Coltivare - Ithaca, NY

My mother recently retired, and while visiting my family over Thanksgiving, my siblings and I thought it would be nice to go out and celebrate.  However, with a party of 11 including a 1, 2, and 5 year old, we were limited in our options and were looking for somewhere that would tolerate and fit us.  We settled on Coltivare and they had a large private brick wine room that worked very well.  The kids could make noise and move around a bit without anyone else being bothered.  We also went early, so the restaurant was empty when we arrived.

Dinner initially didn't start out that well, we had only one wine/drink menu on the table for 8 of us and after asking the waiter for another copy, he seemed very put out by the request and took such a long time coming back with one that we didn't need it anymore.  After ordering, baskets of cornbread and honey butter came out.  This was a big hit.  The cornbread was good and my 5 year old nephew sat at the end of the table happily devouring the entire basket.

The appetizer we settle on was the special for the evening of fried mac 'n' cheese with bacon jam and this was very good, crispy and flavorful and enjoyed all around.

The main meal is where things went downhill.  My Dad has a history of ordering things he doesn't like, but in this case, there were many things not quite right.  Nothing was inedible, but there were lots of things that could have been much better.  I ordered the chicken pesto flatbread, which was pretty lacking in flavor.  My sister ordered a salad with walnuts and bleu cheese and tried to add a side of steak. The salad had way too many walnuts and the waiter ordered a house steak instead of the petite steak.  My sister-in-law ordered the peach and cheese flatbread and thought it was way too sweet.  My dad ordered pesto pasta and found it be way too pesto-y.

And so, I probably wouldn't go back.  I had much higher hopes, as it described as farm-fresh dining and works with the local community college students.