Ferraris Ristorante - Schenectady (NY)

5 /5 Ms Kit: I try to come a few times out of the year for special occasions. The food is 10 out of 10. The Customer Service is amazing. The atmosphere itself just gives off cool vibes. If this is your first time going, please order the chicken francese you will not regret it. The prices are very fair and the drinks are very good.

4 /5 Richard R.: My wife had an amazing meal here a couple of months ago and has been wanting to bring me since. Schenectady has no shortage of amazing Italian restaurants so the bar was set pretty high. The impression you get when you walk in is that not much has changed since the 1960s! The small bar is easily imagined with old friends and cigarette smoke after all hard days work. The restaurant is fairly small and it was crowded and somewhat noisy but that is certainly understandable on a Saturday night. We were seated in about 15 minutes having made a reservation. The service was great even though they were obviously overwhelmed. The menu was full of southern and Northern Italian dishes, including things like a red, roasted pepper and provolone appetizer. You don’t see that on many menus. We were probably presented with a basket of bread which tasted like it came from Perreca’s. There was butter and no dipping oil. There is a lovely cocktail selection each very unusual and two of us went for the.Revello, which is blood, orange gin, Cointreau, orange juice, and club soda. It was great, even though a bit strong for my taste. The salad was served family style, which was a lovely touch. Amazingly fresh with lettuce, tomato, celery, black olives, and small cubes of provolone. Served with a balsamic vinaigrette dressing wonderful. The first issue is that our entrées came out too soon. It’s an unusual complaint but when you are enjoying a salad like that and may want to have seconds out of the big bowl, it’s nice to have a little bit of time. That being said as busy as it was, I’m not sure they had the luxury of optimal timing. As for entrées, one of us had chicken francese, reported as being wonderful. The eggplant Parmesan, likewise, and it was lightly fried or sautéed, and did not have a breading on it. I should report that the portions are very large. I had the seafood platter, which is more like a.zuppa de pesce, which I had in red sauce, but you can have in white sauce as well, which contained a huge amount of clams shrimp calamari scallops. The shrimp were large 16/20 or possibly larger. The one food issue of the night is the haddock piccata. When my wife first ate here, she found this dish to be amazing and brought some home and I agreed. What made it amazing is it had a very light coating and was sautéed. The coding seemed like just egg and flour. The haddock piccata we had last night was deep fried with a thick breading. It totally took away from the dish, and the breading prevented the sauce from mixing with the fish. I’m not sure if it’s a difference between chefs, but if they read this, I hope they go back to the prior preparation. We did not try the homemade pasta, but it is available as an up charge. We left full and happy and will be back. We were in no shape for dessert although I’m sure it is amazing.

5 /5 Lee Bridenbeck: Wow. 1st time at this restaurant. It was awesome in every way! Nathan, our server was wonderful. Angel did a great job assisting. The old style vibe was great and the food was sensational. We loved it and will definitely be back. 5 stars!

5 /5 Paul Frye: Ferraris its one of my favorite places to go! The food is always super fresh and super delicious! The wait staff is always on point and very quick to assist you.

5 /5 kramille: It’s been many years since our last meal at Ferrari’s. Somethings remain the same; on street parking is hit or miss – this time the parking deity shined upon us with a spot near their front door – with the one person entrance step into their small yet comfortable bar. The bar is the dining room entrance. Ferrari’s dining room was nicely updated and well lighted. All their tables filled quickly. Our ample broccoli rabe appetizer had the perfect balance of olive oil and garlic that was cooked to tender perfection. A bottle of il Principe Nebbiolo was the ideal wine for our entire meal. It was smooth and flavorful, quite frankly it slid down way too fast. A sizable eggplant parmigiano, with an equally huge spaghetti side, was tender, flavorful and perfectly breaded and prepared. My linguini with clam sauce took a while to decipher on their menu. The preferred white clam sauce was one of several offered. When presented it was spot on. A mound of al dente, linguini with tender, sliced garlic and a dozen clams in their shells. The clams were sumptuous, quickly shelled and mixed into the linguini. A tartufo, presented with a sizable soup spoon, was cracked and enjoyed by all. Our leftovers, substantial, were enjoyed the next few nights. It was comforting to know that Ferrari’s maintained its high standards and service.