Another gripe I have with LM is that they put cold cuts on their sandwiches. As in - Oscar Mayer. I ordered the turkey-cranberry-dressing sandwich, and was shocked when I couldn't tell if the meat in it was turkey, ham, or some other random conglomeration of protein. It was salty and had no taste other than whatever brining solution had been pumped into it at the factory. Compared to Panera (which is our go-to healthy bakery-style meal place), La Madeleine's offerings were just......pitiful. Panera's all-natural meats actually LOOK and TASTE like the animal they come from. At these prices, I expect AT LEAST the same from La Madeleine.
I will end this pretty scathing review with one last negative comment - which is about the staff. Every single member of this LM's staff seemed incapable of communicating. I asked for the turkey cranberry sandwich, and the girl who was ringing us up said "uhll".......to which I replied "I'm sorry??" and leaned forward. She repeated "uhhhlll??" Thinking that I was having a stroke and had had the entirety of the English language erased from my memory, I asked her once again to repeated herself. It was at this point that she managed to summon up an actual word of dialect - "Full?" I stopped while my brain churned through this one grunted word and it ultimately fell to my husband to explain to me that she was asking me if I wanted a "full" sandwich.....I guess instead of a half sandwich? Jeeez people - communicating shouldn't be this hard.
Excellent food and a very nice, rustic atmosphere. The staff are warm and friendly, and the pastry selection is out of this world. Not too expensive, but not the cheapest fare in town, for sure. They seated our group of 9 at the busiest time of Saturday brunch.
Anyways, I digress. La Madeleine is about as French as I am (which is - not at all). Or as French as Panera is. The upside of Panera is that you get a decent amount of food for your money - whereas at La Madeleine you don't. I had checked out menus of this place before going and they seemed RELATIVELY reasonable - but upon arriving at the LM in Little Rock, we discovered that most of what we had read online was outrageously out of date. Entrees do NOT comes with sides - so if you want to order an entree, you will be paying over-and-above for a-la-carte sides of you want to actually round off your meal into a.....meal. Call me stingy, but I don't call $13 for an "entree" without sides (read: a piece of chicken) appropriately priced. Add on vegetables (about $3) and rice (about $3) and suddenly you're into semi-upscale-restaurant pricing. This is not a semi-upscale eatery. It is a counter-serve pseudo-French bakery who keep batches of pastries warm up front because they are the most popular, and take untold amounts of time to actually serve REAL food if you order it.
While we were there, all the rest of the staff here sort of waddled about in the most unbecoming of ways, never acknowledging us (well, except the bread lady which was refilling the bread station.....but she looked like she hadn't ever done that before so even that was painful), and generally looked bewildered or disgruntled or goth.
Went to brunch today. Chose a table by the windows, not realizing it also put the chair I was seated in directly in front of the door to the patio, making it necessary for me to actually move/get up several times when someone went out to patio. I pointed this out to the manager as we were preparing to leave. His reply? Corporate tells them where to put tables and now I know not to sit there.
All in all - I don't recommend this place and I wouldn't go to another LM again, regardless of location. My advice is to stick with Panera - they use recognizable meats and their employees have the gift of speech.
Amazing place. Some of the friendliest staff I have had at a restaurant. The food is very good. They stick to French rustic cuisine and do it amazingly well. Dessert options are numerous and every one of them delicious. Also the French dark roast coffee is some of the best I have ever had.
I had a hard time deciding between two and three stars for this place, but in retrospect after reflecting on the price for what we got, that was what ultimately made me opt for two stars.
Love the fresh made food. Just the right size. Yummy pasteries
La Madeleine is a much-loved chain across certain areas of the country and the last time I ate at one was when I was fresh off the boat as an expat in Dallas. So - I remembered little to nothing about it and seeing as they had a new location open in Little Rock, and we were going to be in the neighborhood anyways - we decided to try them (although it was very, VERY difficult to drive past Star of India on the way to this place. The force is strong with Sami Lal......)
La Madeleine French Bakery Caf is a US Cafe based in Little Rock, Arkansas. La Madeleine French Bakery Caf is located at 12210 W Markham St, Little Rock, AR 72211, USA.
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