Pastuso

One of my favourite restaurants here in Melbourne. It is expensive but the food is absolutely lovely.
They have really friend staff that you can tell have been trained how to sell but they do it nicely.
Definitely give this place a try!

The staff were amazing, food cooked beautifully, and lovely restaurant. But my partner and I didn’t really enjoy the taste of any of our dishes. Raw fish with buttermilk and coriander- we thought it was so weird it must be some how delicious! But we didn’t think so. This place would be great if you like really bizarre flavour combinations. We love fine dining but this wasn’t for us.

We are a regular customers but unfortunately this time we felt really disappointed with the venue and completely felt was a total rip off in terms of dish selections and ridiculous small size. Absolutely disappointed with the causa and calamari. All of the dishes for four of us were really small.
I expect the management to reply and rectify it.
We spent almost $400 dining and not satisfied with the experience this time.
Regards
Yolanda

We came here for a work event, and prior to coming I looked at the menu and noted there is basically nothing vegetarian, however the staff were AMAZING and accommodated this SO WELL on the day by coming over and discussing what alternatives they were going to provide us with, and all the food they created was amazing! Very impressed.

Service was friendly and attentive. The sweet corn cakes were very tasty (think almost like a sweet polenta cake). The alpaca tartare was different and interesting. It was not at all gamey but was quite a fatty meat so the small serving size was about right. The rest of the food was solid but not excellent. On its own, the pisco sour was a bit sourer than I'm used to but actually matched up and balanced quite nicely with the sweetness in the meals we ordered.

Bad business practice to tell you about a $1500 minimum spend after your deposit has already been paid. $1500 for group of 10 with $70 set menus? Utter garbage

An excellent and diverse menu. If you're looking for a taste you haven't experienced before, or a dish that is new and interesting, then Pastuso is highly recommended. Recommend getting a number of smaller plates and sharing them.

Have been here a few times. Great entrees, mains lacked a bit of flavor specifically the meats and chicken, to be Peruvian food needs more spice and salt. Good to share although very small serves and pricey. We had the set menu on one occasion which unfortunately was not very impressive and took a very long time. My husband had to go back to work after 1.5 hours and all he had to eat was entree we still had to pay for him although he missed on pretty much everything. The waiter was rude and couldn't care less. Arrogant staff so if you don't care much about service, not a bad option.

4th visit in as many months. Always exceptional. Peruvian food is incredible and this is the place to get all those incredible flavours without having to buy a ticket and fly to Peru.

The restaurant is beautiful and the service is good, but I was expecting much more about the food. I was in peru for 5 months and this is not even close to the real taste of peruvian food. The cebiche was unbelievable small and I had to put salt to get any flavour out of it. Nothing similar to the cebiches in Peru.
I was celebrating my aniversary there because we love peruvian food and we end up leaving disapointed unfortunatelly.

Unfortunately last night it wasn't Pastuso we discovered 2 years ago with friendly and well trained staff. This time their attitude was somwhat arrogant and unaccomodating. The food was great as usual except for grilled lamb. When we tried a piece each, all four of us concluded that it was just outright raw meat. When we brought that to the attention of our waiter, she took the remaining tiny fifth peace, put it on a grill for 30 seconds and brought it back slightly warmer but still raw inside out. Even if it was cooked property the second time, not sure how 4 of us would have shared that last tiny peace. So we just left lamb the way it was.

Secondly, when we got the bill, not only we were charged for lamb we couldn't eat, but also there was a donation for some charitable cause included without advising us prior. We do generally donate, but not when it's quietly sneaked into our bill with no explanation of what it's all about. I suggest you stop this practice immideately to avoid loosing customers.

If this was a place where you eat for $20-30 per person then 4-5 stars can be given. However, for a place where you pay $60-70 pp, I would say the above details really matter and bring the overall experience to 2 stars at most. Sorry, but you cannot charge like a premium place and do shortcuts like an ordonary eatery.

If you want to give Peruvian food a try, this is the place to go, it's basically a tapas style situation so you can try lots of different share plates. We ordered 9 plates between 4 people which was a good amount, it's just not the place to go if you're after a big hearty meal.
A must try is the Alpaca, I enjoyed it, not everyone at the table did, but it's certainly not available many other places in Melbourne so why not live dangerously!
They also have a great wine list with an extensive range of local and international wines to try.
Can't fault the service there and the restaurant has this low lit urban vibe about it.