Italian restaurant with a California astic located in Midtown Detroit
Over the weekend I had the pleasure of visiting one of Detroit's newer restaurants, Mad Nice. Located in midtown of Detroit, Mad Nice brings a fun and chic vibe to the area. Making all their doughs, pizza and pastas, it is for sure a must stop in the city!
Eats
Homemade pasta and pizza are always green flags! Our table ordered two pizzas and two pasta dishes. Both pasta dishes, Rigatoni Ragout and Bucatini Cacio E Pepe were well flavored, alente and you could tell fresh. I really enjoyed the rigatoni dish that I shared with my friend. I personally had the Buchaniti, which was okay, a little too buttery and cheesy. Did not feel an italian flare to it. However, the pizza was a knockout! I actually do not like tomato sauce but they had plenty of options. We ended up choosing the Sausage&Olive pizza and Shrooms pizza. They were both moist, especially the olive pizza that had a well balanced amount of olive oil drizzled.
A funny note to point out, their drink menu is more extensive than their food variety by a lot! But with that being said, there is always something new to try out. This landed me with a Blackberry Hibiscus drink from the Vybes brand. The drink contained a little CBD in it. That was my first time trying out a drink like that and I enjoyed it! I personally felt a little lighter with it. There is also a whole section of mocktails and other non-alcoholic drinks. I was very impressed and appreciated that as I am not a usual alcohol drinker.
Ambiance
The restaurant is suppose to have a California vibe to it, and I believe they executed that very well. Between the sunset light fixtures, open and airy concept with trendy jumpsuit uniforms, the restaurant hits all marks in a lovely way. It is a very busy and lively atmosphere. Perfect for upbeat occasions, maybe too loud for really intimate conversations.
Improvements
Their menu is crazy. Where they score points in visual aesthetic, they lose in consumer friendly content. They know this as well! To understand the menu, the server has to point out the past a dishes and navigate you through the menu. For example, the pasta dish have no indicating words that refer to it as pasta. Yes, they do a great job of explaining but realistically, your menu should be clear enough for someone to sit down and just read it.
The pizza was good however, I would have liked to see more options and add ons. The server mentioned a pasta dish that uses fish oil which leaves an anchovy savor to it. I loved the sounds of that and naturally asked if there were anchovies available to add to the pizza.
There were not. I think the restaurant could expand to adding more things to their pizzas. Some only had 4 ingredients going on, which is cute but limiting. This is the Midwest, we would like out meat please!
Recommendation
The restaurant is very well put together! If someone said "lets make a super instagrammable restaurant with great food" Mad Nice could be the blueprint. With that said, there are some pros and cons to it.
I will say, Mad does an excellent job at creating a beautiful atmosphere and bringing a slice of Cali with midwestern hospitality. However the pink and decor, might be a little too much for me. It is a very pink and feminine place. I would go here with a group of girlfriends, family and I wouldn't not mind if a man asked me to go to a date here. But I would not bring a male date or friend here. The food is great and the pink isn't overpowering but just not the vibe for me in those scenarios. But if you are a man and need a girlfriend-proof Restaurant, this is it!!