Taksim Square — Restaurant in Melbourne

My recent dining experience at Taksim Square left much to be desired. While the restaurant had a promising ambiance, several aspects of the visit left me and my fellow diners feeling disappointed.

Firstly, one glaring issue was their unwillingness to split the bill, despite the majority of customers being in groups of at least five people. This seemed rather unreasonable and inconvenienced our party, as we had to engage in awkward discussions to sort out the payments.

Another letdown was the quality of the food. The kebabs, in particular, were over-spiced and excessively salty, rendering them almost unpleasant to eat. It was evident that the flavors were not thoughtfully balanced, leading to a rather lackluster culinary experience.

Moreover, the service at Taksim Square was woefully slow and far from professional. Our orders took an unreasonably long time to arrive, and the staff appeared disorganized and inattentive throughout the evening. This lack of efficiency contributed to an overall sense of frustration during our meal.

Adding to the disappointment, the portion sizes were remarkably small. Even dishes that were supposedly meant for two people were barely sufficient for a single individual. This felt deceptive and added to the overall sense that the restaurant prioritized cost-cutting over providing a satisfying dining experience.

In conclusion, I cannot wholeheartedly recommend Taksim Square Restaurant in Moonee Ponds. The lack of bill splitting options, coupled with mediocre food quality, slow service, and small portion sizes, left much to be desired. Unless significant improvements are made in these areas, I would advise seeking other dining options in the vicinity.

Additionally, one more issue worth mentioning is that the kitchen at Taksim Square closes quite early, catching customers off guard. There was no prior communication or inquiry from the staff regarding whether we wanted to add anything to our orders before the kitchen shut down. This abrupt closure left us feeling rushed and restricted in our choices, limiting the overall dining experience.

Considering this unexpected kitchen closure on top of the other mentioned shortcomings, Taksim Square Restaurant's management should address these concerns promptly to enhance customer satisfaction and ensure a more pleasant dining experience for...

Went here on a saturday night with 9 people. We got the set menu for $58 person. One of our friends have a nut allergy so we decided to ask over the phone well before we came to the restaurant if the menu had any nuts and if so if we could swap the dish for everyone to something else. We were told on the phone we could as their desert had nuts in it. Once we arrived we mentioned this to the waiter multiple times as well so we can avoid any chance of my friend having a nut allergy. We requested for all our deserts to be changed to something without nuts. We were told this was fine however in the end the deserts with nuts was given to us so my friend had to leave the table as a precaution. A small plate of cut fruit was given to him as the replacement. The waiter than argued with us that this is what he gives to all custpmers and its not his fault even though we told him. Dietery requirements is a serious matter and when something like this brought up it should be taken seriously. However it felt like they just kept ignoring our request and didnt take it seriously at all!

Additionally the portions for the price was quite disappointing especially since we were forced to get the set menu due to our larger group size. We had to order extra in the end despite paying 58 per person on the set menu.

Overall a poor experience.

Edit: in response to the restaurants reply. Instead of calling us petty maybe take ownership for the health hazard which you could have prevented if you had just listened to us. Few small pieces of rock melond and a handful of grapes aint more expensive and is just plain lazy. Wasnt that hard guys! And guys raspberry soda is meant to be sweet. What you gave tasted like sparkling water with pink food dye in it. We returned it half empty because everyone started filling their glasses on the table before we realised the issue and took it straight back 2 times where the same thing was refilled! Maybe instead of pointing fingers at us and calling us petty, look...

Our third visit to Taksim and I’m revising my stance on the banquet value. It’s definitely tasty but it is quite pricey so you better bring your appetite. There are several banquet options to chose from, ours started with several mezze items including bread and assorted dips, saganaki (okay that ones Greek), calamari which was quite yummy, the mucver which is a zucchini fritter and really well done, and also the cheese borek which had a beautiful crisp pastry.

The standard banquets also include dessert but I have a feeling we customised ours to swap out the calamari instead as this is a calamari OR saganaki selection in the standard and we had both. Either way you will be ridiculously full so bring your stretchy pants

Update We dined at Taksim last night with many of the members of our initial visit and ironically due to everlasting lockdowns we hadn’t seen each other in between so it felt like we never left. Again we went for the banquet but supplemented that with an 80cm adana as it did not form part of the offering (I believe it is on the cheaper banquet but we wanted the seafood banquet).

They present the food beautifully on long platters down the table and everything was pretty much as we remembered it but with more bottles of hand sanitiser. We will definitely be back.

Original review We had the banquet at Taksim last night as a group of 16 in a full restaurant and the service was pretty seamless (other than a few water requests). There’s a great ambiance in here and it’s definitely established a firm following since the time I walked past an empty restaurant in its opening week to a year or so on where it was still pretty pumping at 11pm!

We had huge garlic prawns and blue eye fillets which was followed by the meat platters which appeared impressive and tasted great too. My favourite on here was the lamb cutlet which is something I don’t usually go for but it had a lovely flavour. Definitely great value and a great option for dinner in a group...