Shell Restaurant — Restaurant in City of Rochester

​IMHO Shell's opening night was an absolute triumph! Cruz is an amazing chef and person and his team of Marko and Maddie are fantastic! I've always been prepared for a glitch or two in an opening night, even sometimes a forgivable missed order or mistake, but... not last night. From the first monument we were greeted to the decor, to the menu options, to the wine options to the desserts and all the small touches. Fantastic. We've had the immense pleasure of dining with Cruz, Marko, Maddie on several occasions in the past and were over the moon hearing about his new fine dining establishment. We had two old favorite's, and three new dishes. The old favorites (salmon crudo and shrimp ragu) met every memory note of pleasure and taste perfectly. The three new plates (red shrimp, steak frites and dry aged swordfish) were perfectly plated, just the right amount and did nothing but command another place in my memory of all his wonderful dishes. In fact the steak frites are my new favorite way to eat tartare, just off the charts with flavors and texture. Wines by the glass and bottle were expertly selected to have a lovely range between the known and unknown producers where you can play around with some pairings (had the pinot noir with the swordfish, it was a lovely pairing!) . Service was on par with any fine dining restaurant we've ever been to, professional, attentive, knowledgeable and never felt stuffy or highbrow. We will certainly be back...

My wife and I found this place on RESY and decided to give it a try. We were the first ones there on Saturday night around 5:30PM. We didn't realize this was during their soft opening phase and they haven't even opened up yet... all the more fun.

I will summarize this here, but the food is absolutely amazing! Without a doubt it was the best ravioli I have ever had and the pork belly was also fantastic! Because that was so good, we also ended off ordering the duck and the lobster roll too and they were also sooo good!

It being a soft opening the service was a little slow as they were sorting things out - understandable. But, we will definitely going back. This is one of the best, if not the best restaurant in Rochester. I really am looking forward to our next visit and trying more of Chef...

We are long time fans of Chef Cruz, so we were anxiously waiting for Shell to open. We sat at the bar with a great view of the chefs preparing the food, which was so cool to watch. We had the bread and butter, which was a miso butter and it was amazing. Then we had the grilled cabbage, which might be our favorite dish of the night. The smoky charred flavor was unmatched. Next was the duck, which had a wonderful spice rub and peach agriducle.

For dessert we chose the chocolate option, which was a dark chocolate cremeux. This was my husband's favorite part of the dinner. It was truly amazing and decadent.

Everything we had was top tier and the service was also great, very attentive. We highly recommend...