Moosewood Restaurant
Hours
We don't have any info on this entry's hours. Please add them if you know.
$$ - average
American
Vegetarian cafe of cookbook fame
What vegetarian doesn't have at least one Moosewood Cafe cookbook? This famed eatery sits unobtrusively inside the small downtown Ithaca DeWitt Mall. The atmosphere is cozy. Menus are small and change daily. The focus is on fresh seasonal fare. As you might expect, cookbooks and merchandise is available on-site.
At the intersection of N Cayuga St and E Seneca St.
- (Mostly) Organic
- Outdoor Seating
- Quiet
Added by Ms Margaret on Aug 4 05 (updated Apr 5 07)
Reviews
I'd had my expectations trimmed back before finally visiting Moosewood during a cross-country trip, and I'm glad. This was a very disappointing visit. The food is overpriced, the service inattentive, and the vegan options mediocre. While the lasagna I tried was okay, it certainly was worth no more than 8 or 9 dollars anywhere else (presumably a vegan restaurant without cookbooks on the market). The other vegan dish, a curry, was not good, and I could not finish it. When I tried to order one of the two vegan desserts, a chocolate banana cake, I was informed that they were out. I don't imagine I'll be back.
I've heard some people call the Moosewood Restaurant overrated, but I enjoyed my lunch there. The restaurant itself is really quite understated - warm yellow walls, simple wooden furniture, some couches, an area to buy cookbooks and such. The location is easy to miss too if you don't know the area. You have to enter through the little DeWitt Mall on the corner.
The lunch menu is pretty small (as is the dinner one, I'm sure). Moosewood usually offers about 4 soups, a handful of sandwich options, and a number of casseroles for lunch. Surprisingly, they also seem to really push the (alcoholic) drink menu (a real money-maker, I'm sure).
I had the tomato-basil soup and a sauteed veggie sandwich with smoked mozzarella. Both were simple, but excellent. My husband had a southwestern corn chowder and some kind of casserole. The soup was yummy (and made us want to go home and make it ourselves), but the casserole was kind of bland. Overall, I really enjoyed my Moosewood meal, even if the restaurant wasn't the fantastic experience I expected from the famed cookbook.
I thought that the Moosewood restaurant was somewhat overrated, at least in terms of its vegan offerings. The only lunch menu items that were vegan on the day that I was there were a hummus sandwich, some salads and a vegetable soup. All of the more interesting sounding menu items contained dairy or fish. The vegan chocolate cake was decent for a cake that claims to use bananas as its sole sweetener, but I found much better vegan desserts elsewhere in Ithaca. In short, Moosewood is a good place to go if you happen to be in the area, but I wouldn't make a special trip there.