Cafe Mado – a Michelin chef's café, one star lighter

Cafe Mado occupies a quiet stretch of Washington Avenue in Prospect Heights, close enough to the Brooklyn Museum and the Brooklyn Botanic Garden that gallery-goers and dog-walkers drift in at all hours of the day. The room itself has history: it is where chef Nico Russell ran his own Oxalis, a tasting-menu restaurant that earned a MICHELIN Star within its first ten months and operated from 2018 until 2023, before Russell chose to replace the fixed menu with an all-day café rather than simply reopen it. He named the new project for Marie Louise "Madame Mado" Point, who kept La Pyramide in Vienne, France running after her husband, the chef Fernand Point, died in 1955, carrying his standard of hospitality forward for decades. Cafe Mado sits inside Russell's own Redwood Hospitality group with Place des Fêtes and Golden Ratio, and it is Selected in the MICHELIN Guide, a sign that the cooking still carries a trained kitchen's discipline at café prices and café pace.

01The room and the setting

A coffee counter greets arrivals up front; beyond it the room opens around an open kitchen, where whoever is cooking at that hour comes out from the pass to say hello. The long entryway runs in line next to the open kitchen, in which the chefs of the day (or night, it all depends on when you visit) will greet you as you walk in. In the warmer months, the back garden stops being a bonus and becomes part of the room itself: as the weather warms, the back garden opens as an extension of the dining room, creating a lively outdoor setting for guests and staff alike. Pets are allowed on that patio, and the whole layout still carries traces of the Oxalis years for anyone who ate there before 2023.

02The chef

Nico Russell did not arrive at fine dining through Brooklyn. His first Michelin-starred kitchen was Chez TJ in Mountain View, and he had staged a few places before that, but really being responsible for the day-to-day changed his whole view of kitchens. From there he moved to New York for a run as chef de partie and sous chef at Daniel, then to the south of France for a stage at Mirazur in Menton before returning to Brooklyn. He was chef and owner of Oxalis on Brooklyn's Washington Avenue from 2018 to 2023, and by his own account, Oxalis receiving a Michelin star in its first 10 months was the work of so many people supporting him. When he closed that tasting menu, he kept the lease and the same open kitchen, and turned them into Cafe Mado rather than starting again from zero somewhere else.

Insider tip

Closed Tuesdays; Steak Monday is a fixed $85 beef dinner; brunch Friday to Sunday only.

03The cooking

The kitchen runs a seasonal, ingredient-driven menu built on fresh seafood, handmade pasta, vegetable-forward small plates and dishes finished over live fire, with bread and pastry drawing on the same sourcing that underpinned the Oxalis years. The cooking shifts constantly with what is available: a dinner menu might run from a goat terrine with yogurt and mint through riso al salto with chanterelles and saffron to a whole striped bass with Sorana beans, and the kitchen is just as comfortable sending out a country rib schnitzel with celery root at Sunday brunch as a 70-dollar dry-aged New York strip with beef fat on a Saturday night.

04What to order

From the dinner menu, start with the bien cuit baguette and cultured butter or the Caesar, move through tagliatelle with clams and bottarga or a farinata with wild mushrooms and taleggio, and finish on the rib chop with quince and cipollini or, on a less restrained night, the NY strip with mustards and beef fat. At brunch, the wild mushroom crepe and the kombu rice with uni and egg yolk sit alongside a roast beef sandwich with caramelized onion and a skate wing with mustard greens and brown butter — proof that the café format hasn't dulled the ambition of the kitchen behind it.

05Wine and drinks

The wine list focuses on small growers and classic regions across France, Spain, and the Mediterranean, while the cocktail and non-alcoholic programs emphasize seasonality and ingredient-driven flavors, in keeping with a café built for lingering over a glass at the bar as much as for a full dinner.

06When to go and booking

Brunch runs Friday to Sunday from 10:30am to 3pm; dinner is served Monday, Wednesday and Thursday from 5:30 to 9pm, Friday and Saturday from 5 to 10pm, and Sunday from 5 to 9pm, with the restaurant closed on Tuesdays. Every Monday evening is Steak Monday: a fixed $85-per-person dinner of prime-quality beef, two seasonal starters, and a wide spread of seasonal sides that has become a favorite for restaurant industry friends, neighborhood regulars, and anyone looking for a slightly more indulgent way to start the week. Reservations are available online, though space is always kept for walk-ins at the bar and throughout the dining room. The nearest subway is Eastern Parkway–Brooklyn Museum, roughly a three-minute walk away.

For a weekend. For a lifetime.