Giveita Shank

Love, love, love this place! Can't wait to come back when it's warmer and we can sit outside. There's lots of Gluten-free and locally sourced options. I would say the only negative was music was kind of loud for a casual dining experience, so perhaps they could turn that down so people can converse more. The other thing was the tables were a little small for all the delicious food we wanted to order lol. We had the Gluten-free Mac n cheese which had an exquisitely creamy cheese sauce with a nice sharpness to it. The Gluten-free fish was crispy and moist inside (we switched out the fries or rather "chips" to side of coconut rice) which was a nice contrast so that it wasn't a completely fried plate. Also had the locally sourced wings, which were HUGE. We recommend the Baltimore style wings.

+5

Elzie

While visiting Ithaca for a music festival, we happened upon this place accidentally while looking for parking. We decided to get brunch here the next morning! It has a cozy local vibe, mixed with a contemporary and rustic touches. The food was outstanding and they serve food primarily sourced from the area. The menu was concise. Overall great find!!!!

Andrew Gallagher

Mother's Day brunch was a great time. Everybody enjoyed their food and the service was great. The Fried Chicken and Donuts were phenomenal and the French Toast is awesome! I want to come back sometime for dinner.

Derrick Deans

This was our first restaurant during a 4 night visit to Ithaca and area. I say that because we wanted to return later but unfortunately it was closed for two nights for a private event. My wife is celiac and she ordered the fish and chips with sides of mac and cheese and fries. She found the order plentiful and excellent. The fish was lightly breaded, properly cooked, and VERY tasty. The fries were excellent and the mac and cheese also tasty. It was a real treat for a celiac to be able to order delicious gluten-free fish and chips. I ordered the blackened fish and grits and it too was delicious and plentiful. Unfortunately, I gave this restaurant 4* because of the very long wait for our meals to be delivered and then for the bill to arrive later. And this despite the fact that the place was less than half full. However, the three staff were all moving very quickly and our server was quite helpful when we placed our order. So I suspect that maybe the restaurant was short-staffed that day or unable to hire sufficient staff. In any case, even with the wait we were willing to return if we could.

erik clark

Mac and cheese was not very tasty at all. However the fish and chips was pretty good. Service was nice and the atmosphere was very chill and relaxing.

Jeremy Gutierrez

I went to Northstar with a group of friends, and we adored the outdoor seating. The restaurant has a cozy atmosphere with signs making operation smooth. We had waited over an hour to get our food, which was probably the only bad thing about this place. When we did get the food, it looked delicious and tasted scrumptious. Would go again.

+1

For a ‘farm to table’ spot it’s VERY selective on what they choose. We arrived at 5:45 and they were out of steak and chicken. The wings were really good! But the fried chicken sandwich was the equivalent of a mcChicken… frozen from a big box distributor. We would have shared this with the server but no one came back until we asked for the bills

Andrew

North Star was pretty good I had the Garlic Burger and it was very garlicky in a good way. Although I was a little disappointed from looking at Google they had all these pics of some crazy dishes, Chicken and donuts, a waffle sandwich, some breakfast stuff that looked amazing as well. Craziest thing on this menu was Salmon.... That might have been pre-covid because they are also not open for Brunch. Don't get me wrong the burger was good, the server said the menu stays relatively the same but they sometimes change things and the online website menu might not always be correct. On my quest to find the best and craziest food the server mentioned that they have the most amazing desserts (not on the menu or on the website menu) and that they are constantly changing. Sadly after eating a whole dinner I was too full to eat anything, if I go back next time I'll have to get the dessert menu first.

Ross L.

I was excited to try a farm to table restaurant on Ithaca but this was a disappointment. The service wasn’t great, but even worse was the lack of flavor in the food. They’re afraid of salt! Doubly disappointing because the ingredients are clearly high quality, but they’re not making the most of it.

KellyAnne Herman

vegan review: everything was mid. the crunch salad was the best thing i ate and it still had little flavor. the dressing needed some punching-up. the squash fritters were confusing to all of us as we expected something different based on the description; they were hush puppies. everyone liked them but they were very plain to me. the sage aioli carried a lot of the heavy lifting in terms of flavor. the curry was good but lacked salt & sauce. when i hear curry i expect it to be saucy and it just wasn’t. the “wings” were the other misnomer. they’re tofu wedges. or triangles. to call them wings is disrespectful, given what many veg restaurants are doing to innovate faux chicken wings with rice paper skin & sugarcane “bones”. the BBQ ones were good. the medium buffalo ones were not spicy. was not happy with my drink, the night nurse (medicinal taste, but based on the name i should have expected as much), but adding the strawberry rhubarb cider helped. the vegan chocolate cake was fine. the texture was really spongy and both the cake itself and chocolate glaze lacked sweetness. the service/wait was not good. we got all our food at once instead of getting appetizers out first. surprisingly, the fritters came out last. then when it came time to pay we had to sort through everything ourselves, and even after that it took a long time to get paid up. ours was a party of 12 and they had a reservation for us but still had weak service. (at the restaurant where i work i’m used to seeing servers be very attentive to large parties with reservations, but that wasn’t the case here.) atmosphere was also mid as the music was a weird combination of jazz and reggae? felt lacking in personality, like the food.

Jared Dietz

So they are good, yes. The demand they receive results in higher wait times than at other places I like around here. Seriously, only come here if you have extra time to spend. Ye can walk around the 'hood while waiting & there is a pretty fine creek nearby.

Mary Rose A

We arrived on time for our reservation, which we had made to allow time for dinner before a show we had tickets to. When we arrived, the "host" walked away with no greeting. We assumed he was checking for available seating or something. He was actually running food, although sauntering along slowly was more accurate. Meanwhile people came in behind us that told us they were extremely late for their reservation. When the host came back and finally acknowledged us he said he would need to figure out a place to put us. We moved out of the way, and he talked to the people behind us and seated them immediately, even though they were admittedly really late and the policy indicated that the reservation is only held for 15 minutes. We were both two-tops. When we did get seated a few minutes later at a large table, the menus were thrown at us. We then waiting for a full fifteen minutes without anyone even greeting us or taking our drink order. My wife had to flag a server down to get service at all. We told them that we had a show that we needed to get to. Our drinks took another 15 minutes to come out, and our food, even though it was an appetizer, salad and mac and cheese, did not come out for a half hour after ordering. People around us who were seated after us had their food and drinks much sooner. My wife is a long-time server and she was livid at the treatment. Nobody that worked there showed any sense of urgency, and there was no dress code to indicate that someone DID work there. The host wore a graphic T shirt and athletic pants with stripes down the side. We only knew people were servers because at some point they walked by with food. It was a Saturday night- if you don't have the staffing to handle it, don't take reservations and only seat the amount of the people you can take care of and take care of well. Never ever will we return, and absolutely do not recommend. There are PLENTY of other places to eat.