Ellen's Patisserie — Restaurant in Eureka Springs

I was excited to find this cute shop right across the street from our hotel while my sister's and I were on a girls trip in Eureka Springs.

We actually stopped in to Ellen's Patisserie 2 days in a row. The first time we came we got a couple of macarons and a snickerdoodle cookie. I ate the macarons and thoroughly enjoyed them. These finicky little French cookies were perfectly done! I loved the flavors choices, my only complaint on the macarons is that the sizes were horribly inconsistent. The strawberry ones were the size of a quarter, the lime one was the size of a normal macaron.

We then ate the snickerdoodle. We all felt as though we couldn't give it a fair judgement considering how long it had to have been sitting in that case. It was hard in some bites and semi soft in others, I think it was soft at one point in time. It also tasted a little old and didn't really have much of a taste to be honest.

Since the macarons were so delicious we decided to come back the next day! Something compelled me to get the chocolate cupcake cause it looked really good! Major mistake there. Words cannot describe this cupcake. It was obviously canned frosting and a cake mix but that wasn't even my issue. My issue was it was so so so old. I don't want to know how long it had been sitting there in that case. To give you an example, my sister had to hold the cupcake while I practically braced myself tugging and tugging trying the get the wrapper off the cupcakes. When I finally got the wrapper off half the cupcake came with it. The top tasted crunchy like a biscuit and the botttom was dryer than the Sahara dessert.

Overall, if I happen to ever find myself back in Eureka Springs I would come back for the macarons! And if they discard their other treats once they have served their time I may even try...

First, I want to say that, after reading the reviews, I noticed a pattern - two years ago, the reviews were terrible ("tasted old, hard pastries, rude service, etc"). What was happening two years ago? Obviously, our country was coming out of the COVID-19 scare. I imagine trying to get it "just right" on how much food to prepare was a challenge - people frequenting snack shops were in two camps - afraid to go in with a crowd, and not afraid to go in with a crowd. Since the shop sells food, I "get it" that they wanted to protect staff and food. They also may have been short-handed due to COVID. Maybe the owners at the time were in over their heads. Who knows!?

So, any-hoo, the great reviews outweigh the bad by a great number. There ARE going to be bad days everywhere. It's still worth trying again. If you're unhappy with the product or service, speak nicely to the management, and I'm sure they will rectify the situation.

Delicious concoctions to eat and drink, perfect for a stroll through a Victorian town - at least now there's refrigeration! The personal touch service is wonderful in this...

I was a little suprised that the reviews were so low. We popped in as we were passing by and got some sugar free chocolate for my husband and macarons for my daughter. I was really surprised to see in some of the reviews that they had stale macarons. I lived in France for 6 months 4 years ago and had macarons often. I don't usually order macarons in the US because I'm often disappointed but I decided to taste some of my daughter's. Oh my goodness, there was one that I did not like the flavor of at all but 4 of them were amazing and dare I say, better than any I've tasted here or in France. It was totally the filling. I am a person who loves frosting to be as big as my cupcake and these tasted like they had delicious cupcake frosting in them. I don't know, but the ones we ordered were amazing. My favorites were birthday cake and violet but I can't remember the other two. My husband enjoyed his sugar free chocolate very much as well. We also got our pup a dog treat...