Bistro Vue

Ph: (03) 9691 3838; Normanby Chambers, 430 Little Collins St, Melbourne 3000 www.bistrovue.com.au

cafe, $$ +
Open Lunch and Dinner Mon-Sat; Licensed; AE DC MC V
Chef Shannon Bennett (7-11-07) Owner Shannon Bennett (7-11-07)

Other published opinions

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."