Araliya - St Kilda

It was a very disappointing experience at this restaurant. Food is no where near authentic and lacks in flavour which is the signature for Sri Lankan cuisine. I would look elsewhere as Melbourne has a great range of Sri Lankan restaurants spread across the city and suburbs.

A last minute catch up with my Cousin resulted in three of us having dinner here at Araliya.At first we were a bit taken given we were the only three in the restaurant apart from the staff. We were eventually joined by other customers and it was a Tuesday night after all.The staff greeted us warmly and were very helpful. The layout of the restaurant was good, it was clean and modern with a relaxing feel.The wine selection was sufficient, not extensive but plenty to choose from. The staff had basic knowledge of the wine although we did not test them on matching the wine with our food. A note though if drinking more than 4 glasses of wine purchasing a bottle may be the better option.The menus were presented, easy to read with a good selection, not too much but sufficient. Vegetation options available.The staff explained the selection excellently. As we were in a Sri Lankan restaurant we opted for the traditional style dishes which consisted of seafood and lamb for starters and curry's for main.Given our pellets do not enjoy overly spicy foods all three of us settled for medium spice, which was actually quiet mild.All our meals were beautiful, great mix of spice with a wide variety of ingredients. The only comment, not a bad comment though, was that they were served in separate dishes 5 to 6 per person.This was sufficient although the dessert menu had us intrigued with a chocolate moose with sweet potato custard, so we ordered one to share. This dish looked amazing and although sweet potato in a desert was a strange taste to get used it was something that grew on you with each mouthful.All in all great little spot on a strip that is on the pick up with great cafes and restaurants alike. Well worth a visit if you are in the neighborhood.

We had been Araliya fans in Hawthorn for many years.This was our first visit to the StKIlda version. We were not dissappointed - food was still great - if anything, some of the new menu items were even better than I had remembered.Fresh, tasty and a good choice of sides made this a lovely meal. The wine list is excellent and reasonably priced. We will be back!

This restaurant was fabulous! The service was impeccable, every single dish was divine and the strawberry,chilli,gin cocktail was sensational.The food is so clean and the aromas are amazing.This restaurant should be packed to the rafters every night. ...lucky for us it wasn't!Reasonably priced and generous portions.Can't wait to eat here again

After dining here, we felt ripped off and very disappointed with the food. This restaurant has received good reviews, however our experience was anything but.Paying a huge amount for only one fillet of fish is outrageous and the Asian greens we ordered were sloppy and didn't look fresh at all. Also didn't expect to get only 5 tiny pieces of devilled chicken that is meant to be a main meal. And the small bowls of rice that were served were only good enough for one person not for our table of 7. The waiters were also very overbearing, filling and taking away our glasses almost every 5 minutes! If I wanted to pay that much money for only entrée sized food I would have gone elsewhere because not only were the prices outrageous for what you received, but the quality was just as shocking.