Alley & Vine — Restaurant in Alameda

Tell you what, if you ever decide to grab a good dessert, this might be the place. Along with the good wine selection and excellent cocktail bar displays offers a wide variety of sweet goodies to complete your dinner. I dropped by just to please our sweet tooth, and we were pleasantly surprised with multiple ice cream and cake choices. Along with that we got our favorite drinks and left as pleased as we could be. I would gladly be back for the complete meal experience.

Update to the review from February 18, 2025

Today this place lands squarely in the middle for me. The biggest miss was the service - there was a noticeable lack of attention to customers and zero willingness to work with simple requests. Being told the espresso machine was broken, without any effort to offer an alternative or show care, set the tone early.

The design hasn’t changed and feels very standard, with nothing that really stands out. That said, the second floor in the back is actually pretty cool and easily the most interesting part of the space. By the way, please work on your Christmas decorations as they are seems like just there to be…

The appetizers were a disappointment. The calamari was over-fried served with the bowl of mayo-style dressing. The fish and chips should honestly be called fish and French fries - overworked presentation, and again, way over-fried. Not impressive.

On the positive side, the main dishes were done and presented well. The lamb chops were cooked properly, though serving them on cheesy potatoes felt unnecessary. The king salmon, however, was the standout - easily the best dish of the night.

Overall, this visit felt like a wrap for me. Decent food in parts, but weak service and forgettable execution make this my...

I really wanted to like this place because I have heard so much about it and friends recommended it, but we had 2 kind of crappy experiences. The first time my husband and I went for brunch. Waiter was fine, ordered food, got it and there was a dead fly in my hollandaise sauce. I had to flag someone down because despite trying to make eye contact with everyone who worked there, no one seemed to be paying attention. They didn't seem too bothered by it, which was a little irritating, and I got my new dish about 15 minutes later. We tried to give the place another chances last night with our kids. We made a reservation for 6pm, and got there at 6:01. There were 14 other people in the restaurant. We got our order in 5 minutes within sitting down (so before 6:10) and we didn't receive our food until 6:57. So that's 47+ minutes to make our 4 dishes (2 risotto, chicken marsala and a plain cheeseburger). My risotto was at best lukewarm (it had clearly been sitting out for some time), my clam shells were cold, the clams and mussels were crusted over (again, sitting out for some time) so I didn't eat them and the cheese on my daughter's burger was hard (sitting out for a long time). There was also a drunk lady sitting next to us yelling repeatedly at a fly because, "Little fly, you can't fly out of a window!" Our meal was $190. I get it's a nice place and I totally understand the cost of their product and labor, but spending nearly $200 on a meal for a family of 4 (one of which is a plain cheeseburger) that we had to wait almost an hour for and had been sitting out was a super big bummer. We definitely won't...

New Management, New Menu, Not the Same Alley & Vine

My fiancée and I revisited Alley & Vine, curious about its new management and updated menu. We were the only ones there when we arrived at 4:10 PM on a Saturday, so we settled into the patio with our dog.

The service was slow, although we appreciated our server's helpfulness with my fiancée's allergies. The menu seemed basic, with typical dishes like steaks and chicken breast.

I started with three Blue Point oysters at $4 each, which were plump but flavorless. They came with cocktail sauce and lemon, which were necessary to add some taste. My non-alcoholic mockarita was too tart and surprisingly came with a sugar rim instead of salt, which thankfully made it a bit more palatable.

We shared a 16-ounce ribeye steak for $62, which was a letdown. It was overcooked, not the medium-rare we asked for, and lacked the quality one would expect for the price. The broccolini was nicely done, but the chive oil mashed potatoes and pepper jus were too salty. The shoestring fries were crispy yet needed more salt, though the ketchup was good.

Dessert was uninspiring, just like the rest of the meal, and the smaller patio space was a disappointment compared to what it used to be.

Overall, our experience was underwhelming. The previous charm of Alley & Vine seems to have been lost with the new management. We won't be returning, and it's sad to see a former community...