Café Vue: To View and Be Viewed

Café Vue
401 St Kilda Road
(near the corner of Toorak Road)
03 9866 8055

Opening Hours: Mon-Fri 7am-11pm; Sat-Sun 8am-11pm

There are few things more trendy in Melbourne than hidden destinations, tiny spaces (for elbow-knocking exclusivity), and The Vue Trinity. I'd love to be Mr Bennett's Ms Darcy.

Café Vue on St Kilda Road eschews the 'little local' hypothesis however - it's big, bright and beautiful. And with the droves of people clamouring to get on board - you can bet she knows it, the saucy minx.


We were seated immediately at 9:45am on a Saturday morning. Menus were brought promptly, with a full bottle of water.


We placed our orders, and my pistachio cupcake was served in seconds (this, unfortunately, marked the end of the day's good service).


It was almost like a pistachio flourless cake - very dense, very nutty, and not too sweet at all. I didn't like the stiff little icing, which was reminiscent of 'strongly-flavoured' pistachio ice-cream. But that's an absolutely personal thing - I've always thought pistachio ice-cream tasted a bit like cough syrup. And I'd definitely order this again, as the icing's easy enough to pry off.

Sit at the bar?

Definitely a place for chic-chat and to lounge about fashionably - my sister's adequate flat white arrived only after 20 minutes, and our food took a good 30-40 from when we first placed our order, so we missed our next appointment. It was also difficult beyond reason to flag someone down to check on our order.

Don't mind if I do.

When it did arrive, however, it was completely flawless.

62° eggs on toast ($9.50 + $3.80 for the white sausage)

My stalwart order - perfectly poached eggs, lemony hollandaise, crisp, chunky toast, and enough spice in the sausage to elevate it from 'something I could get at the supermarket'.

We were a little less impressed with the presentation on my sister's dish.

Spanish eggs en cocotte with tomato fondue & capsicum purée ($9.50)

My secret self-satisfaction at having made the superior order was quickly extinguished however! (Food envy karma will bite you in the bacon.)


The tomato fondue blended with the capsicum purée to produce the freshest tomato 'salsa' I've ever had; there was absolutely nothing ketchupy, pasty or 'processed' about this, just really pure and fresh tomato and capsicum flavours. I unashamedly appropriated copious amounts for my own forkfuls of eggs, sausage and toast - the joys of eating with family!

Bacon for the table, as you do ($3.80)

And I can never go past this - the most perfect little lemon tart, with a meringue dollop only just-crisped on the surface ($4.50). I haven't had any better in Melbourne, and I love them - so tell me if you have!


All in all, you can't fault the food - or the fabulousness of your surroundings. My obvious gripe though would be how s l o w the service really was; in speed and quality! For example, it was a pretty annoying (and ridiculous!) end to the meal when we paid $58.10 exactly for our $38.10 breakfast and received our $20.00 change in coins. (The reason for this being that our $8.10 in small change was ignored completely, and the person processing our order only put the $50.00 note through!) Consequently, we received a mostly-silver pile of coins in our bill tray taller than the tart we'd just consumed! Mind, it took 10 minutes to get our bill, and a further 15 to (poorly) process the payment!


Would I come here again? Probably; I do adore the food, the novelty of sweeping space, and it's conveniently located in the middle of my regular route. But I wouldn't schedule anything else for the rest of the morning.

My advice? Bring lots of reading material if dining alone - plenty of surface area to spread it out on as well!