The Cafe on 26 — Restaurant in Ocean View

While staying in nearby Ocean City, MD, we had a conversation with a gentleman from Staten Island, NY. A few days before we were leaving this area we ran into a neighbor staying at the same condo complex where we are. Because he was from Staten Island, we asked him about the restaurant Nonna's which is the subject of a recent popular movie. Nonna's is a destination restaurant in Staten Island. He said he's has dined atNonna's and it is great but then he told us about a restaurant where he had an amazing meal...and it is only a half an hour from where we were in Ocean City. It's called Cafe on 26 in Ocean View, Delaware and it is a reservations only restaurant. He said reservations could be hard to get and it might be too late to get reservations before we were leaving...but I decided to try anyway. I phoned and left a message. Shortly thereafter I received a phone call from Maria, the owner of the restaurant and she told me she did have a table for two for a 5:30 seating on Saturday! We were so delighted because we are celebrating our 53th wedding anniversary during this trip. We arrived a little early and did not have to wait long to be seated. There is ample parking in back of the restaurant. We walked up a lovely garden path, past the patio seating and we went inside the restaurant which is in a former home. On the glassed-in porch, which also has table seating available, we were greeted by a friendly maitre d, Christian. Maria was there and welcomed us and thanked us for choosing her restaurant. The interior of the two story home is a series of small dining rooms and there is plenty of space between each. It is intimate and quiet. There is a wine room upstairs also.There is soft dinner music playing and the sound level is one of the quietest in any place we've dined in a very long time! Hannah was our server and what a good representative of her restaurant, she is very knowledgeable with the menu. She went over the specials and one of them was tempting me, but when Hannah learned this is probably going to be our only opportunity to dine at Cafe on 26, she highly recommended the house signature dish: Potato Parmigiana Encrusted Salmon. I hesitated because it is served with dill cream reduction. I'm not a huge fan of dill. But I decided to take Hannah's recommendation. Best decision ever!!! The chef has created the absolute BEST salmon dish I have ever tasted. It was perfectly prepared, has unique compatible textures in the mashed potato and potato chip topping and I was so happy I listened to Hannah! My husband had a spectacular crab stuffed flounder with lump crab and house made Imperial sauce. The sides we had were the delicious twice baked potatoes, green beans almondine, and house made applesauce. We ordered the French onion soup and the seasonal summer salad before dinner. We took a piece of the fresh peach cake back to our condo as we needed to wait awhile to eat that! It was fabulous! We just had one of the best meals ever at Cafe on 26. Kudos to the chefs! So happy we had this experience! Thank you Maria and staff! I took a lot of photos but I'm having trouble attaching them. I'll work on that when I...

Showed up for our reservation early, wouldn’t seat us. Another foursome shows up and they get seated before us. Apparently their assigned table was ready and ours wasn’t. Waited until our reservation time and “our” table hadn’t even finished their entrees. There was an open table and the hostess wouldn’t seat us because the owners policy is we MUST sit at our assigned table. The owner was not there for us to speak to. The hostess told us how they were booked solid with reservations, basically implying she didn’t need our business and we could leave, so we did. Have never been treated this way at a restaurant. They obviously have enough customers and don’t need us or you.

Updated: Since I can’t reply to the owner’s response I am editing this review. Let me address what you have been told by the hostess because it is not correct. While we did arrive a few minutes early we waited outside for our table , even though there were empty tables. Worked in restaurants for many years and I’ve never seen your system of table assignments. Another group arrived well after us and they were seated, so we checked in again. The hostess disappeared for a good five minutes to determine what was happening. That was when she told us she didn’t know if it would be another 10 minutes or 30 minutes well AFTER our 8:15 reservation time before we would get seated, so that was when we finally left. At this point it was closer to 8:30 PM and we were not going to take our chances. The hostess clearly stated to us they were still eating their entrées which implied it would be a while. Had the answer been 5 to 10 minutes, we would’ve stayed. It also would’ve been fine had you had at a bar for us to wait in. But the choices that evening were more time outside in the extreme heat with no drinks, not even a glass of water was offered, or sitting in the very tight entry. She made it very clear that she did not care if we stayed or left, with quite the attitude. Let’s just say she was in CYA mode when you spoke to her. We were well aware of your time limits because it’s all over your website but she didn’t seem to be enforcing anything. What good is a reservation if it’s not honored? Ironically the next day we were talking to the person who highly recommended your place, and she was telling us how you guys usually go out of your way to be accommodating. I guess you need to be a regular to be...

Went there for dinner this past Saturday to celebrate our wedding anniversary expecting a superb dining experience and, as usual, we were not disappointed. The staff was helpful, courteous and friendly.

We were happy to see their Summer Salad was back (I believe it's under a new name but it's as good as ever). We both got the salads and the presentation was exceeded only by the flavor. If you go there, trust me, order that salad if it's on the menu - it's fantastic.

My wife had the ribeye steak and it was very, very good (she let me try a bite). I was having a hard time deciding between that or the filet mignon. I choose the filet and got the blue cheese topper. It was unbelievably good. To say I made the right choice would be an understatement. Nothing against the ribeye (it was also great), but I'd venture to say it was the best filet I've ever had. Ordered it medium rare and it was cooked perfectly. The quality of the meat was excellent, the flavor of their chef's custom rub was wonderful, and the blue cheese topping was the proverbial icing-on-the-cake. It's no exaggeration to say I savored every single bite. We had some cab sauv to go with our steaks and it paired nicely.

We were too full to even think about dessert... maybe next time. Can't wait to go...