Lily's Pad Cafe - Leura, New South Wales

J F.

Atmosphere: The cafe has a nice ambience, and the seats were arranged in a way that still gave good distance from the next table.

Food: The corned beef was one of the two items on the menu that was a recommendation by the operator/ head wait staff/ manager. Whilst it didn't have any sauce, it was still tasty and went pretty well with the hash. I liked it.

Unfortunately, I couldn't say the same about the exotic mushroom breakfast. The herbs and garlic used to season the mushrooms were so burnt that it left an extremely bitter taste on the mushrooms. The fried enoki mushroom was also over-fried , and it totally changed the flavour profile that wasn't pleasant to the taste buds. We were offered a replacement meal on the house (see more below on my write-up on service for more details). Even though we requested for everything to be made fresh, we suspect they did reuse some of the mushrooms again from the first plate as they still had some burnt herbs and garlic in the second plate. Whilst it was better the second time around, we still had to spend time trying to flick off the very burnt herbs and garlic. We could see they attempted to add in new herbs and garlic.

Coffee: It was not too bad but a little surprise that they didn't have coffee art.

Service: It was a mixed experience. Some of the wait staff were not very experienced. When we brought to the attention of one of the younger waitresses of the burnt garlic, she claimed that was just a type of mushroom. The service was only salvaged by whom I believe may have been the operator/ head wait staff/ manager. Unfortunately didnt catch her name, but she took the time to listen to what we were trying to express and made the offer to replace the dish on the house. It was very commendable of her. Though disappointed by the kitchen staff.

Given the hit and miss with the food + mixed service experience, it would take an uplift of the food quality for us to return.

Raymond L.

Very friendly and attentive staff. We ordered different lunch dishes and coffees and they were all excellently prepared and tasted delicious. We were very happy to spend an afternoon there until 3pm.

Mia Y.

Came here 5 years ago and was excited to return but the execution of their brunch menu has dropped.

Firstly the flat white was bitter and milk was not frothed well - there were huge bubbles all over the surface

We ordered the exotic mushrooms and Reuben rosti. Both were disappointing to be frank.
Neither were well seasoned and both were quite dry. The Reuben was very dry and hard to cut into. An accompanying sauce/gravy would have been helpful to mask the dryness (I had to use the self serve sauce to enhance the dish!). The mushrooms could have used more butter to bring out the suppleness in mushrooms.

The price point is too high for how it tasted.

Interesting menu and has a lot of potential to have been a delightful brekkie.

Gabby

What a lovely welcoming place. Staff lovely, food delicious, and service wonderful and efficient. The lemon curd cheesecake is a delicious must-try. Light and awesome flavour. There is plenty of heating for those who feel the cold, but options for seating away from this, for those of us who don't want to be right under a heater. Best of both worlds 😊👌

Shane H.

beautiful food with plenty of options and variety the local lamb sausage breaky was perfect. great friendly service and good coffee. highly recommend

Alicja K.

Heard so much good stuff about this place but was quite disappointed. They weren’t able to do a simple eggs on toast, even though on the menu you could see that you could easily add eggs or toast to anything else. My friend also usually eats small portions due to dietary preferences so she wanted to get the kids pancakes, cheaper, but a smaller portion, and she wasn’t able to. She was forced to get the larger portion which she did not finish and payed extra for. The food was still delicious but definitely a disappointing experience. Definitely overpriced for the tiny burger I got.

M J.

We were here on good Friday.
Busy as it gets but super friendly servicd staff and quick service. Loved the lamb sausages and steak sandwich

A

I ordered a burger, but waited 30 minutes before asking about it. I finally got my burger, but the bun was burnt. I will never go back again.