Smith & Daughters

Awesome Mexican hot chocolate, great food and service. Fully vegan

great food, great service, nice place.

Smith & Daughters is one of the best vegan eats in Melbourne. The menu is Mexican inspired but there is something for everyone on the menu. Make sure you order the mushrooms, they are to die for 😍 we also tried the prawns (bit too fishy tasting for me), the Brazilian slaw (amazing!), the paella fritters (10/10) and the noodle dish for 2 (a very large meal- you have been warned!).
The cocktails are also great and the service is perfect, there is always more than enough waiters happily to help you navigate the menu or have a friendly chat. I absolutely recommend this place although make sure you make a booking!

We arrived in time for brunch, and despite a slight mix up with our order, everything was delicious. The service was very friendly and down to earth. Keep up the good work!

I went here as I've heard the hype and I was not disappointed! Delicious food and excellent coffee. I took advantage of the house made cashew milk for a mocha and I have to say that it was the best mocha I can ever recall having. The biggest issue here was working out what to have off of the well sized menu!

There's a really good atmosphere and heaps of options (e.g. you can choose from a bunch of nut milks, cashew milk coffee is really good...). The desserts are also really good, some of the mains are kind of average/underwhelming but it's still really good.

Love this place. The second meal I had here was better than the first. The cocktails are good too. Great setting and atmosphere. Love the design. Awesome. Love it!!!!

When I first visited Smith & Daughters the restaurant had a Spanish theme and the vegan prawns were heavenly! The new menu is more focused on junk food and recreating some Melbourne favourites that used to be served at now-defunct restaurants. There are still a few good original things too, though.

With the new menu I came here for dinner and tried the Southern Fried Chicken Waffles which were fantastic, definitely hit the spot for sweet and salty goodness.

Came for brunch more recently (see photos for pic of menu) and ordered the corn fritters and bread and butter pudding. I was keen to try to Froot Loop Waffles but it seems they have moved on from that menu. Corn Fritters were deep fried and delicious with some aioli. Bread and butter pudding was really sweet and lovely with cinnamon and spices. Overall great meal, although the serving sizes are a little small.

Very popular so book ahead, especially for a bigger group.

This restaurant's reputation precedes itself, and I was looking forward to experiencing some vegan 'fine dining'. My companions and I ordered the white truffle pate, 'blood sausage', tortilla salad, tortilla bean soup and leek and kale bake. Everything on the menu sounds delicious, and clearly much time and energy has been spent making each item sound ravishing. If only such time and energy had been spent constructing the actual dishes themselves, perhaps one would not leave this venue feeling like they'd been ripped off.

The truffle pate - which is plentiful - tasted kind of like a creamy, salty nothingness. The bread provided is enough for the first few scrapings, and each subsequent serving of bread (a couple of tiny slices) costs an extra $2. Their signature dish - the 'blood pudding' - also tastes of very little except salt (my dining companions suggested that it tasted like white rice, or maybe bread crumbs, salted and dyed with beetroot juice). The tortilla salad seemed promising - a deep-fried tortilla stuffed with mounds of TVP and bean mix, topped with a creamy coriander cashew paste and a slice of lime - until one dug below the surface to discover most of the tortilla stuffed with almost half an iceberg lettuce (I mean, is TVP really that expensive that you need such filler?!). The soup was a very basic bean soup with a tiny garnish of avocado, cashew cream and four slices of radish (really not cool to describe a *garnish* as the actual meal). The soggy strips of tortilla add a sort of DIY cheapness to the dish.

The only really delicious item on the menu was the Leek and Kale Bake. Despite not being a fan of kale, I loved this dish: creamy, cheesy, tasty. The tiny dish it arrived in was less than half full - no problem, as it's quite rich - but my companions and I were horrified to discover that, once the mound of 'garlic bread crumbs' had been excavated, this $16 dish comprised less than one centimetre of actual casserole (I mean we're not talking smoked salmon or caviar here!!). It was as though the kitchen had a couple of tablespoons remaining, spread it on the base of the dish, and filled the rest with bread crumbs to give the appearance of a full serve. Bottles of water are not provided (possibly due to the tight space), but rather diners are expected to rely on the small glasses being refilled by waitstaff. I had to ask four or five times for water (it was a hot night) by waiters standing around doing nothing in a half-filled venue.

Updated from previous review on 2015-10-05

The worst management attitude ever. Table of 7, ordered a large selection of dishes with a drink each.
Arrived the time of the main courses, we ordered a bottle of wine (until then no problem..), after pouring a small glass to everybody, i attend to order another bottle to be told after 20 mins that i couldn't get it. (without explanations).
I asked to see the manager, who after 15 mins, told me that as we were drunk, she was refusing to serve us.
Maybe somebody need to explain her properly the rules of 'responsible Service of Alcohol'.
Needless to say We won't be back and already enjoying tell all our friends and social media contact to avoid such an establishment.
We still left a good tip to the service staff who were awesome.
SHAME, SHAME, SHAME

This place is an absolute must! We got the chicken burger which was so convincing and reminiscent of KFC. The poutine was just incredible, the gravy alone was perfection let alone on chips with cheese.

We should have left it there for the mains but the menu said you must order the Mac and cheese, and so we did. It was meh, big serving but nothing exciting.

Cocktails were fantastic and if you don't mind a creamy beverage you must try the peanut butter cup, it was perfection

Gotta get the cheesecake and pumpkin pie, both classics and done exactly as they should be - the taste and texture was all there

A great night, highly recommended and will certainly be back for breakfast

I went not too long ago and had the mock chicken burger. The texture was so convincing! But it tasted amazing!!! Really cool place and great staff

If you tend to associate vegan with healthy, this place sets-out to prove you wrong. Vegan food can indeed be super-junky. I ordered the "ribs" and the canadian chips . The chips arrived drowned in gravy. Poor soggy things! As for the fake meats, you don't really know what goes into them. I only know that by the end I was feeling seedy. Somebody at my table got the type of reaction she only gets after ingesting msg. Fortunately they kept refilling our jug of water. After eating so much salt you find yourself continuously reaching for it.

So, so good. I love a place where I can order anything at all and know it's 100% vegan! So great that they are willing to alter ingredients to cater for my lack of spice-love. Great food and service. Make sure you book well in advance.

Oh how I wish I had one in Hobart! Fantastic to be able to order anything on the menu and not worry about cruelty! The food I had was fabulous, tasty and friendly staff, go there!!

It's good, but not as good as all the hype I've heard.

I wouldn't tell you not to go, I'd just say to bring your expectations down a little.

Hint: the desserts are the best part. Maybe just skip to that right away :)

Mexican Hash & Breakfast Burrito are delicious. Service is fast with a smile.

Amazing food. I had the big breakfast and it was delicious. Lots of atmosphere. Very popular place to eat, it was packed.