St Clair Winery & Bistro

My girlfriend and I went to the Bistro last Friday night. At first I was a little concerned as the reservation that I had made the night before couldn’t be found by the hostess. But, she assured me that we would be seated quickly and indeed we were. The service food, portion size, and wine were all excellent! Once seated we informed Heather, our server, that we would like to sit on the patio after dinner to watch the live band. She coordinated with the hostess in attempt to get us a table but no one was leaving! (It was a good band, Moon Hat). so after a short wait, Heather escorted us to the patio, found us a couple of unused chairs and sat us on the patio at a half barrel prop for us to rest our drinks on. Thanks to the entire staff at St Clair we had a great evening!

Slow service, food mediocre at best (with mistakes made on dishes) and overall not a really great vibe here. The live music was appealing and initally it looked fun — but quickly with poor service and many food errors our experience became rather negative. Our server was young, inexperienced and not professional. The only saving grace for the restaurant was the Manager felt so sorry for us that he comped half our bill with his apologies and gave us complimentary gift cards to come back. We appreciated his gestures, however, we will not return.
The wine is fine, but the service and the food quality are well below average.

A maxim I perpetually hold as a truism, defined as «a statement that is obviously true and says nothing new or interesting»: poor service kills the meal.
There were two hosts at the front when we entered. They obviously didn’t have much to do that night, it wasn’t busy, and we got a table pronto. I had my waiter goggles on and I could tell, immediately, that our server was juggling a section beyond her personal capacity. And so the usual story unfolded: late drink order, later food order, long wait for the food, and that left our party doing the usual, commenting on the lateness, and wondering why the place has televisions in the corners featuring A) whatever sporting event was apparently interesting that night (hockey, I think?) and B) promo videos for St Clair.
Assumption: If a restaurant features TVs in the dining room, the food probably isn’t the focus.
I live a mile away from this St Clair. I’ve visited twice, in ten years. The first time I somewhat enjoyed a glass of classic southwestern wine on the terrific outdoor patio, listening to a decent band. The second visit was a week back. And the food was exactly what I anticipated: flat. My wife’s salmon was certainly a fillet of fish. Mom’s pesto pasta shrimp was certainly precisely that. My Caesar salad with chicken had those parmesan bits (lil’ stick bits, plastic-​esque in appearance) that I sometimes buy myself, when I make my own, at home. This restaurant can try a lot harder.
But improve the service, guys. Big time.

Followup visit was better. We enjoyed wine with a Bistro burger, Danish Blue, onions and mushrooms was perfectly cooked and delicious. Service by Eric was spot on. Our only complaint was that no pillows were available to allow back rest for those patrons that don’t «fill» the booth seats. Perhaps a bin available for pillow donations. Thanks for reading. The Bike Chaplain

Atmosphere here is great. Not a lot of parking but great place for lunch. Waitress was very slow, did not refill my tea, I had to ask her multiple times to refill. Food was excellent but took to long to take my order.

Their food is very good and reasonably priced for what you get. There are few places that are better, but what sets St Clair apart is the wine and the wine flights. For a little money you can sample anywhere from 3 – 6 wines each flight and they are each 1 – 2 oz depending on which flight you get. You can reasonably get to try 12+ wines with a friend. And their wines are amazing. Some French dude moved to Albuquerque years ago and started this place with his family. Service is also very good. Salsa on Sunday afternoons.

Hands down one of my favorite restaurants in ABQ. It is a bit pricey but for excellence food you can’t beat the price for their food. I haven’t had anything I don’t like. My favorite dinner is the pasta Danielle. The ambiance is wonderful as well. The wait staff is hit or miss is the only draw back.

Met a couple for dinner tonight, our first time at the Bistro. Calamari was delicious, our friends had the burger sliders, the guys had the ½ pound burgers, and my wife had the chicken salad with cranberries and nuts. Everything was delicious, we will certainly be back!

This place was amazing!!! The food, atmosphere, the waitress and the live band. I give this place 5stars and trust and believe I know good food. I’m from New Orleans.

Took a group of eight here for lunch today. Excellent! Good food. Reasonably priced. Excellent service.

I absolutely love St. Claire’s. The food is very well made but what really puts them over the top is their astounding customer service. I am a nursing mother and as soon as the waitress’s saw that I was nursing, she immediately brought me a glass of water. The thoughtfulness of that act alone stays with me. The manager also made my experience memorable. He greeted us when we walked in and joked around but then he came to check on us when my son was being a little loud and engaged with him to put him at ease. It was amazing.

Will someone please tell me why I haven’t been here before??? I was shocked at how good the food is here. I was even more surprised when my favorite dish was their meatloaf. That’s right, I said meatloaf.
The southwest meatloaf to be exact. I thought when the plate arrived, that there had been some kind of mix up with my order. The plate presented before me did not resemble meatloaf. Instead, it looked like small grilled steaks at first glance. I haven’t seen meatloaf grilled until now and let me tell you that I am a fan.
The other thing that I enjoyed was their wine flights. They are pre-​selected unless you sit at the bar. They are great for people like me that don’t know too much about wine.
I plan to go back to go back and give their happy hour at the bar a try.

Went here for the first time for a rehearsal dinner. The patio that the dinner was on was pretty small (not necessarily St. Clair’s fault). The food they catered was delicious… please, please do yourself a favor and go try their mac and cheese, if that’s your thing. The servers and bartender that helped the group were very professional and kind! The place in general is cool… right when you walk in there is a little area with all of their wines and merchandise that you can buy… they even have premixed mimosas that I want to try! I would like to come back and get dinner here sometime… but overall a really nice experience!

Amazing food! Kandrise was great! Very nice
The Valentine’s Day special was out of control… As in the best! The wine list had a lot of great choices. Would recommend to anyone!
We had a reservation and they were able to get us in early!
Xoxo

Pretty quality experience at ol’ St. Clair’s. Our waitress was friendly and super attentive, especially to my somewhat neediness as I craved extra cheese, extra dressing, more lemons, more bread than most (guys I was really hungry this day!) and special instructions on my food order.
The dishes were chicken piccada which was super tasty and hearty… grilled chicken tender… perfectly surrounded with melty cheese and a cream sauce paired with some mixed grilled veggies and mashed potatoes. The potatoes were mildly disappointing being not so piping hot and a little on the small side of a serving, but the concept works. just needs to be a little fresher. Also got a grilled chicken Cobb salad with all the changes you could imagine lol (I’m telling you, I was THAT girl tonight… sorry service industry) — I asked for the chicken to be made grilled and hot rather than cold, avocado on the side, changed the cheese type and ranch no bleu cheese… everything came exactly as I ordered and I was thrilled. That is hard to do sometimes and I was so appreciative. Thanks St. Clair’s — you do keep me coming back!

Went here again this visit with family for dinner. Had the green chilie Mac n cheese and a salad. The salad was good but had more cashews than I would have preferred. Loved the Pinot Noir and Syrah recommendations. We will definitely be back. Great place!

I enjoyed my dining experience here, but truthfully I expected just a little bit more from this place. The food was great, especially their cheese appetizer plate. I liked the atmosphere a lot. It was pretty packed, but they still had great live music. And the prices are very reasonable.
The service, however, was deserving of 2 stars. I’m not sure if our server was newer or not, but she would disappear for long periods of time, not pay attention to water levels, and kept forgetting to take our order. She forgot 3 different drink orders and then tried to blame the bartender. I also was expecting more wine samples and them to push trying different wine on us a bit more, since they are a winery. This was strange to me since every interaction I’ve had with St Clair’s has been at the wine festival, where they are delighted to share different wines and flavors with you.
All in all I will return. I think I definitely need to give this place another shot. And hopefully there will be a lot more wine tasting involved.

Had been here before but today just wanted to get a bottle for an upcoming trip. I was able to taste the bottles I was looking at before I purchased. Glad that I did as I preferred a different one then what I had originally thought!
Always good atmosphere and food!!!

Not quite what I expected. Got the brochure from the hotel for this place and thought we were actually going to a winery. Unfortunately this location is a restaurant that has the wine from its winery but the winery is at a different location. This might be obvious to locals but we’re from Texas so we had no clue.
So, we decided to sit at the bar and do the 6 for $ 6 wine tasting. The atmosphere was nice and I liked how they give you a sheet to choose your 6 wines and mark them down for the bartender. The bartender wasn’t at all friendly. Never cracked a smile, never came by to check on us even though we were one of the two couples seated at the bar and didn’t explain any of the cheeses when she gave us the cheese nosh plate. We basically had to guess what we were putting in our mouth. We did eventually ask what was on the platter when we got her attention but we had to do the whole «what’s this? Oh and what’s this? And this?». It was like pulling teeth. Bartenders are supposed to be social and talkative. If you don’t want to talk to the customers then don’t be a bartender. Pretty simple.
Now for the wine… The wine was good. Our favorite was the St. Clair Cab-​Zin and the limited edition Renaissance was our second fave. They both had a rich, great flavor. The other St. Clair wines were pretty bland though. The cheese platter was good pairing with the wine tasting. We ended up walking away buying 6 wines. They have a deal where you buy 6 bottles and get 10% off. Not too shabby.
I probably wouldn’t come back if/​when I come back to Albuquerque because of the service alone but I might run in to buy a bottle of wine.

First time at St.Clair.
The food was good and priced fair. The wait staff was attentive and friendly.
I had a filet which was cooked as ordered, Rare. The filet has a peppery seasoning. It came with garlic mashed potatoes and steamed veggies, which were yummy. My fellow diners had pasta New Mexico and the meatloaf. We shared, it was really good food.
I will go back because of food and prices.
Now…the wine. I had the E.H. Cabernet Sauvignon, the E.H. Cabernet Franc. The tannins were high on each. The Cab. Franc has good color and great smell, but the taste was disappointing. The glass of Cab. Franc was $ 14. I would expect that for Charles Krug, not a St.Clair. My opinion is that New Mexico makes great beer, and then they also make wine. Despite my opinion of NM wines, I left St. Clair giggly with a big grin on my face.
In all, a nice place to dine.