Mabu Mabu - Catering

Amazing food, beautiful spices and sauces, lovely service and very dietary restrictions friendly! Can’t wait to come back.

Love love love this concept of a native Australian cuisine in a fine dining setting.The place is located at federation square and perfectly situated away from the hustle and bustle. The restaurant offers indoor and outdoor areas for dining pleasure.The food selection was great - a very wide range of delicious dishes utilising native australian ingredients. Love the different twists on the food which made it a very unique experience.High recommend the crocodile, charred pineapple and kingfish. Great staff service and amazing cocktails as well. Definitely would love to come back!

A new store in South Melbourne market, probably the third store in that location in the last 9 months, that’s a bit scary- for the owners of Mabu Mabu. That being said they beamed me some sunny smiles and my curiosity got better of me so I timidly approach them.I saw that they have two food options: sweet waffles and savoury waffles with a choice of 2 dips/ sauces, all made with indigenous Torres Strait ingredients.I had kiddo with me so I didn’t want to go too full on with the chilli or have something too sweet, so I chose the savoury waffles w samphire dip and warrigal greens dip. The waffle actually looked like a cute Christmas tree, and they dressed it up with fresh samphire, macadamia and fresh flowers to make it look super pretty.Taste-wise it was DELICIOUS! the waffles were slightly crispy on the outside and soft on the inside, and the dips were super tasty & slightly different from the usual fare. The whole thing tasted really healthy, yet it was so yummy I could easily think it’s a treat and don’t feel deprived.I hope it does well, although for $9 a pop I found it a bit too exxy. That being said I have heard that indigenous ingredients are quite expensive and hence maybe why the price is a bit steep. Nonetheless this will be my go-to breakfast/snack place if I go to the markets!

Mabu Mabu is a smart and vibrant cafe offering unique tastes of Indiginenous Australians ingredients in contemporary style. Unfortunately our experience was not as great as others. Some of the herbs used in our meal were not fresh and the proteins were overcooked. On the positive note, their hot sauces, which are available over the counter, did deliver. Wish they can improve and execute their unique offerings well in the future.

Mabu Mabu recently catered a conference meeting that we held and we cannot commend them enough. The delivery person was efficient, friendly and navigated a tricky delivery with good humour. The food was delicious and our international guests really enjoyed being able to taste Indigenous ingredients for the first time (such as emu, kangaroo, finger lime and wattleseed). They were also great at catering to dietaries, which was much appreciated. Thank you for feeding us with great-quality food!

Nornie from Mabu Mabu is a Torres Strait Islander woman who runs her own catering business and restaurant and cafe using and selling indigenous spices and ingredients. When you purchase a spice the glass jar is able to be refilled so they are environmentally friendly as well. I attended a Djirra workshop today where Nornie made delicious wattleseed chocolate pavlova - so yum! Support indigenous small business whilst enjoying fantastic food and learning about indigenous traditional flavoured products and how to use them.

Good to find First Australian food here. Emu bush taco dish and wallaby sausages were well liked by my guests. Vegetarian options were limited and average. Wattleseed latte was interesting. Purple cauliflower bush taco was very bland. Mabu waffle was too sweet.

2 stars for decent customer service and coffee. Unfortunately the food for us didn't quite hit the mark. Its touted as using indigenous ingredients and Torres Strait Island recipes, which is a great initiative, however...The food took quite a long time to come out. We had a kangaroo bourguignon with pumpkin damper. The damper was fantastic. The kangaroo wasn't pleasant. You did get the red wine stew hit at first which quickly disappeared into a rather unpleasant bitter aftertaste, kind of like eating soap.We also had the namas, fish cured in lime and coconut which on paper sounds delicious and when it come out it was... it was only just tolerable. The sesame chips were a nice accompaniment, however both dishes lacked seasoning and were to us just very plain bordering intolerable. The fish was missing something, a depth of flavour, and it really did straight up taste like chunks of fish in lime and very heavy coconut cream. I tried to add salt and pepper but it didn't do anything to the flavour.The yam crisps were good and lightly salted although some seemed stale.Everybody seems to love this place. Were we missing something?? Surely you can use a balance of indigenous ingredients and still season your dishes to make them taste good?On the other hand, service was attentive and warm although all the tables were dirty when we arrived for our booking and had to wait for it to be cleaned. All the empty tables were cleaned and set up first whilst we sat there waiting for our table to be cleaned and to be given menus.I don't know. There are a lot of cafes around serving great and enjoyable food and coffee, we had many regrets after this visit.Might I also add tables were squashed together as if there was no pandemic so no social distancing to be had here.

Delicious! Absolutely love every aspect of Mabu Mabu! Just wish they'd move to the northern suburbs so I could visit more often! Can't wait to visit again!

Was hoping for better. Booked a table for 3 via an online portal, yet, no table had been reserved for our party. We were sat near the open door, my head against the power board. Staff were friendly.To the meal, coffee was average, more milky than I prefer. The meals were okay, the poached eggs tasted heavily of vinegar which wasn't pleasant. Happy to support this initiative of our indigenous flavours and enjoyed the other flavours. Presentation was pretty good. Our order was messed up a bit but the staff provided the missed side free of charge, not expected but appreciated.Overall, was okay, but room for improvement.