Cafe Canole

My friends and I eat here every almost Friday night. We go for a couple drinks to wind down after the work week and order several apps to share. The drink are fantastic and they always have such a huge selection of specialty martinis. Paul will make you whatever you want. I love the blueberry martini with lemon ice. Yum. The appetizers are always delicious. My favorites are the «tasting platter» and the flatbread pizzas. The fig and prosciutto one is probably the best. Aside from appetizers, I go here fairly often with my family for lunch and for dinner and I have never had a bad meal. The food is authentic, fresh, and made to order. We have hosted parties at this venue as well and Dean and Jason always work with us to make sure we have an amazing party. This local family owned restaurants is a gem and I encourage anyone stopping in the Utica area to give it a try if you are looking for a GOOD homemade meal. Don’t forget to stop by the bakery in your way out for the best Italian pastries you will find! They beat NYC by far.

We came here for the first time for dessert. We had to wait at least 15 minutes just to get a menu because the host/​waiter was so busy greeting his regular customers. A tip… treat your customers equally. Two stars simply for cool décor and average tiramisu.

This place is a work of art when it comes to food. Explore the menu as these guys know what they are doing. Also don’t leave without checking out the baked items. The deserts are excellent. I keep checking the back kitchen to see if my great gram is back there.

Went here as a party of four and together we had the calamari, the orecchiette, the crab cakes, greens, risotto, beet salad, and some kind of fried rice ball with prosciutto. We all shared our orders, and I thought everything was very good. Some of the items I thought were too salty. The beet salad and rice balls were my favorite.
The space is a bit tight, and I didn’t understand why they chose to show the movie Thanks for Sharing on a projector without the sound. You can’t follow a movie without any dialogue, so it was just a massive distraction. They should consider expanding their waitstaff. Our servers were good, but came by too infrequently.
This place is about on par with Georgio’s, only with different menu items. I enjoyed it.

My family and I decided to stop by the café for a coffee. What a treat! 1^st, the owner stopped by our table to say hello and asked if we needed anything, he made us feel so special. 2^nd, the pastries were amazing, I have eaten many Italian pastries; in Italy and NYC, and Café Canole’s pastries has them beat, especially the lobster tails, they are the best! The only negative comment I have and it could be because of the time of the day, was our waiter, not the greatest. He was nice, but I do not think he wanted to wait on our table. Oh, did I mention that the espresso, was excellent. buon appetito!

Crave an Italian dinner that is authentic, creative, and made from scratch? Then make the drive to this gem in Utica. The owner Dean is a master of creating flavors that complements the dish brings it to a whole new depth. His Italian pastries are by far the best in upstate NY. Almond paste cookies to die for, Cannoli’s…he has them all.

This restaurant is a hidden gem set in a place you wouldn’t typically find a restaurant. I am not from Utica, so I asked my friend my first night in town to take me to a place where I could flavor some local food that was fresh and light. He took me here and it was delicious! We shared 4 of their appetizers and had wine. The wine menu was very good with lots of different varieties. The crab cakes and Utica greens were my favorite, but a close second being the beet salad. The ingredients were earthy and fresh and I could tell it was local produce being used.
*updated review: returned here and service was not that great. I ended up waiting about 25 minutes for a glass of wine and water. Because of that I have reduced my score by 2 stars.

Incredibly disappointing. We showed up at 6:15pm on a Thursday and we were the only table when we got there. That should have been my first clue. Everything is incredibly overpriced compared to other equivalent restaurants in the area. $ 24 for chicken marsala that is $ 15 or less anywhere else. I’m not cheap, though, so I was willing to give it a try. More than an hour later, I still didn’t have my meal. The waiter basically said «I did my job» and never even apologized or offered a discount. We ended up leaving with our dinners in to-​go containers because we had to be somewhere. If the place was busy, maybe I could understand, but the place was dead and the waiter just didn’t give a crap about us. I gave them two stars instead of one because the food we ate later was actually quite good. Too bad the service brings this place down.