Innovo Kitchen — Restaurant in Town of Colonie

First time at Innovo Kitchen, for a birthday dinner before the birthday cake. The menu seemed pretty appealing, especially to one of my party who suffers from celiacs disease, so reservations were put in and we made our way there the following day.

The restaurant itself is very open, with some kind of upbeat music playing. The seating is comfortable enough, and you can find your preferred level of lighting based on where you'd prefer to sit. They even offer outdoor seating, though on our particular visit the weather was less than acceptable for that sort of thing. Sadly due to the open door mode they were in, as one of the walls is a garage door that leads to the outdoor seating area, the restaurant was flush with little gnats and house flies buzzing around the dishes and being constant nuisances. If there's anything I hate the most in a sit down restaurant, is needing to shoo away a bug every 10-15 seconds from a plate of food.

The service was not exactly what I would call quick. Oh the waitress and maitre d' were friendly and personable, and very attentive when they were around. But in-between the times we saw them, they were no where to be seen. And it wasn't like the dinning room was pack or even busy, the crowd was light at best, so we were a bit perplexed.

The food however earns full marks for everything, presentation on the Bang Fried Shrimp was superb, the Lobster Grilled Cheese was rich beyond words, the cool ranch tatter tots really did taste like cool ranch, everything was just fantastic when it came to the actual dishes and food itself. The only complaint came from one of my party who ordered the wings thinking they'd be spicy given their pairing with jalapeños, but he found them to only have a modest heat at best.

Now we were offered a dessert, and given it was my birthday, they even offered it on the house. A kind gesture, but ultimately all their choices were either chocolate based, chocolate infused, made with nuts, or too heavy for my full stomach to think about accepting. They even give out house-made dark chocolate as an after dinner treat, but I of course had to pass on that too due to my bum ticker.

Overall I'd say this was an ok experience, marred greatly by the presence of bugs. But with the friendly staff and amazing food, it brings everything...

A difficult place to go if you have food restrictions. We have now had two experiences in which we ordered something that we thought would be vegetarian, but instead had meat. We take responsibility for not asking for vegetarian, but we went by the menu. The first time I ordered a salad which said that there was "speck" in it. Obviously, I did not know what speck was and was surprised when I tasted ham in it. I take responsibility for not asking about speck. However, two nights ago, we went as a family to Innova to give it a second chance. My daughter ordered the cod which came with, according to the menu "collars", not collard greens. We again did not know what collars were, but it said "Roasted Atlantic Cod with collars braised with local cider/parsnip polenta/Meyer lemon/scallion relish". Sounded vegetarian to us, however when she began to eat the greens, it clearly had ham in it. We asked the two wait staff and both said that they would be surprised if there was meat in that dish, but they would check. They did come back and they too were surprised there was meat in it. The assumption was that we should have known that collars (misspelled by them) always are cooked with meat. There was no apology or compensation. I take responsibility for not asking what things are beforehand, but I think that this chef likes ham and puts it in a lot of things without mentioning it. If you have dietary restrictions, this may not be the place for you. I don't think we would have been concerned if there had been a sense of trying to make it right, but instead we were made to feel that we should have known. We are not likely to go again as we fear that we would be given something we don't want to eat because we forgot to ask exactly what is in each dish. My feeling is a dish should tell you there is ham in it. It listed all other ingredients except the ham in this particular case. Perhaps they should put a V next to anything vegetarian or GF next to it for Gluten Free, as many restaurant do. My best advice is to be careful about what you order if you are concerned about dietary limitations and don't expect them to make it right if you don't ask beforehand. Not...

I work at a restaurant so im pretty picky when i go out to eat but over all this place was great. For aps we Had the power 4 salad and pork buns. Dressing on the salad had a bit of a fishy flavor but the rasins and grapes packed a lot of flavor. Grapes were fresh too i hate soggy rotten grapes. Pork buns were even better sauce was good the bun was fluffy and the pork was crispy on the outside but juicy on the inside. It was topped with thin cut pickles and sesame seeds. For entrees we ordered lobster mac and cheese and wild boar grilled cheese. I especially liked the fries served with my sandwich. They were thick cut circles and they were seasoned well. The pork on it was served sloppy joe style so it was juicy, and the bread was nice and crispy. The lobster mac and cheese was served right in the small pot they cooked it in and had nice chunks of lobster in it. For dessert we had peanutbutter mud pie. I was a little disappointed with this one. The mix of peanutbutter on top and oreo crust made it almost dry despite the peanutbutter ice cream in the middle. It was still good but ill try something else next visit. Coffee wasnt that great but there ice tea was. It had almost no bitter flavor but wasnt super sweet wish i could buy a gallon of it. I also like the atmosphere. The kitchen was open, it was an open ceiling, and half the building was open to the patio outside so i didnt feel crowded even when it started to fill up for dinner. It was raining during our visit so there was a nice breeze with fresh air blowing over to our table. It reminded me of my visit over seas. Over all this place was great ill be recomending it to friends and family, as well as visiting again myself...