Jacob & Anthony’s Italian — Restaurant in Town of Guilderland

What a stylish place with great drinks and pretty good food. My birthday this year was on a Monday night, and none of the "celebration" places I usually go to were open. Fortunately after some research we found Jacob & Anthony in Albany.

The place was clean, very stylishly decorated, and had a hip but mature vibe. Everyone seemed to be having a good time, and the staff was very friendly. We sat down pretty quickly, and ordered a sweet Manhattan straight up and some sangria. The drinks were great and well made, and so I ordered a second Manhattan.

Warm bread with basil and parmesan olive oil came out as we ordered our appetizers and meals. The first to arrive was the Calamari with Fried Onions and Peppers. This dish was extremely well crafted and tasted delicious as the flaky delicate crust of calamari nearly melted it in our mouths. I give kudos to any chef that can make fried food taste light. It just needed a pinch of salt to be perfect -- and this is coming from someone who almost never adds extra salt to dishes. I prefer to rely on the chef's vision of their food rather than tinkering with it.

Next we dove into the arugula salad with goat cheese and beets. This was also a light and beautiful appetizer with a very mild lemon vinaigrette. My friend pointed out that it too needed a little bit of salt to be perfect. I couldn't agree more, though I also wouldn't mind dried cranberries or something that had an extra pop of sweet acidic flavor to balance out the salad.

Both of us wound up ordering the same dinner, which was a half portion of Chicken Milanese with spinach and mushroom fettuccine alfredo. First, it should be noted that the half portions were plenty of food for both of us, especially with the prior appetizers. Each got a single chicken cutlet that was beautifully fried, and came out nice and hot. But the fettuccine alfredo blew my mind. Mind you, it wasn't a typical heavy white cream sauce. But rather a mild and flavorful parmesan sauce. Supported by the portobello mushrooms and spinach, which added incredible depth of flavor to the dish. If there's one critique, both of the chicken and the pasta also needed a pinch of salt.

Overall we really liked this place, and was very happy to find it open on a Monday night. The staff is great, the environment was hip and clean, and the food was really good. As long as they learn to add that pinch of salt in the future, I'm sure I'll be coming back with new friends...

Serendipity at Jacob and Anthony's Italian Sat 12/11/21 6pm as our first choice was full house, no parking, and a long wait. This place has been on our list for a while, but we wanted to go in a group to try a variety of dishes. Because this place is not a typical red sauce Italian restaurant, more modern, more varied. They offer small plates, salads, sandwiches, pizza, pasta & classic dishes. Plenty of parking here b/c it's in Stuyvesant Plaza. The hostess told us they were only seating reservations, the wait would be 30 minutes, but we could go to the bar-excellent suggestion. Plenty of open seats six feet apart. Very nice full service bar next to long table dining in a short wall section separate from the formal dining tables. Appeared to be fully staffed. We were greeted by the very good bartender. She gave no name, no name tag, no name on receipt, just server 12 B, Check #103, table 204. She brought my bride an extensive wine list. Wines are offered by the glass or bottle (1/2 off wine Wednesdays). Wine was $9 and my Jameson, neat was $11.50. We then ordered our shared small plate - an eggplant/zucchini stacks w/ smoked mozzarella, tomato & balsamic glaze ($16) - well presented & tasty - excellent -as an app or light meal. They offer six small plates and this antipasto which we shared. Antipasto Dilusso - Sicilian olives, roasted artichokes, roasted red peppers, pepperoncini, onions, prosciutto, soppressata, mixed greens ($22). Excellent presentation, nicely chilled, dressed w/ pesto & olive oil - a very nice addition, and a great value. Please add more olives, only 3 on the plate. Perfect choices for our dinner. At the front entrance there is another restaurant. I can't comment on it. Appears to be lighter fare, pizza & take out. Their other older restaurant is J&A American Grille in Saratoga Springs, NY. Hours: Sun-Thu 11am-8pm, Fri-Sat 11am-9pm. Price point reflects value, dinners are from $16 choose your pasta & sauce, additional toppings $5-9 up to classic entrees $15-27 (two portion sizes-which we personally like to see) & a NY strip steak $34. A very good first impression. Highly recommended. And we will be back, hopefully w/ a group of friends. Thank you. Nick &...

When we arrived they informed us that their heater wasn’t working. I don’t understand why they would ever sit their customers near the door when it’s freezing outside. I understand that things happen, but at least make and effort to sit your customers away from the door or direct traffic through your main door so cold air isn’t constantly entering the dinning space. Regardless of the temperature, the service was also bad. I will note that the restaurant was fairly empty during the time we dined (no more than 4 tables and a few people at the bar). Our waiter seemed inexperienced, forgot to bring us multiple items at various times, and even brought us an item with nuts after we clearly specified that we had a nut allergy. Even after all of that we were understanding, I’m always willing to forget bad service if the food is good. The food unfortunately was not good, most of the items we ordered were completely tasteless. For appetizers we ordered the truffle fries and the 1/2 pound meatball. The truffle fries were chrispy and had a nice flavor. The meatball on the other hand was super bland it had a good texture but the taste was beyond boring. For the love of God please add some salt and fresh garlic and parsley to that meatball. The meatball also came with some ricotta on the side which would’ve greatly benefited from some olive oil, flaky salt and black pepper. For main, we ordered the funghi pizza and the Milanese. The pizza was fine, it had flavor but I wasn’t impressed with the dough. The Milanese had 0 flavor. The chicken cutlets were nicely breaded and fried but the taste was none existent. The linguine Alfredo was tasteless. It looked like it was seasoned but wow, were the looks deceiving. It tasted like nothing not even butter it’s like they only used neutral oil in that dish. I don’t even think there was any “alfredo “ sauce on the plate, it looked like there was some type of pasta sauce but it had 0 taste. It’s not that hard to infuse foods with flavor, the sauce would greatly benifit from some salt, garlic, and parmigiano reggiano. We had planned to get dessert but after not wanting to eat more than a few bites of the Milanese we decided to pay and Find better food...