Cella Bistro

Such a great place! Really good tapas and entrees, as well as wine selection. Pricing is reasonable too. This place is becoming a regular for me! The staff is extremely friendly and service is great.

This place was a great find. Parking is very limited and it is a little pricy for main dinners. I have nothing but good things to say about the atmosphere and food and the friendly service. Everything was delicious. We had soup. Salad. Fried chic peas and for dinner we had the salmon and the stuffed peppers. Everything had so much flavor. The bar tender also made great drinks. We will be going back here again very soon. I think next time we may order a bunch of apps and sit in the bar area. Very comfortable place.

Delicious French cuisine in Schenectady.
I’ve been to Cella twice and, since both times I had an excellent experience, it was indeed review time.
So, last night my wife, my in laws, and I head out to Cella for my wife’s birthday dinner. The only thing that can be difficult about Cella is the parking. They have a very small lot. However, there are several side streets close by, so street parking is ample. Sometimes you get lucky with the lot, which we did, parked right out front.
We were promptly seated and ordered drinks. Note, this restaurant doesn’t have specialty cocktails like most places these days. They do have an excellent wine and beer selection though, and a full bar for standard drinks.
I ordered the Arugula salad and it was delicious. Lots of dressing, but the flavours worked well and it wasn’t heavy at all. For my entrée I had the duck, which was phenomenal. I often order duck when I go out and this was one of the best. Very tender, exceptionally tasty. I think most of our party ordered the duck actually and everyone was delighted.
Service throughout the meal was definitely on point. The staff zipped around the restaurant, pumping out food, refilling waters, anything really. They were very attentive.
The deserts were another highlight of the evening. Some dishes may seem like your standard, but they go far beyond. Between us 4, we tried the chocolate peanut butter pie, apple pie, flourless chocolate cake, and cheesecake. These were elevated versions of desserts similar to those on other restaurant menus. The elevation was noticed and appreciated, fantastic desserts.
5 stars easily. Worth checking out. Make a reservation though. There’s a number on their website to do so. Wait for the voicemail, leave a message, they will call you back to confirm. It will be worth it.

Let’s talk $$ first because I think that is the biggest negative. Not because of the overall price although it was over $ 200 for 4 of us and nobody was even drinking as well as 1 did not even get an appetizer. The problem lies with the ratio of quality to quantity to cost. I’m ok shelling out some bucks for dinner but I want to leave satisfied.
Good was ok. I had the duck which was good but severed with perhaps 10 green beans and a small mound of mashed potatoes that had goat cheese inside. 2 people had salmon and said it was pretty good but not great. The other had the pasta. Sorry but no bowl of pasta should be $ 26 in bless its maybe filled with seafood.
Waitress was good. Polite, cute, well spoken and knew the proper order of operations. The kitchen seemed to have a tough time getting food out. We waited for long periods of time between courses and the place was not even half full. Waited on a Wednesday night for goodness sakes.
There are way to many other good choices in this area to come here again. I don’t think I would return for a while.

Anyone who gave this anything above 1 star clearly is either a friend of the owner or doesn’t know good food. The only redeeming thing about this dining experience was that it ended. Unsweetened iced tea tasted like coffee when I asked if they used a coffee brewer to make it and informed the waitress she said oh they «usually clean it out.» The restaurant was freezing cold. The food was mediocre at best and the prices were OUTRAGEOUS. 2 crab cakes a bowl of soup a duck entrée served with mashed potatoes (which were lumpy) and beans (which were tasteless) with a demiglaze (which had no taste other than salt and was as thin as water) a rigatoni entrée. No alcohol no desert no salad. 104 dollars. Small portions lousy quality. The oil for the bread was in a class by itself — olive oil with about a tablespoon of coarsely ground black pepper. They didn’t even bother removing the label from the lemon that they served with the crab cakes. Poor service no class will NEVER return. I rarely write reviews I would be embarrassed to serve the garbage this place serves.

This is my favorite restaurant near Schenectady. It is a small, family-​owned restaurant (Cella family) with a warm, inviting atmosphere. All the ingredients are very fresh and everything is beautifully homemade. I can speak more on their main dishes, not their tapas. I have tasted most items on their main menu and would highly recommend the pan-​fried trout, bolognese, osso boco, and stuffed peppers. The main dishes are always beautifully prepared and cooked to perfection. NOTHING is ever overcooked and the chef knows how to respect simple flavors and ingredients, letting the main ingredients shine through in a dish. Because this is a family-​owned business and there is a limited staff, service can get slow and food can run out on busy nights, especially if you arrive after 7:30pm. In addition, as other Unilocalers have mentioned, their menu is quite limited. The sometimes slow service and limited menu are why I have chosen to give Cella Bistro 4 instead of 5 stars. Otherwise, if you love beautifully-​crafted, non-​pretentious food, I would highly recommend that you check this place out.

This is a restaurant that’s been open for quite sometime and I have a different experience with each visit. The food is relatively pricey and I guarantee that some would say maybe a bit too pricey for Schenectady.
That being said, the tapas change frequently and they’re pretty creative. They definitely are small portions so do order a few.
The food is always flavorful and fresh, however, I wish they offered more entrees. Frankly, coming from an Italian family, I would never pay $ 26 for a bowl of pasta bolognese unless a world renowned Chef had made it or I was in Bologna. I can make that at home.
The bar area is great and it is certainly a nice place to go after work for a beverage.

Had dinner here Saturday night in the dining room and it was great. The food, the beverage selection and especially the owner. We had a odd special request and were willing to pay extra for it. The owner met the request as her gift to us even though we had never been there before.
We will be returning soon– can’t wait to try something else.

Pleasant but clueless waitress
Rice paper wrapped shrimp is delicious
Asparagus fried egg was a neat twist
Tortellini soup tasted like tortellini in salt water
Beef rib was terrible
Overall sub-​par for the price

Probably I’ve not reviewed Cella yet in the hopes of keeping it to myself. But such a great bistro and people, so I need them to stay and flourish. I took my conservative-​eater date because we’d hit up most of Schenectady’s top spots w/​o a visit to Cella, my top pick. I was a little nervous, let me say. No need. Great food! Service was very attentive at the start… and then petered a bit on this occasion. I could have had my arm twisted for a second glass of wine w/​little effort. The house-​cured pork belly (on a flat bread BLT) convinced me to remain an omnivore. Fresno peppers stuffed with feta rocked the man’s world. We thumb wrestled for the last. I’d gone with my sisters in May, and the menu changed up considerably (with house favorites in place) since then. Consequently, I’d urge the family to make it known how innovative the tapas menu can be by updating the website. Even if it means I’ll only get a seat at the bar.

Cheese platter is great albeit expensive. Decent drink selection. Entrée was fantastic, good specials. Definitely a special occasion meal for us as we spent a ton between food and wine but definitely worth it and worth checking out.

My party of two was seated within fifteen minutes of our arrival. (We did not have a reservation.). Water was delivered promptly. We passed on drinks from the bar. Bread «chunks» and bland oil for dipping was then delivered. The bread was warm and tasty. After ordering our dinners, our salads (a la carte) arrived in about ten minutes. The salad was Italian greens with a Melba toast and a slice of Brie cheese on the side. The dressing was a strong wine vinaigrette. My husband was very happy with the flavor; it was too strong for my taste.
From the time our salads were brought to our table to our dinners arriving, an hour had elapsed. I inquired about the long wait wondering if they were short staffed on this particular Saturday night. The waitress said with Restaurant Week going on they were very busy. In fact, she said all employees but one were working that night. However, there were empty tables in the main dining room.
When dinner arrived, we were very pleased. I ordered the ribeye steak with home-​cut French fries and green beans. My husband ordered rigatoni with bolognese sauce. Everything was delicious, cooked perfectly, and served hot.
Therefore, if you have the time to wait for your main course to arrive, it was our experience that dinner was worth the wait. Also, the staff was quite pleasant.
We passed on dessert. Our meal came to $ 66, not counting our gratuity.

Cella Bistro
Server: Tera
Table: 3 Guests
2014 U-​Pick Adventures continue with Marie’s pick to Cella Bistro. Many people told me to venture to this location because they would drive by the place and it was always stirring, so I had to put it on the list!
* (5) Customer Service — Meaning how well they assisted me in my needs.
Very excellent. I will not call in for a reservation when I have a party less than six so when I arrived Tera was very eager to get a table ready for me as soon as possible. When my other two guests arrived, we were seated and ordered our drinks and then ordered our appetizers and entrees. The kitchen was running very slowly, most likely because this was the weekend right after Thanksgiving and I bet a lot of people didn’t want to look at turkey anymore so they decided to go out to eat instead, which Cella Bistro wasn’t ready for that. However, because the kitchen was so slow Tera was very sweet about it and even took items off our order to ease the pain of having to wait for the kitchen.
* (4) Décor — The atmosphere of the place.
Very homey and relaxed. If the bar wasn’t there I would have assumed I was in someone’s house.
* (5) Food & Drink — How well the food tastes, their selection of drinks
Cella Bistro offers an array of tapas that change from day to day. If they run out of a certain tapas ingredient, it will be removed from the board and the same goes for the menu items. I decided to go with marinated olives and a Brussel sprout cheesey dish which was very good. For my entrée I went with the stuffed poblanos, which was very delicious but on the spicy side. The filled was a black beans and rice with a cream sauce around which helped with the heat!
* (5) Price — Here I am not grading my cost, but by the quality of the food I get for the money I spent. (Example: I pay $ 5 for a hamburger that I could make myself.)
Even though the food was prepared and served in a place that could be in your dining room, don’t expect to be able to recreate these dishes at home!
* (5) Presentation — How things are presented. Food, Drink, Staff, etc.
All employees wore uniforms and the establishment was well kept and clean.
Overall Score: ²⁴⁄₂₅

Delicious!
Fried chick peas in truffle oil; yum
Bistro salad too plain by itself but great Dijon vinegar être, and with tomatoes and onions added.
Crispy shrimp purses with sweet chili sauce; I wouldn’t get again but were not inedible or anything.
Lovely Julia helped with a few tastes of wine :-) Yummy Cab Sav by Carmenet

We went with a big group for dinner before a show at Proctor’s Theater. Everybody thoroughly enjoyed their meals. I had the salmon dish. It was excellent.
The menu is quite limited but what they have is fantastic. The buildings appearance is a bit deceiving. It definitely needs and update but inside is quite nice. The waitress Nicole was great. Highly recommend it, it’s only drawback I’d say is its location.

Visiting from Boston with my dad, he asked if he could bring me to a nice local restaurant for dinner. Well, I never pass up a good meal, and we hadn’t seen each other in a while, so I left it to his discretion to pick the place.
I arrived with my boyfriend and met my dad and stepmom at Cella Bistro around 630. My dad had made a reservation, but the place was barely half full. I didn’t take this as a sign about anything, though; it’s a Thursday night, it’s a bit later in the evening maybe, it’s not on the main strip.
But it looked homey. It’s got a nice flow and color palate, and overall I liked how it feels in there. So we take a 4-​top just behind the wall between the bar and the dining area, and I was surprised that there was no draft or anything of the sort.
The wine selection is impressive and the menus are presented with a very personal flair. My dad’s been a lot, as it’s one of his favorite places, so I was impressed to learn that the menu clipboards actually have laminated copies of the owner’s wine notes. It’s quite interesting to read and each board is different, it seemed.
The options themselves are fairly routine — a chicken, two fish, a steak and a selection of salads. We started with two balsamic salads and the calamari. The salads looked hearty and tasty. The calamari was served in a weird, round bowl with a single set of chopsticks, plenty of shredded carrots and a golden sauce. It was tasty at first, but toward the end the sauce had collected in the bottom and made the last a bit gross.
The entrees were all spot-​on, though. Paired with a nice white wine, my steak was tender and a solid medium-​rare, with a good amount of pink in the center and a crisp char. Asparagus was great, but I wish they had given me more greens instead of french fries. Those were seasoned well too, but they just didn’t match the plate.
Dessert was amazing. A rich chocolate spoon cake and an Irish cream cheesecake slice split between four people was a great close.
I loved this place. The waitress was phenomenal, conversational and helpful. Food came out at a good pace and everything was satisfactory. If I lived nearby, I would consider it in the future.

We ALWAYS love this place. Went again last night, 2 nights after Thanksgiving, and loved it just as much.
For those previously bummed off about not being able to get tapas in the dining room: you can, now.

This is on of my favorite restaurants in Albany area. Nice dinning environment, a very friendly waitress. Food was nice prepared. A good dinning place.

Came to Schenectady for a friend’s wedding and found this cute little town with lots of hidden gems, including Cella Bistro.
The fiancé and I wanted to have some drinks and tapas, the night before the wedding and Cella Bistro certainly delivered.
We had a bottle of sparkling wine, a hummus flatbread, the chickpeas, the asparagus and egg, and the beef rib. All of the food was delicious and the service was excellent! Everyone was super friendly and asking us about our trip up here and why in the world we were in Schenectady if we were from Los Angeles!
The flatbread was super yummy, the chickpeas were good (but I wish they were crispier), the asparagus was okay (something I could make at home), and the beef rib was very tasty (with their home made BBQ sauce).
If I were back in Schenectady for some odd reason, I would probably come back and enjoy more tapas!

Since I’m still on my hiatus from California, my family and I went out to dinner at Cella Bistro the other night. This quaint restaurant, located in Schenectady, focuses on «New American» cuisine, and offers both a full plate menu, as well as a frequently updated tapas menu (updated so often that it is only able to be viewed on two chalkboards located on the walls of the restaurant’s bar).
I really enjoy going to Cella Bistro because of the atmosphere. In Schenectady it can be more challenging to find «trendier» restaurants, but I would put Cella Bistro (and Aperitivo) in that category.
We made our way into Cella and chose to sit in the bar area where the tapas menu is served. After being seated we were given menus and had our drink order taken. One thing I will say, the service isn’t the best, so if you are looking for a restaurant where they bend over backwards to please you… this is not the place. In fact, at times the waitress is down right rude… I say waitress because every time we go we get the same woman. Also, Cella doesn’t have an individual tapas menu, so sometimes it can be difficult to read what they are, depending on where you’re sitting.
All the being said, we looked over the menus and with cocktails in hand were finally ready to order. My dad ordered the Bouillabaise for his dish. This was a traditional bouillabaise, and came with white fish, lobster, clams, scallops and mussels. The flavor of the soup was nice, and the claims were tasty. My dad said overall he enjoyed it, but was underwhelmed at the amount of lobster (just one small claw).
My brother’s friend Ben decided to order the calamari. It was crispy calamari, fried in spices, and served with a side of lemon-​caper aioli. I enjoyed this dish, and liked that it was paired with an aioli instead of a red sauce. I would personally prefer a lighter breading, but the overall dish was satisfying, and a fairly large portion for an appetizer. I ordered the tuna carpaccio. This was thinly sliced tuna, drizzled in olive oil and cream sauce, topped with capers and greens. I enjoyed the flavor of the tuna, but something about this dish was slightly off putting to me. I think that the portion was much more overwhelming than I had anticipated, and the pool of oil it sat in added a heaviness to the dish. I think this dish would be much more successful if the fish had been drizzled with the dressing and oil instead of swimming in it.
One of our favorites at Cella Bistro (well my mom’s absolute favorite) is the fried chickpeas with lime. This is a great thing to order as an appetizer for the table, and can be extremely addictive… it’s like their version of a «chips and salsa.» My mom ordered the fried collard greens as one of her tapas. They were fried and served in a very simple presentation. The flavors were clean and we enjoyed the crunchiness of the greens. This dish doesn’t really stand out to me, but it was still tasty.
My mom and I both ordered the goat cheese and artichoke spring rolls. The shell was nice and crispy, however I found the goat cheese slightly overpowering (as goat cheese tends to be), so it was hard for the other flavors to get through. I’m not sure if I would order this again… It wasn’t bad by any means, but it just didn’t really wow me. Also the sauce that accompanied it was runny so it was hard to get any on the
brother ordered the fried wonton shrimp, in a sweet chili sauce. The shrimp were lightly battered and coated with wonton noodles and then fried to perfection and served with a sweet chili sauce. This is a fun plate, and the sauce goes nicely with the shrimp. Overall we enjoyed the flavors of this dish.
Lastly, for dinner, my mom and I ordered Venison with fingerling potatoes. The venison was really good but the potatoes were practically raw. This dish would have been amazing if the potatoes either hadn’t been on the plate or were cooked.
Finally, my brother decided to order dessert… and in my brother’s words, «My second favorite lava cake I’ve ever had.» If you knew my brother, you’d understand how huge a compliment this is. Jordan does not mess around with dessert.
All and all Cella Bistro is a fun place to go if you’re looking to get drinks and maybe a few apps, but if you are looking for a truly satisfying dinner I’m not sure if I would recommend it. Although I enjoyed what I ate, I have gotten much better meals in the area. If anyone visits Cella Bistro please send me your comments about what you thought of it!