Café Capriccio - City of Albany

Let me start off by saying that the food was UNBELIEVABLE. Seriously, just so wonderful. If I were to base my review purely on the food, it would be 5 stars, no questions asked.Unfortunately, the service was abominable and the atmosphere was all wrong. While the restaurant gives off a beautiful Italian vibe, it 's ruined by the mismatch of pop and hip hop music playing in the background. Where 's the Italian music? Or classical music? The whole restaurant feels like it 's been taken over by a bunch of hipsters, and the staff clearly back up this theory.Most of the staff were horribly underdressed—wearing outfits that you 'd wear on your day off, while running errands, or just lounging about at home. The only thing that they wore that was appropriate were aprons. Our main waiter was wearing a casual (not to mention dirty) disheveled button-down shirt with sagging shorts and tennis shoes. I say main waiter because there were multiple individuals coming to our table. The most annoying part of having all of these different people serving us is that they all asked the SAME questions. We were asked FOUR TIMES if we wanted to order drinks. Multiple times the staff tried to take away our plates when we weren 't done with them, and we had to repeat the same statement to each of them. How about communicating with each other instead of bothering the patrons over and over? It 's a small restaurant, guys. I 'm pretty sure while all of the staff are standing around they have the ability to communicate with each other to stay updated on what the patrons want throughout the meal. Just a really disorganized and lazy approach, which was extremely off-putting. But I digress...As for our main waiter, this guy was dressed like he should have been working a food truck instead of a high-end Italian restaurant. Now I could have disregarded the underdressed outfit if he hadn 't been inappropriate while serving us and others. He tried to act like he was our best friend and said that we were his favorite table. I asked him why the other booths in front and behind us weren 't his favorite and his reply? F those other people . Only he didn 't say F —he full out swore about the other patrons. Mind you, the booths aren 't far away from each other, so both parties heard him. That 's so unbelievably uncouth—not to mention incredibly uncomfortable and rude. As if that wasn 't bad enough, the waiter then proceeded to have some sort of Alpha vs. Alpha confrontation with the patron behind us. The patron, at one point in the conversation, nervously laughed and said is that a threat? These are not the types of conversations you should be having with patrons. Cafe Capriccio presents as a FINE DINING EXPERIENCE, yet we have received better service at fast-food restaurants.My boyfriend was incredibly frustrated because he had spoken highly of this restaurant for years and had hoped to treat his girlfriend to a romantic and intimate evening. However, this thoughtful gesture was completely spoiled by the dreadful service. He sadly stated that what was once a proud establishment has now been marred by the deplorable service it offers.Treating patrons in such a manner is unacceptable, especially considering the amount of money we spent. At this price point, our expectations were far higher than what we experienced.Although the food received a glowing 5-star rating from us, the service was a dismal 1 star. It was grossly unacceptable. Any true fine dining restaurant astutely knows that you don 't swear at guests or act abrasive and rude towards them.Lastly, I want to highlight that both my boyfriend and I were within the same age bracket as the staff. Having previously worked in customer-facing roles, we grasp the importance of delivering a pleasant experience for customers. Moreover, my boyfriend 's extensive experience in the restaurant industry left him deeply dismayed by the waiter 's lazy, disrespectful, inappropriate, threatening, and verbally abusive b

First time visiting Café Capriccio, certainly not the last! Took my wife for a birthday dinner, and saw a lot of good reviews but was unsure how it would stack up because while there are plenty of good pasta places in New York, not all are truly authentic Italian handmade pasta and fantastic sauces.Could not have been more pleased with how they met/exceeded our expectations. We've traveled to Italy several times, and the food here is legit, authentic, fantastic pasta and meats- perfectly seasoned, perfectly cooked, flavorsome sauces, excellent wine and aperitifs. We had the special ravioli, Tomato Garlic Cream pasta, the incredible four cheese eggplant Parm, and a fantastic but very decadent flour less chocolate cake.Service is whole team, and was a fantastic experience, excellent, attentive, friendly and knowledgeable.Location is a small house in the Albany rowhouses, there was a weed smell coming in and that was literally the only bad thing I can have to say.They well deserve the multiple diners choice awards. Parking: Parking along the cross streets and main road is available.

Place is very old and dingy, food was excellent. I was going to give it a great review, but once I got to my car after leaving I received a call from the restaurant asking if I liked the food, I said yes, they said well your tip was very low. I apologized and stated to add an extra $10. They text me and stated they will be charging my credit card a total of a $70 tip when I was leaving $45. They called again stating that a party of 5 is a 20% gratuity. We told them , first of all if it's an automatic gratuity it is usually added to the bill, which it was not, and tip is based on the total bill before taxes. They called a third time to say that the tip will be $65, and the menu states 20% gratuity for parties of 5 or more. Although the food was excellent, I will NOT return. This was extremely rude.

I was in Albany to see my granddaughter play in a lacrosse tournament so Saturday night after a tough day 1 I took my daughter and granddaughter to dinner at Cafe Capriccio. What a lovely place in a very old building so many dining rooms. They nicely honored my request for a more quiet table and sat us in a back dining room. Our waitress was fabulous very informative about the menu and the building. My daughter and I shared a lovely and not too expensive bottle of Vermentino while my 16 year old granddaughter had a Shirley Temple but it was a bottled variety and she loved it! The food was very good my only slight complaint was that there was too much tomato sauce on my chicken and eggplant sorrento. I'm more accustomed to it with more of a white wine/olive oil sauce but really covered in sauce.Their tomato sauce is excellent but it dominated the dish too much. We finished the meal by sharing one of the best coffee gelatos I've had here or abroad! If I lived in Albany I would be a regular!

We went for Father Days dinner with 6 extremely picky characters. Every dinner met everyone's expectations and there was not one complaint .I am looking forward to another beautiful meal .