Madeline’s Restaurant

My go-​to place for fancy dessert after a dinner in Downtown. The desserts are pretty impressive and they have a variety of them.

Go here for dessert (or go here for dinner and get a bowl of seasoned popcorn as an appetizer, but I wouldn’t recommend that). The exquisite pain was not painful to my tastebuds, rather the shards of chocolate glass were transparent in their decadence. Oh, and you can’t go wrong with the mousse.

Fantastic place, loved it.
Top notch service, polite, professional, there when you want them and gone when you dont. Décor and atmosphere are really nice.
I can only speak to the desserts, but the selection and quality were very good. Also enjoyed a really nice cocktail along with the dessert.

We were in Ithaca a few weeks ago and asked around where is a good place to get dessert. A couple of people said to check out Madeline’s. So, we tried but they were closed for renovations. So we knew we had to come back so we did!
The place
It is located in the commons area which if you have never been is a cool area full local shops and restaurants. It is a beautiful downtown area to visit. Madeline’s as I said was just renovated and comes across as a swanky hipster place yet not snobbish. They have really nice booths and tables with big plush chairs, it really looks nice and of course is very clean.
The staff
My advice as soon as you are seated walk up to the counter and look at the window full of desserts. I love when I can see something before I order it. The lady working was very friendly at answering all our groups questions since I never even heard of half the names of the desserts!
The food
This is a dessert only review since we didn’t eat here. One advantage of being married is when I go to places like this I can try to coax my wife to order something I want to try. Sadly it didn’t work this time! Because when they have so many great looking options you can’t just try one however ordering two desserts I might have went into cardiac arrest in my booth! I ended up ordering the Zuccotto. Which is a thin sponge cake layered with hazelnut chocolate cream and a mocha chocolate cream center. I can only say wow!!! So glad I went with the staff recommendation. Being full from dinner this cake was not only amazing but very light! It might have saved me a trip to the ER to get my stomach pumped. My wife ordered the Coconut cake which was decent but in my opinion nothing special opinion. The rest in my group seemed to love their orders also. We all ordered some coffee too which I can say was pretty good. Better than average that is one thing I hate when I go to a restaurant and get crappy coffee so I was pleasantly surprised.
The verdict
I really love this place the ambiance, the desert and the staff. From what I can see on Unilocal and facebook the owner is truly invest in this place and listening to the customers. This is a not the norm sadly so I am looking forward to trying the food and obviously more desserts! Hopefully next time I can to a better job of coaxing my wife to order something I want too! :)

The décor is beautiful! There’s very romantic lighting in the restaurant and there are love couches perfect for people going on a fancy date.
Now, onto the food. I got the soup dumplings and I was not impressed, with the price or the quality of the dumplings. The skin tasted like it hadn’t been steamed long enough and the meat wasn’t very fragrant.
I do really like the desserts at madeline’s. I’m always pleasantly surprised at how good their desserts are, but again, the price would make any college student wince. I’ve gotten their crème brûlée, tiramisu, banana cream pie, and chocolate tarts. All really good!

Went here for an anniversary dinner after reading some pretty positive reviews. We were coming from out of town, so we didn’t have anything other than Unilocal to rely on. We were looking for a nice place to eat and didn’t mind spending the money. When we arrived, we were told our reservation was lost. Luckily, the hostess fixed this pretty quickly and got us a table. The service was extremely slow. Dinner for the two of us took over 2 hours! It was clear that they were incredibly short staffed and there was one woman walking around, but doing nothing to help other than refilling waters. The food was good, not remarkable as we had hoped it would be. Dessert is their speciality and that did not disappoint.

Only had dessert but the selection was awesome, and the variety of crème brulee’s my family tried were excellent. Very nice place, nice service, nice place to end the evening. Well worth a try. Look forward to having dinner there on our next trip to Ithaca.

I’ve been Madeline’s four times in the past three years and it has consistently merited a 2.5 star review. For background, I have come for dessert, typically in the 8:00 — 10:00 PM range on both weekdays and weekends.
The low star rating is a function of food quality, service speed, and décor. Madeline’s is known for their desserts and the selection they offer is indeed wider than other restaurants in town. However, their quality fails to impress. Their buttercream frosting is much closer in texture and taste to vanilla fondant and the cakes are consistently dry, almost cardboard-​y (dessert dryness also mentioned in other Unilocal reviews here from June 2014). Based on taste, I get the impression that the desserts were prepped multiple days in advance and dried out in the display case. Further, the cakes are $ 8+/slice, which is high given their mediocre flavor. However, the portions are large, so if you’re going for quantity rather than quality, you’ll be pleased.
Regarding service, the low point was waiting 25 minutes for the bill for one slice of cake on an empty night (I ended up walking to the host station to request the check). Multiple servers have failed to fill my party’s water glasses (both initial waters and refills) and I would not recommend stopping by if you have some place to be after. I made the mistake of coming in for dessert an hour before a movie at Cinemapolis and nearly missed the start because of slow service. This same complaint about slow service has now appeared from multiple Unilocalers, so readers: trust what you read.
You will note that there are few pictures of the inside of the restaurant. The bar is quite nice (large enough for parties, polished dark wood), but the rest of the restaurant is a throwback to the 1990s. A large mural of jazz musicians (relevance to «modern european dining» or Ithaca???) is the focal point, and not particularly strong one. There are also some heavy handed glowing art pieces (see another Unilocal user’s photo from April 2015) and the music tends toward jazz covers one might hear in a fancy lobby. It’s disappointing they don’t update the space because it has great potential with its convenient location and large windows.
Madeline’s is able to stay in business because it doesn’t have much competition. I would recommend Just a Taste, Coltivare, or Mercato for desserts before coming here.

I went here for a business dinner and it was absolutely delicious. The menu was different than I saw online beforehand– but they still had a vegetarian meatball entrée served over polenta that was fantastic. Everyone raved about the desserts here but I was too full to try them. Next time!

Went in here after dinner elsewhere for cake and cocktails: the dessert tray was great, and I had the bourbon chocolate pecan which came in an inhumanly large piece, but was absolutely divine. The Lion In Summer cocktail (ginger beer, tequila, lime) was not so great/​very sour, but the waitress was lovely enough to sweeten it with some Grenadine when I said. The whisky selection was very good.

I had a drink and a salad with 3 friends. The wine was delicious and generously sized. The salad was fresh and the dressing tasty, though on the small side (lunch plate/​appetizer sized). On the downside, I asked for no meat or cheese on it, and there were no substitutions offered (like nuts or tofu), yet the price was not adjusted, so in the end, I paid $ 9 for small salad of greens, onions, and three cherry tomatoes. Ouch! I didn’t thoroughly check the menu, but based on the appetizers, specials the server told us about, and my salad experience, I’d say this isn’t the *most* vegetarian friendly place.
Our server was attentive and the outdoor seating area was lovely on a cool night. They do a decent job of shielding folks from the unsightly construction surrounding the restaurant. The drink menu is extensive. My friends said their appetizers and drinks were good.
I’ll be back to try the desserts — they look amazing!

Perfect celebration dinner!
Although we had to arrange ages ahead, once there we had a lovely meal to celebrate my son’s graduation from Cornell. The food was terrific for every course. Lots of debate over the dessert options but you could not go wrong. The vibe of the whole place was happy, relaxed and friendly — as opposed to the overbooked stressed out highly rated restaurant we ate at the previous night! This is now my favorite restaurant in Ithaca.

Family celebrations? Business meetings? Romantic dinner for two? Just feel like eating out in a nice atmosphere?
Madeline’s is the place to go! A multileveled, dimly lit restaurant with elegant interior design that meets small town Ithaca homeliness with a fine dining experience, Madeine’s is a place for anyone to enjoy. The wine and liquor selections will satisfy anyone’s picky habits, and theim restaurant’s initiative to sell only fair trade, organic gluten free foods makes for some of the best ingredients. Not only that, each plate is carefully designed and prepared to perfection! The staff is also very courteous, friendly, and helpful, so any concerns or requests you mat have will be promptly addressed.
I dined here to celebrate my brother’s graduation from Cornell, and I ordered the Grilled Salmon they offered on the menu. It came with a garlic cream that when eaten together made my taste buds go BALLISTIC like flubber. It was served with a side of delicious fried rice and sweet potatoes both cooked to perfection.
My only criticism of the place are the desserts. While my coconut cake was absolutely delicious, the cheesecake, key lime pie, and several other desserts tastes almost exactly like each other, meaning that ordering different dessets made for a less adventurous and less exciting experience. But they were delicious nevertheless!
Friendly staff, great atmosphere, delicious food: the whole package. A full Dinner may be over $ 50 per person, but it’s all worth it at Madeline’s.

I got dessert here with a friend and I liked the dessert but it was definitely overpriced. $ 8 for each slice of cake was ridiculous.

DO NOT COME HERE DURING ANY TIME IT IS BUSY.
I am not the type to complain about service. My tips are usually invariant to service, I’d rather happily refill my own water than wait, I hardly ever send food back.
And yet I feel compelled to write my second review ever and complain about exactly that. I was at Madeline’s yesterday, on Friday night. They are a nice place to go when no one else is there, but on Friday understaffed and the staff they do have are forgetful and rude.
My waitress forgot my initial drink order. 20 minutes later, I reminded her I had a drink order while people in my party ordered theirs. She brought them their drinks, and then with a straight face asked me if I wanted anything. I politely ignored the fact she had amnesia about my drink order and placed it again, and as far as I could tell my two prior inquiries had never happened. I then waited another 5 minutes to get my drink. But I sat next to the tap, so it baffles me why.
Fine. But then my waitress did not take our order after an hour until I politely complained to another waitress. Also, if you’re going to have this understaffing problem, put some friggin’ bread on the table or you’re gonna get hangry folk.
As dinner progressed, I wanted more drinks. More coffee. More food. More desert. I’m not asking you for ‘stupid’ things like more water refills.
But if I had waved traffic signals to get my waitress’ attention, it would not have worked., She ignored my raised hand on over 5 separate occasions tending to tables next to us. She made eye contact with me once as she passed by and then looped in a circle around the restaurant so as to avoid me.
Hey, all I want to do is buy more stuff from you, to which your tip is proportional.
I raised my hand at another waiter and he gave me an ugly face and walked away. My actual waitress did not come by within 10 minutes, suggesting rather than help me, he wanted to give me my comeuppance for smilingly raising my hand for help.
Another waiter was about to do the same, until I made an audible sigh under my breath and enervated shrug, both to signal my defeat. He flagged down our waitress.
To be honest, I really wished I had severely reduced the tip. But I was just so frustrated I didn’t even want to wait.
You’re not the only game in town!

Just about everyone else has raved about drinks-​and-​dessert, so I won’t go into that here. What about the dinner?
My significant other and I went for a birthday dinner. Their menu is quite outgoing — not totally-​out-​there, but not your typical fare. She had duck, and I had salmon over gnocchi. Very tasty, and her duck was probably the best we’ve had in North America (sorry, but the French still have the edge on this dish). My salmon was pretty much perfection. We finished with … drinks and dessert of course. Which was fantastic. The waiter was extremely polite and helpful.
It’s pricey, but we got what we paid for. There are WAY too many restaurants in Ithaca, but this was a rare one that was firing on all cylinders.

So this review is based solely off their dessert as we stopped by for take out dessert.
Quick review:
Red Velvet Cake — Was very dry, not a lot of flavor and got a very small slice for a large price.
Chocolate Cake — Needed sugar, tasted like a cake made with unsweetened bakers chocolate and also was very small and dry for the price.
Overall if their dessert was this bad (people rave about their desserts) I doubt their food will be as good. I might swing by and try them for dinner some time but I don’t know.
Also, the hostess was super-​snobby! «Oh your just here for dessert? Well… we have no where to sit so I don’t know what to tell you»
Wow! This is why we took ours to go, wouldn’t want to have inconvenienced the hostess… jeez…

Madeline’s is one of my favorite places in Ithaca for drinks and desserts. We frequently head to Mad’s for dessert regardless of where we’ve just eaten on any particular night. Because they have, hands down, the best after dinner service in town bar none.
But alas, that’s the problem. They do have a policy of barring you from ordering drinks and dessert before 9:30, and they will put the poor hostess at the podium in the difficult position of always making sure you know that. Make the mistake of showing up before the designated dessert hour, and it doesn’t matter if the restaurant is empty: you will be uninvited to join them.

Updated Review 5-​1-​2013
Second time here, ordered Lamb Chops, and a friend did as well and boy was it deep red RAW IN THE MIDDLE. Check out Madeline photos to see. The dish already took 30 min so we were expecting them to refire, well instead they give us an entirely new lamb chops in 15 minutes so I guess that is what happens when they actually focus on a dish. This time it was cooked perfectly, medium rare as requested.
They compensated by giving us 2 free desserts of our choosing so only 1 star was removed from the previous review.

Famous for desserts? WOW must try.
Yesh! They have a vegan dessert.
Vegan Coconut Crème Brulee??? No way. I must order!
Looks good.
Time for the ultimate test.
Disappointed. Looks are deceiving!
Why? Yes the coconut taste is present, but what happened to the crème brûlée part? Imagine a coconut creamy jello with sugar on top. Yeah. not worth the price I paid.
Service and setting is great though. Food is a negative.