Other published opinions

Age Good Food Guide 2010 Score: 14.5/20 "With its mismatched cutlery and floral plates, this playfully Parisian-styled bistro could be home to someone's eccentric grand-mere, but for the discreetly attentive service and food that warns 'don't try this at home'"

Gourmet Traveller 2010 Australian Restaurant Guide "You may wonder if the overt faux-French touches - rustic distressed surfaces, exposed timber and accordeoniste - are not tongue-incheek, but there's no doubting Bistro Vue is sincere when it comes to turning out authentic versions of Parisian bistro classics"

Herald Sun 10-10-09 "Shannon Bennett gives traditional bistro cooking a 21st-century spin: poached eggs arrive in an egg carton with wild mushroom nuree"

Age Good Food Guide 2009 Score: 14/20 "It's a peculiar feeling being in a restaurant more like the stage set for a 19th-century French drama, especially when the piano accordionist gets the eras confused and plays Hal David/Burt Bacharach"

Gourmet Traveller 2009 Australian Restaurant Guide "Step off a Melbourne street and into a wormhole that transports you to a 50s Parisian bistro with heavily timbered ceilings, red banquettes and parquetry floors. All that's missing is the accordionist"

Herald Sun 10-06-08 Score: *** "Shannon Bennett's faux 19th-century dining room is straight from a Balzac novel, but many dishes give traditional bistro cooking a 21st-century spin"

Age Good Food Guide 2008 Score: 14/20 "You can practically hear the accordion, sniff the Gauloises and see the old man in a beret carrying baguettes home, humming snatches of Piaf"

Gourmet Traveller 2008 Australian Restaurant Guide "Shannon Bennett is a chef in a hurry. No sooner was his high-end restaurant firing than plans began for a cafe and, now, a bistro"

Herald Sun Bob Hart, 17-02-07 "SUPERCHEF Shannon Bennett has already entranced the nation's well-heeled with his heavily patronised and excellent Vue de Monde. And now he is on course to mesmerise the rest of us with an enchanting, affordable French bistro next door to his celebrated fine diner. Bistro Vue is about as close to Vue de Monde as decency will permit, but also worlds away. For in contrast to the stark modernity of its big brother, this place is all weathered opulence with cosy hints of the bohemian end of the Belle Epoque."

The Age Dani Valent, 22-1-2007 "Shannon Bennett's second-stringer would have you think it's an ordinary little place. The pitch is a French bistro, just as you might stumble upon in a Paris alley, assuming you were doing your stumbling around 1900. But Bennett has a thing or two to learn about ordinary, as you might conclude when eating yuzu-marinated scallop with bouillabaisse foam at Vue de Monde, his flagship restaurant with Little Collins Street frontage and enough Good Food Guide gongs to keep Victoria's hat-rack industry afloat."

The Age John Lethlean, 12-2-2007 Score: 14/20 "."

Age Epicure Unexplored Territory, Matt Preston, 7-11-06 "Bennett's expansion is slightly more restrained as both new operations trade on the same CBD site as his restaurant, Vue de monde.We concern ourselves here, however, with Cafe Vue. The hirsute one has bought a slick cafe concept from Illy and customised it into something even slicker. The red colour scheme comes with rough-hewn wood cubes as tables and what look like over-sized corks as seats. Outside this glass-sided box is a little walkway of raw brick clad with a chain mail mesh. Here battleship-grey benches line a couple of tables clothed and laid with butcher's paper."