Mad Nice is the coolest place in town ... maybe a little too cool

No diner leaves Mad Nice without snapping a photo.

Wide-eyed girls hurriedly reach for their iPhones as if the cherry blossoms that climb the walls and spread their vines across the ceiling of the entrance vestibule might wither away before the eager guests have had a chance to capture their beauty.

In awe of the dining room, one woman holds her phone in front of her as though it’s the video camera guiding her to a two-top at the back of the restaurant — the host cradling a pair of menus in front of her is just an accidental extra in the short film that will almost certainly end up on Instagram.

The expansive Italian restaurant is a looker. By day, you’ll admire the clean, bohemian-chic details that aim to transport a diverse sea of diners to an al fresco eatery in say, Malibu or on Venice Beach, like white woven hanging lights and pops of greenery at every turn. Manicured trees line the perimeter of the interior and the leaves from potted plants cascade from the top shelf of the bar, grazing colorful bottles of spirits. Cool, beachy tunes fill the space, like upbeat Cuban jazz and islandy instrumentals.

Evenings, the pavement of Midtown Detroit’s Second Avenue is awash in neon pink, purple and electric blue lights that radiate from the dining room’s floor-to-ceiling windows. Inside, the lights are low, somewhat concealing the identities of the who’s-who of metro Detroit crowded at the bar.

Ombre Italian aperitivos served in skinny flutes and colorful ribbed glassware with fresh herbs and sugared fruits add to the allure of the space. Desserts are so stunning, they’re as appealing as sweet treats sketched for cartoons. A menu staple, the vanilla bean gelato, is swirled meticulously into a heavy, frosted marble bowl and dirtied with fine grounds of candied pistachio and flecks of chocolate that melt on your tongue. The giant dessert is emblematic of the restaurant's whimsical opulence. It’s like truck soft serve dispensed into an antique treasure.

Mad Nice is the coolest place in town. As far as restaurants go, it’s made the most noise since establishments reemerged after the final COVID-19 shutdowns. By definition, of course, noise is not always pleasant.

Admirers of Heirloom Hospitality’s other endeavors — Townhouse with locations in Birmingham and Detroit, and downtown Detroit's Prime and Proper with its underground speakeasy Cash Only — have been anticipating the newest addition since 2019, when it was first announced that a multiconcept eatery would take over the former Will Leather Goods space.

Originally slated to be named “Sauce,” the development was once intended to fill a near 11,000 square feet with a swaggy pizza-centric Italian restaurant, a café and a market under one roof. More than three years, a name change and a consolidation of concepts later, Mad Nice opened in March, streamlining many of the intended offerings onto a restaurant menu.

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If you think of Heirloom Hospitality properties in generations, all of the restaurants are members of the same affluent family, with influences of a different time. Prime and Proper and Cash Only are in the Greatest Generation class — the distinguished pipe-puffing, smoking jacket-wearing, Hugh Hefner-type — while the Townhouse chain is your everyday Millennial. Mad Nice, with its made-for-social-media vibe, fits the archetype of a Gen Z-er, while welcoming an array of diners from all generations and cultural backgrounds.

Here, similar pastels that show up at Townhouse Detroit, and in subtle glimmers at Cash Only, manifest in a trendier palette of pink, seafoam green and coral that evokes elements of the ocean. A soft pink awning hovers over the open kitchen, its scallop shingles like the façade of a dollhouse. Behind the kitchen are chefs outfitted in white boiler suits kneading dough for wood-fired pizzas.

Fresh out of the oven, the crust on the pies are nicely charred, chewy and salty all at once and the tomato sauce has a mildly tart zing. There are enticing toppings, like little neck clams and gorgonzola glossed in spicy chili-infused honey, but a classic Margherita, with its torched mozzarella and hunks of fresh garlic, is indulgent enough.

Time was on its side when the restaurant opened. HBO’s “White Lotus,” was still inspiring la dolce vita for all who watched a quirky-yet-fabulous Jennifer Coolidge sail the waters of the Ionian Sea. Travelers are still booking trips to Sicily and the Aperol spritz remains the drink darling of the year, the apéritif brand owing a large debt to the cultish series. The range of bitters-based cocktails and pizza and pasta dishes and the overall air of coastal Italian culture at Mad Nice taps into an of-the-moment demand.

Recent nostalgia for the Barbie universe doesn’t hurt either. Nor do tour stops for Taylor Swift and Beyoncé. The craze for ultra-feminine experiences where guests can match their Barbie-pink dresses with pink velvet booths in the shape of grand oyster shells, or sequin tops and metallic stiletto talons with crystal glasses, adds to the restaurant’s current appeal.

A simple, yet impressive menu helps.

Sourdough bread is baked in house. Where Prime and Proper specializes in dry-aged steaks, Mad Nice masters the art of fermentation in baking. A crackly crust contrasts chewy, bubbly, not-too-tart bread. A puddle of silky olive oil in the center of softened butter is meant to be spread onto the warm bread — I instead drag tears of the bread across the dish, sopping up every bit of fatty goodness.

In a post-pandemic era when quality lunch spots are hard to come by, Mad Nice offers a place for the power lunch. In one corner, you may see a longtime fashion editor, in another, Jack White.

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Salads here are crisp and filling, and sandwiches are well crafted. A pastrami sandwich layers delicate shavings of smoked brisket with tangy, housemade sauerkraut and melted Gruyère on golden grilled sourdough. It's substantially meaty without getting messy like the trope of a deli sandwich.

There’s more fritto than potato in the Potato Fritto, fried Yukon puffs served with a hollandaise sauce. The golden disks are underwhelming when a thick, greasy batter coats a thin sliver of potato. The restaurant makes up for one lackluster starter with another more promising app. A summery cucumber salad pairs noodle-like strands of cucumber with sweet corn and crumbles of sharp feta.

Coffee lattes that feel more like extensions of the dessert menu are also appealing. The Biscotti Almond folds in a mixture of biscotti soaked in cream and an almond-infused syrup for a lightly sweet, nutty, caffeinated drink. The beverage, as with all coffee drinks at Mad Nice, is served with a soft biscuit that calls to mind the culinary star of the “Ted Lasso” series.

For dinner, another menu of classic dishes does not disappoint.

A dense, savory pancake is cloaked in a buttery golden hollandaise sauce that I’ll soak up with any piece of pancake not covered in the stuff. It's topped with a mound of snappy pickled vegetables.

A rotisserie chicken is hearty, plating a whole chicken with a ladle of a sweet-savory honey sauce teeming with green olives and a handful of fresh salad greens. Crunchy bits of fried garlic add dimension and a prickly heat to the dish.

A delicious short rib is presented on top of a velvety comforter of smoky mole and topped with an herbaceous chimichurri and bright orange curls of sweet roasted squash.

Despite an overall appreciation for Mad Nice and respect for the distinct experience it delivers Detroiters, I can’t be blinded by the sheen of the pizza scissors — yes, you’ll slice through the leafy sheets of fresh basil and petals of wild oregano on your perfectly crafted Margherita pizza with a hefty pair of scissors boasting copper finger rings and the name, “Mad Nice” emblazoned on the blades.

It’s this overall pretense about the place that can be unsettling.

There’s an adjacent parking lot reserved for valet which will run you $15, though I’ve never had trouble finding public street parking. The restaurant’s website encourages “a smart and sophisticated casual dress code,” requiring guests to avoid athletic apparel, “overly revealing clothing,” sleeveless shirts, flip-flops and hats. And prices at the restaurant can span up to $24 for lunch salads, $24-$28 for pizza, $23-$48 for pasta dishes and up to $84 for entrees. That vanilla bean gelato, though meant to be shared, will run you $25.

At Mad Nice, there’s an expectation for diners to bring their all to the restaurant — their best attire and a decently-sized budget. Yet there’s an unshakable sense that in some ways, the restaurant does not do the same in return.

The devil, as they say, is in the details.

Reused menus are crinkled, stained and splattered with food after passing through the hands of countless diners. Those cherry blossoms at the entrance? Though quite captivating, they’re faux flowers, as are the potted plants and colorful bouquets in the dining room. The white boiler suits worn by servers are sometimes stained with pen marks or pizza sauce — happy accidents are par for the course among food handlers, but in a place that prides itself on appearance and expects the same of guests, the uniform choice seems impractical. There are certainly ways for diner-facing staffers to be outfitted in getups that are both fashion-forward and functional.

On more than one occasion, a host printed a small paper ticket the size of a receipt with my table number listed to help lead me to my table. It’s a subtle procedure that I’d otherwise ignore if it weren’t for the restaurant’s promise of an elevated experience. Mentally noting a guest’s table without a cheat sheet is rudimentary in the world of upscale dining.

The term “mad” was tossed throughout the hallways of my high school in the Bronx like a corn hole bean bag at a summer gathering in Michigan. The boys were “mad cute,” the teachers “mad annoying.” The adoption of an old East Coast slang term for a modern eatery with a West Coast sensibility feels out of place, and adds to that wink of pretension that I see in the pizza scissors. I see it in the quadruple-distilled water option, and in the ingredients that elevate price points without elevating the overall success of a dish. It’s in the king crab and saffron in a $48 bowl of butter noodles and in the black truffles that top a serving of ravioli.

The essence of coastal California — and the islands of Italy for that matter — is its ease. If Mad Nice can loosen its grip on the cool factor, perhaps the space will find its chill.

After all, it is already the coolest place in town.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Detroit's Mad Nice is the coolest place in town ... a little too cool