Paradiso Ristorante

Nothing like waiting forever for bad food. A surreal snapshot of a bygone era but not of one anyone would wish to revive. Skip it!

We ate here months ago and I’ve been trying to write a review but it keeps turning into a novel. There were SO many good things about Paradiso. I am going to try to keep it short…
The owners: The nicest people in the world. Be sure to ask the gentleman about his baseball career. Fascinating!
The food: The best meal we had while in Albany.
The history: Once a cafeteria with lots of history. Be sure to check out the memorobelia on the walls.
The interior: Gorgeous floors and murals on the ceiling. It was redone for a movie many years ago and the owners kept it that way.
The atmosphere: Quiet and serene.
If I ever find myself in Albany again, I will definitely stop in here for dinner.

This place is awful. Walmart has a better wine list, Kraft has better pasta, Prego has better sauce, the subway has better ambience, and I’ve gotten better service at a high-​school cafeteria.
If I wanted to eat oil, salt, and butter for dinner, I’d sit at home and do it – not shell out $ 20 for crappy spaghetti carbonara served by an inept waiter with some bottom-​shelf chardonnay in a place that clearly can’t afford to maintain the decaying décor. This place needs to drop whatever pretense it has about being some kind of great restaurant and start charging prices that match the inexperience of its wait staff and the low quality of its food.
The bar part of the restaurant looked nice, though.

a group of us went here for my birthday after one of my friends recommended it as his fav. restaurant. The food was ridiculously good. The prices however were a little high for the atmosphere. its a quaint little old fashioned italian restaurant. Most of the entrees were around $ 18 and the portions are not as big as you would expect but the taste sure is. The service is very slow, and I’m not sure if it was because there were 10 of us and they wanted to give us plenty of time to relax and chit chat so I’m not going to judge them for that but we were there almost 3 hrs. Luckily its right on the main st cuz the area around there isn’t the greatest. We may go back. Def one of the better Italian restaurants in the area tho.

My boyfriend and I were in Albany for a night, and stumbled upon Paradiso Ristorante. Walking in, the atmosphere is small-​townish, and the decorations are… ancient. I guess that makes sense, for a restaurant that was built in the early 1900’s. Our waiter was kind but seemingly new, the service was slow, the prices were a bit high. I ordered the shrimp fettucine alfredo ($ 18), and my boyfriend chose the baked ziti in meat sauce ($ 12). Both meals were excellent, making up for the service and atmosphere. We walked out utterly satisfied, and wishing we could return. Should I ever happen upon Albany again (which is unlikely), I will definitely seek Paradiso Ristorante out again.

I can’t touch ThinkAnd D.‘s review, but I wanted to add this to my interiors list… had a great meal here & loved the décor, & old newspaper clippings on the history of the restaurant.

«THE REASON YOU’RE IMPOTENT IS BECAUSE YOU’RE INTIMIDATED BY MY WEALTH.»
I was sitting in Paradiso, next to the guy on the receiving end of that remark, hoping the shocked patrons wouldn’t think she was yelling at me, for god’s sake. I had carbonara that night, and disassociating into my safe place, considered it very tasty.
We find ourselves coming here again and again, always enjoying the place. Its interior was used as a location for a Jack Nicholson period movie and the owner simply kept the set painting as its décor. If «The Cook, the Thief, the Wife and the Lover» was directed by Richard Russo, this would be the restaurant. In support of that claim: we went here this weekend for dessert. A cherubic blonde waitress unexpectedly sang an impromptu love song so with a voice so gorgeous that everyone in the restaurant stopped eating.
The food is good, fresh Italian, the owner’s sons are waiters, the wife works the kitchen, they sometimes have karaōke on weekends, and the cinematic interior itself goes a long way toward making a meal here more enjoyable.