Duchess Of Spotswood - Reservoir

This restaurant is a favored spot in the area, especially when other places are closed. The menu offers a great variety of options, and the coffee is excellent. The service is friendly and attentive. If the weather permits, there is usually a courtyard available for outdoor seating.

I went to the duchess of Spotswood last week as I heard good recommendations about it. I was lucky enough to meet Bob Murphy (Ed footy player) whilst he was filming an advertisement for foxtel. The cafe has a great atmosphere with friendly staff and would urge young families to check out the cubby area in the courtyard.

Despite having 5 staff for 3 customers (all of whom had already been served) and being 50 metres from the newsagent, when asked for today’s Age the reply was “oh no it didn’t come today” and when asked and no one can go to get one, the reply was “no we’re too busy”!! Well I read this to say to me “we’re disinterested and too busy to provide service”. The papers on their shelf were all several days old, again showing disinterest. This cafe has had it’s day, I’ll not come from Yarraville to support them as I’ll be “too busy”.

Very disappointing. Arrived at approx 1.30pm for lunch, they took our order but no offer of a drink. We asked for a drink menu and ordered. After our lunch came at about 1.30pm we started eating and were chatting; we were then told they were shutting in 10 minutes, no pressure but eat up! The food was iced in my case and very cool for my friend. We were again asked to be ready to leave in 5 minutes. We left before we had finished. The food was quite pleasant but I really feel they should have told us they were shutting at 2pm when we arrived. Service was negligible. No apology given.

My partner ordered breakfast of champignon and it was fabulous. I ordered smoothie in a bowl and it was disappointing. It did not live up to the description. There was no granola, or dates (a couple of sultanas were substituted) and the fresh fruit consisted of some strawberries and mandarin. It was like they didn’t have adequate ingredients but made it anyway. It is a pity that this dish was so disappointing because everything else including coffees and fresh juices were very good.