Clubhouse

The Overview…

Food: Mango Smoothie Bowl, Blossom Hot cakes, Black Forest Panna cotta

Ratings:
Food: 4/5
Atmosphere: 4.5/5
Service: 4.5/5
Value: 4/5

The details…

Word has clearly spread fast with this one, as despite being open a mere few weeks, Clubhouse already has queues out the door – and it’s not small. While there’s not many tables accommodating large groups, there are two indoor seating areas (separated by the counter), street seating and a back courtyard – all bustling and almost full when we arrived fairly early on a Sunday.

Staff, while clearly rushed off their feet, were doing their best and service felt smooth and fairly polished. Dishes were beautifully presented, and while the wait for drinks was a little longer than average, our food seemed to arrive in good time and we were well attended to throughout our visit.

Dining with the_high_tea_girl usually requires you to have a bit of a sweet tooth which is good as there’s definitely a bit of a sweeter vibe to the Clubhouse menu, with no less than 6 sweet dishes. Let’s be honest, while their savoury menu is great, it’s the dessert style breakfast dishes where these guys really hit it out of the park!

We opted for the mango smoothie bowl, hotcakes and panna cotta. The mango smoothie bowl had some nice tropical flavours, and I liked that it wasn’t sickly sweet like some. However, it was a little icy, and while enjoyable it doesn’t even come close to the granola bowl in terms of texture or flavour balance.

Luckily the hotcakes and panna cotta were two big hits! The blossom hotcakes come with salted caramel, strawberries, vanilla mascarpone, dark chocolate meringue and raspberry curd –  I mean, what’s not to love! The hotcakes themselves are the usual fluffy, light high standard you’d except from this chain, and the meringue and salted caramel combo really ticked my boxes.

The panna cotta is – wait for it – black forest gateau flavour! Now black forest gateau is my FAVOURITE cake. You know that scene in Matilda, with the kid and the cake, that’s me and black forest gateau – so I was pretty excited for this. It looked great, I was pleased the panna wasn’t sickly, I loved the jelly, and when you get a forkful with all the elements it recreated the flavour perfectly.

The only downside is, the sauce is on the base of the plate, so most of your early forkfuls are just chocolate – I would love to see this adapt into a dish with a pouring sauce to help blend those flavours through the whole dish, but this is definitely one for our next edition of Melbourne’s Best Pannacotta!

Everything else…

Website: http://clubhousemalvern.com.au/

Address: 1290 Malvern Road, Malvern

Opening Times: 

Mon        7am to 4pm
Tue         7am to 4pm
Wed        7am to 4pm
Thu         7am to 4pm
Fri           7am to 4pm
Sat          7:30am to 4pm
Sun        7:30am to 4pm

Parking: It’s in a slightly more suburban area, far enough from Glenferrie’s Road so there is street parking around. We ended up parked a few hundred metres down the street but it’s not as hectic as you would expect for Malvern.

Getting here on PT: It’s on the 72 tram route – alight at Meredith Street!

Disclaimer: We dined as guests of Clubhouse Malvern. Reviews are honest and based on our own personal experiences. We cannot guarantee things at a cafe won’t change including, but not limited to, menu items and opening hours, so please confirm any details with the venue before visiting