Mona Lisa’s Dessert House — Restaurant in Blue Ridge

An impressive example of how a local family business can reinvent dessert houses. Many places boast about home cooking or hand-crafted recipes, but then unload frozen containers from a Sysco truck. This one actually uses mom's recipe (the owner's mother).

The dining room, while small, is well-utilized and provides plenty of seating. The soft lighting created an elegant and inviting ambiance, perfect for an intimate evening. It was late, and there was a bit of a wait, so we opted for a to-go order.

The hostess was understanding and gave ample time and attention to help us select items from the menu, answer our questions, and gave us all the attention typically reserved for a VIP dine-in patron.

I sampled* the Mocha Cake, Key Lime Pie, and the Chocolate Mousse (Don't judge me--I said sampled: there were several of us and we shared). The visual presentation of the desserts was impeccable and rivals that of several high-end restaurants I've visited (edit to clarify: I don't mean fine dining, I'm talking about a Michelin Star or boutique restaurant). Since we ordered takeout, the care in presentation was even more impressive. Each dessert was neatly nestled in a container which seemed carefully selected to preserve the aesthetic presentation of exactly that dessert.

The exacting culinary craftsmanship and attention-to-detail didn't end there. Despite a 25-minute drive, each dessert looked and felt as it had emerged from the kitchen moments ago. They were as savory and rich and as delectable as they looked, and I can only imagine how the flavor profile would be that much better with the ambiance afforded to a dine-in guest. Actually, the Chocolate Mousse deserves a sixth star on its own.

Some time after I woke up from my food coma, I messaged the restaurant to share some feedback and my compliments. Whenever an experience still stands out a week later (good or bad), I always try to send a shout to the operators. They were closed, but their manager responded almost immediately to my message and we went on to speak at length. Super nice people, very helpful, and took great care to make sure we had a...

This place was a big letdown. After all the great reviews, we had high hopes and came here for dessert and coffee after dinner. We ordered coconut cake, key lime pie, and coffees. The key lime pie was good, but just good, nothing special. The coconut cake was not good, tasted like from a grocery store at best. Both had a fancy sugar decoration on top, but that didn't save it. The coffee was not good at all--extremely weak and no flavor. And we paid top dollar for all of it! Not only was the food and drink not great, but all of us sitting at the outside tables were shocked when the guy living above the restaurant seemed to get mad at us below and start banging furniture down furiously and cussing at us. It was so loud and startling, his neighbors all came out to find out what was going on. We weren't even talking loud out there! I was unnerved and we left quickly. Very...

I’ve been looking for a dessert only restaurant for ages . Not to be confused with a bakery but a place to sit order a yummy dessert and drink after dinner. Well apparently it does exist in Blue Ridge . I can’t say enough . We wondered over to this lovely spot after a wonderful dinner at the Black Sheep. We ordered the first four thing on the menu . Personally The Key Lime Pie and the Secret Garden Apple Cake were my top favorite. We also ordered a Chocolate lover’s & Coconut cake that everyone enjoyed. (I myself not a fan of chocolate or coconut ) but I can and will rave forever about the best key lime pie I’ve ever had .

The Service was also wonderful with the sweetest kindest people running it. We mentioned that we were in town planning a wedding in October and they wrote the congratulations message on the plate. Such a great way to end our night & Trip...