbourne

Visited Stella's Kitchen for lunch, it is located near Lysterfield Lake Park, with scenic views of the adjacent orchard and has ample parking. The restaurant is bright and airy, has a good ambience and the tables are well spaced out.

The wait team was attentive enough and took the order in a timely manner.

I must mention that this review is my personal viewpoint and may not really matter to others but could be important. Knowing that the older folk I was dining with have smaller appetites I enquired if I could order from the kids menu for them, the answer was a polite but firm " no we cannot do that". I understand policy and would not have asked if I knew items from the main menu would be fully consumed. Servers should be authorized by management to take a call as long as they can see that the request is genuine. Upto 12 years stipulation, I believe, is a guideline for servers to prevent misuse and due to the fact kids have smaller appetites but guess what some older folk do as well. I don't believe that restaurants, with a great degree of certainty, can distinguish a 12 year old from a 13-14-15 year old let alone refuse the request if one orders. We eat out fairly often and I have never been refused this request before, all restaurants have been gracious enough to oblige and I am happy to give them my repeat business. Had no option but to order a burger for the two to share and requested if it could be cut in half in the kitchen. Again the answer was "no" because of "presentation". So I was given a knife to slice the burger in half while my plate of food had to be held by my wife due to the limited space on the table. Anyone who had tried to cut a fully loaded burger in half knows the mess it can make!!! Both these requests being refused were quite odd in my book. The food I ordered was ok but not appetizing, especially given the prices they charge, the chicken was not tender and had not been given enough cooking time in the sauce to absorb the flavor, tasted like boiled chicken. I hope management takes this feedback constructively as it is given in that spirit. In my line of hospitality the guest comes first and no request is too big. That's what brings in the repeat business. I definitely hope to visit again with...

Arriving at the venue, no car spaced available, needing to park on a gravel patch, near the collection of 4 wheel drives on the grass area, not actually in the car park. walking into Stella's I waited at the front desk as per the sign. I noted the desk was positioned to closed to the door as I was in an awkward position blocking the entry door to the venue. The first 'Manger' who approached the guests in front of me had no smile or greeting for the guests. When the guests expressed their booking, the 'manger', only gestured toward the dining room, then walked, to guide the guests to their table. The next manager greeted me with a warm smile and polite greeting. All the other team members were polite, and welcoming. The waiters were efficient, returning for our orders, but as we were busy catching up and talking the meal order was delayed by a few minutes. Garlic bread and the mains pictured below were ordered. The garlic bread arrived a few minutes after ordering. We prompted the 'manager' on the expected time of our meals as we suspect it was more than 60 minutes. The 'manager' returned with the information that our meals are being plated as we speak. The offer of a free coffee was accepted by our table and as we had consumed our coffee for the day, the 2 coffee was taken of our account. The Meal, I had the Veal. The veal was getting dry as it is first pan fried then was placed under a grill to gratinate the cheese. As by the photo, a little long under the grill. The salad was, roquette and finely cut apple, very little if any dressing. Nothing exciting or flavoursome, or stimulating here. The chips were cooked well and fresh. There are not enough soft furnishings or open widows to allow the generation of noise escape or dissipate. The Blank white wall need something on it, an opportunity to celebrate the kitchen, a Mural, a painting of plants or apples, something to break up the stark white wall, celebrate the venue. Note, in the men's toilet there is a mural on the wall. Straight out the dining room window is gravel, barren. Then the trees. Many positives at this venue, only a few minor details will make this...

Visited for lunch yesterday for my friends birthday. We were all looking forward to it but we ended up having poor and very unorganised service during our lunch which ended up taking over 3 hours due to waiting for our food and drinks. We ordered our meals and it took nearly 1 hour to have our food arrive to the table. We had to finally ask how much longer it would take. The waitress had to apologise twice before our food finally arrived. When our food came out only 2 of the 3 meals came. 10 mins later the 3rd meal finally arrived. I understand there may be staff shortages (which everyone has) and it was a busy period or perhaps there was all new staff...but there was a table of a family of 4 that were seated after us and they had ordered their food, received their meals and finished eating and left by the time our food had arrived. My friend also wanted to order a drink of Pepsi Max and that took another long wait in which we had to ask about it as we had finished our meals at that point and it still hadn't arrived. They finally brought her drink and it was a Pepsi. So we had to ask to have that changed. We decided to order dessert after we finished our meals, but there was no staff member that was available to take our order. At this point, the rush period had finished and a lot of tables had left the restaurant, leaving only a few tables left. The only staff member on the floor was busy setting up the empty tables and was very preoccupied with that instead of checking on the remaining patrons sitting down. Eventually I had to walk up to the bar service area and ask her directly whether we could order dessert. We finally ordered dessert, received our dessert in a reasonable time. The food is good I will give them that, but their service or perhaps the training of the staff needs a little help. Be prepared to wait a while for your food and drinks. Very disappointed. For a restaurant that charges 10% surcharge every Sunday the service should be great to excellent. Great food and great service comes hand in hand with the...