Despite its horrible name, I had such high hopes for this place. After all, the reviews are excellent. But to truly be excellent IMO, you need to deliver consistency across a range of dishes. With solid service. And great decor. Cafe of Love failed at all three.
The decor is just okay. Nothing even worth mentioning. There are so many places that best it in Westchester alone. And the service was “eh.” A tad slow, poor recommendations, and worst of all, they were out of their signature dishes by 8pm on a Saturday night.
Then there’s the food. We were a party of 4, and all of us got an app, entree and dessert. Plus a side in the middle. So, I had the chance to taste a LOT of things. Of all 12 dishes, only 4 were worth mentioning:
1. The side of truffled chickpeas. Pretty addictively awesome.
2. The sweet corn gnocci. Very good.
3. The deconstructed Key Lime Pie. Solid good.
4. The Peach cobbler. Extremely good.
Everything else, the duck, salmon, mussels, butter lettuce salad… All of them were a waste of taste buds. Even the bread was borderline stale. Fortunately the white bean spread they served with it was quite tasty. But with a hit:miss ratio of 1:3, I’d say “excellent” is a bit of a reach.
So as we come full circle, back to the name, perhaps they should change it to “Cafe of Eh.”