The Foodstore Cafe — Restaurant in Melbourne

4.6

We adored Foodstore Cafe. There’s so much to admire here. Beautiful food, great coffee, lovely friendly service and a nice aspect. It’s a great cafe.

We were greeted with lovely smiles on arrival. After being seated we were presented with the comprehensive and varied menu which offers plenty of flavoursome options. Two things are immediately obvious. First, the excellent specials. There are some wonderful dishes. Second, the abundance of healthy choices. Basically, it’s a cinch to eat well here.

We began with delicious rich smoothies. These are thick, tasty and very nicely composed. We tried the Acai smoothie and the breakfast smoothie with banana and berries. While they were both superb, the breakfast smoothie struck us particularly as top class. It’s fantastic.

The world’s most beautiful woman selected the Mushroom Toast from the specials for her meal. She beat me to it. We’d both read about this dish and were both keen to try it. It’s a fantastic dish. It’s composed of toasted garlic thyme mushroom with mixed nuts, spiced cauliflower, goat fetta, cherry tomato, hummus on toast with poached egg. Everything works in this dish. It looks really good, it has beautiful flavours and lovely textures as well. There is a delicate understated middle eastern taste to the dish which comes from a combination of herbs and spices we were advised later. It gives the dish impressive substance. Of all things too, we loved the finely chopped nuts in this dish. Overall this really is a lovely dish that is highly recommended.

I chose the Brisket Benny as my meal. This is a real cracker too. It is slow cooked smoked pulled beef brisket on sourdough, poached eggs, crackling bacon and apple crisp. The presentation, flavours and textures in this dish are excellent. The brisket was tender, full of flavour and just perfectly cooked. The shredded smoked bacon on the rim was both pretty and delicious. The bread too was pure quality and, pleasingly, there were two slices not one as I’ve been given in other places lately and been left a little hungry as a result afterwards. The eggs were done superbly with a covering of lovely hollandaise. Again, this dish is a winner and easily recommended.

These dishes made for two excellent brunch dishes. They’re a very good size and for $18 only each they’re fantastic value compared with some other places we’ve eaten at lately. We both commented that they represent serious value for money given the size and quality of the fare.

Sadly, we were too full to consider dessert and it was down to coffees to finish. The coffee was an Ethiopian bean that had just arrived in store. These are formidable coffee beans. My long black and my partner’s flat white were outstanding and were very skillfully made. This is coffee and coffee making of an impressively high order.

I forgot to mention the decor here. It’s very pleasant and the space is both stylish, pleasant and comfortable. It’s a lovely spot to be.

We had a wonderful time here. I found myself wishing about three times during our visit that this was our local cafe that we could walk to whenever we wanted. It’s not though and that’s life. How fortunate are the locals here. This is definitely the sort of cafe that’s worth travelling to. All quality and a really rewarding experience. There’s easy parking just outside.

Thanks so much for the kind invitation to dine here. Our particular thanks to Ahmed and Carl and the other staff, including the knowledgeable and skillful chef who were lucky enough to talk to. Our thanks to the amazing Vela for her hard work in making this happen.

Highly...

I’m going to start this by saying I’m not picky with steak. Obviously medium rare is best but I don’t mind eat rare or over cooked if I need to. But they served blue raw steak. Unfortunately I was on a quick work break and didn’t have time to mention that it needed to happen but this has never in my life happened to me when ordering steak. I got sick afterwards. I don’t think the chef knows the difference between rare steak and raw steak (maybe somebody that doesn’t eat medium rare due to cultural reasons and believes all medium or rare steak is raw). I understand this because I have family like this. I also understand it takes skill to cook a steak (as someone who cooks a lot as well) However I don’t think it’s good to put steak on the menu if you’re not aware of how to cook it. I also want to add they didn’t ask for my preference and quickly walked away after I chose that off the menu. Any time a restaurant doesn’t ask preference they always do it medium rare but again as I said I don’t mind if it’s medium, rare, or even fully cooked. But this was under/raw. Raw steak is when it is fully red and purple rather than bright pink which is rare and light pink is medium rare. I know the difference between rare and raw. This was purple in the middle and as you can only eat completely raw meat if it’s a certain type or handled with extreme hygiene (like in Japanese and French kitchens) I got sick. I didn’t mention this as my work break had finished and I was stressed for time when I left. And I’m not angry but I wanted to add this review to reflect the cooking skills as I assumed that because the ratings were so high that I would be safe to order or eat a steak. I think this is a fair criticism and everyone makes mistakes but that level of cooking should maybe not be almost 5 stars on google. In my sickness I still wish you guys well this is just my...

Cute suburban cafe in Hawthorn nicely laid out so you don't feel like you're top of the next table. Greeting us when we walked in is a long counter with yummy looking pre-made wraps and sweet treats. There's a couple of booths for small groups plus some seating outside where you can sit in the shade and enjoy a coffee with your fury friends. We loved the great local vibe inside and you can tell that the owners and chefs have a real love for what they're creating here.

They're serving up an all day menu with middle Eastern influences and a touch of F45! (the chef follows the F45 menu). The menu is largely skewed towards brunch dishes and focuses on good quality, fresh ingredients and great coffee.

All your favourite brekkies are represented with options including organic açai protein bowl; toasted buckwheat Bircher; smashed avo with chilli pickle and crispy quinoa; Salmon Benny; and the big 'Foodstore Breakfast' with the lot.

They have a few options that are gluten and dairy free and they can make almost any dish vegan on request. This isn't mentioned on their current menu so I just wanted to call this out for our vegan friends :)

An awesome addition to the Hawthorn cafe seen with great food and coffee, a warm family welcoming from the staff and great coffee. We love that they're currently the only spot around opening at 6am servicing the early bird tradie crowd.

We caught a sneak peak at the exciting changes for the menu in the new year - it's getting a complete shake up with loads of vegan friendly dishes and we can't wait to come back...