The Cellar At 317 Sherman

I can’t believe that I haven’t written a review, for The Cellar before, given the numerous amount of times, I have dined here.
So, here we go:
Let me start off by saying that ever since Adam Hegsted took over ownership of the restaurant, the menu options, execution of the food and tastiness of every item that I have ordered, has been spot on. I have enjoyed everything from the lamb shank, the salmon, the homemade pasta and beyond. My husband owns his own company and we had the company Holiday party here, in December 2015 (for about 50 people) and it was very well put together. The food which was passed family style, with paella and appetizers, was excellent and the service for our event couldn’t have been better. We had the whole downstairs to ourselves and the bartender put together a super delicious «signature drink».
So, after everything that I said above, why not more than three stars? Well, aside from the success of the company party, every single time I have dined here (most recently for my January birthday), the service has been horrible. Yes, horrible and consistently so.
Part of it might be under staffing, but I don’t really care the reason. We have been here many times, for many occasions and the lack of good service, always leaves us saying we won’t be back for awhile. This last dinner, it took my husband and I almost an hour to get our food and it was like pulling teeth, to flag down our waiter, to order a second round of wine. It looked like he might have been either the only server for the entire upstairs (which was full), or at the very most, one of two servers. We felt frustrated the whole time. And then we remembered that we usually feel this way, when we dine here. Sigh.
Hopefully The Cellar can correct the service situation (and keep it consistent), because the food is way above par!

Really great atmosphere. Unique wine bar w tastings. Great high ceilings, exceptional menu, incredible flavors– fresh healthy options and exquisite pairings. Great staff, super friendly. The banana leaf wrapped steelhead was gorgeous, as was the lamb shank that fell off the bone. Oysters were a mouthful of heaven, and the Palouse salad– heavenly.

Yum !! The mushroom pesto gnocchi is really delicious. Our waiter Nick is super friendly and very attentive .
It is so far my favorite restaurant.
They also have live music on occasion .
Check it out.

Enjoying $ 5 wine Wednesdays. With my best friend. The Autumn pizza was scrumptious. My first day in Idaho ever. Thanks Cellar!

We had a private event at The Cellar and, from beginning to end, everything was PERFECT! Food and service was stellar! Location was wonderful! Pre-​planning was easy with Naomi. Thank you! Highly recommend!

The Salmon is a must! Take Jaime’s recommendation! Friendly service and lovely visit from the chef…

Amazing food! We had the pizza and flank steak. Could not have asked for better service, food and wine.

Good service and nice atmosphere.
The on tap wines are as inoffensive as they are unremarkable.
The food is a different story. My wife sent her steak back as it looked and tasted like it came from Denny’s, slathered with some home made version of A-​1. It was also not cooked to her specification. I had the steelhead steamed in a banana leaf which actually came out and looked like it was baked on a piece of banana leaf and was slightly over cooked. The side of fried rice patty was actually a ball of unseasoned plain white rice that was thrown into the deep fryer. It was greasy all the way through and to make it worse the fryer oil needed changing a while before that. The green papaya salad was so bad I actually spit it into my napkin. It tasted like it was made by someone who had only seen a picture of the dish and never actually tasted it, before or after making it. It was just stale shredded papaya with a few pieces of tomato thrown in and tossed together. No lime juice, no fish sauce, no salt, no peanuts no flavor. I went to culinary school and worked in fine dining for a few years and there is absolutely no excuse for food that bad, at that price especially when they were as slow as they were. They get two stars because our server did a really great job of trying to make it up to us.

We came here for a business dinner and ordered the flank steak with their house cab. The steak was delicious and potatoes were loaded with flavor. The house cab was tasty as well. My wife and I are in town for vacation and are coming back again today to try more items on the menu. The waitress was amazing and was easily some of the best food we have had.

This was a great dissppointment. We wanted to get something good for lunch, therefore we opted for a supposedly fancy and expensive restaurant. Poor menu selection, cheap ingredients, turkey which had already a smell, nasty fries. Never again.

Very cool little wine bar/​restaurant. Right across from the free Tuesday concerts in the park across the street, so if you can get a patio table on Tuesday 6 – 8:30, you score some live music, too!
Great menu, w/​lots of interesting options. Love that they have many available individually or half portion. We had 1 lb brown bag clams (amazing) w/​½ kale salad (so good), and couple oysters to start — all excellent.
On top of that, they have a great wine list, beer, specialty cocktails. You can even buy a wine card and dispense your own wine in 2,3,5 oz pours. Pretty cool. My favorite was the 5 Star Cab.
They have a great Happy Hour daily, too!

Very disappointed. My wife and I visited on a Friday night and headed downstairs for drinks and the live music.
The music was advertised as Blues, but was more of bluegrass/​rock. Regardless of their genre, they had no business playing for a crowd. They were pretty terrible and the acoustics downstairs didn’t seem to be very good for live music anyways.
As to the service, we were greeted warmly and grabbed an open high-​top table. The server we chatted with quickly disappeared without taking a drink order. About 5 minutes later he dropped a couple of waters at our table while running by and didn’t say a word. As we tried to catch him for a drink order he quickly scurried away. He came back 5 – 10 minutes later with menus and we told him we were just going to order drinks. He then gathered up the menus and took off. That was the last we saw of him.
Another 5 minutes goes by and a new female server comes over to finally take our drink orders. I ordered a Moscow Mule and my wife some Huckleberry drink. Because the Moscow Mule comes in a copper mug I had to put a credit card deposit down because apparently people steal the mugs. The drinks arrive quickly but I quickly realize that they screwed up my drink. But, again I can’t find a server. Fed up I head to the bar to explain the problem and get a replacement. Instead of quickly handling it, the bartender says «let me get your server.» Ok the server finally comes by and I tell her that my drink is off and too sweet. The response was something like «oh we use vanilla vodka in our ‘Mule,’ that’s our take on the Moscow Mule.» If I wanted something «special» or your «take on a drink,» I would have ordered it. With industry standard drinks you can’t force your version of something on customers and expect them to be happy about it.
Ok, drinks are good now. More terrible music. Finally the band takes a break and some decent music gets streamed through the speakers. But we need another drink and there is no server to be found. Back to the bar to ask for the check because this place sucks. Our server starts to ring us up and bring the check to the table. But instead she brings a bill. No sign of my credit card. No sign of a pen. No credit card slip for me to sign. «I can’t bring you your check until you finish your drink and give me the copper mug back.» So I take the final swig and literally hand her the mug, and which point she disappears to fetch my card and the check.
Terrible and, quite frankly, insulting service. Bad music. Bad drinks. No wonder there was hardly anyone there on Friday ⁷⁄₃ (what should have been a very busy night, being a holiday weekend). And it should be noted that all the other bars nearby were packed. So we tried a few of those other bars and ended up having a great evening.

Jordan is what made this place so special. She is literally one of the best servers I have ever had. She had superb customer service and communication skills, a great upbeat attitude, was patient, knowledgeable, adorable, smart and a real pleasure to talk to. She anticipated our customer needs, was very attentive and took a true interest in making our dining experience pleasurable. Eating lunch here definitely made my trip to Coeur D Alene more memorable.

The Cellar was the star of our stay in Coeur d’Alene and I’m sure we would have gone back if we had stayed longer. Great location right on Sherman, some outdoor seating if you’re in the mood, and a basement with live music and the option to dine or just listen some evenings.
Wish I could remember our server’s name as she was very friendly and accommodating. We had some questions on the menu and she gave us good direction. We ended up sharing the salmon cakes and the paella for 1. I was sick so didn’t have much appetite, but even with the boyfriend’s much bigger appetite, that was more than enough food for the 2 of us.
The paella outshone the salmon cakes (for me at least, only because the pickled sauce was a little sweet for my liking) and the chorizo paired really nicely with the seafood and rice. There were a couple of mussels that hadn’t been cleaned properly so that was a bit of a disappointment, but we were still very happy with our meal. We also had a local Pinot Grigio which was perfectly refreshing and paired really nicely with the meal.
Check this place out, if nothing else than for a quick glass of wine as you walk through town!

Preamble
Firstly, to get it out of the way, the Cellar has a wine vending machine! You can purchase a prepaid amount on a card and then enjoy a variety of wines by the glass or carafe at various price points.
I had been to the Cellar several years ago a number of times and have always had pleasant experiences. However, I had never been there under the current management with the current chef.
We were a dozen – gourmands, epicures, foodies, libationistas, dipsomaniacs – showing up two by two for a feast to end all feasts, one shy of being a divine scene, but yet a divine scene. We were to have the Chef’s Choice menu – super-​sized just for us.
Entering the old brick edifice on Sherman Avenue in the heart of downtown Coeur d’Alene on a sunny late spring afternoon, I first stealthily wandered down a staircase behind a SECTION CLOSED sign expecting that we were to meet in a secret cellar within a cellar, but found it empty, although worth further exploration. Noted. I wondered back upstairs and then was directed to a mezzanine where our table awaited us.
Chapter I — Cocktails
Cocktail. Cocktail. Cocktail. Beer. Cocktail. Cocktail. What she is having. Those are huckleberries in refreshing bubbles and liquor? Honey bee cocktail. That looks good. Cocktail. That is how the evening started as our table guests gradually all arrived to join our table.
I enjoyed a couple Huckleberry Presses, a refreshing steal at $ 8 made with 360 Lemon Vodka, 360 Huckleberry Vodka, Huckleberries, Soda, Sprite, Lime. The waitress recommended a Honey Bee to my leftward companion. Made with Jose Cuervo Tequila, Sour, Honey Simple Syrup, Peach Bitters, Muddled Jalapeño. I would make it my third and final cocktail – a rare treat for a man who rarely indulges in more than a single drink. Yes. A rare treat indeed!
Our entire group thoroughly enjoyed all of their drink choices, save one who ordered an off menu bartender’s drink that included Campari. That is a taste that is difficult for some people. He shared with others, including myself, and I thought it was a well made drink.
Chapter II — Starters
Two’s a company, three’s a crowd. Our table was soon crowded with a trifecta of choice hot plates to share. These included Bacon Wrapped Dates, Double Fried Chicken Wings tossed in Vietnamese caramel sauce with chopped lime and fried garlic – exceptionally delicious, even to me who rarely eats the species, in particular the wings, and Brick Oven Brie served in phyllo pastry with pickled apricots, honey comb and blueberries. Oh, and Brussel sprouts!
Chapter III — Salads
We were next greeted by a triumvirate of powerfully delicious salads: Roast Beet Salad, a delicious combination of roasted beets tossed with blackberry vinegar, olive oil, fresh goat cheese, arugula and an admixture of toasted almonds and blackberries; Spring into Summer, an amazing miscellany of baby kale, pea shoots, mint, torn basil, mushrooms, English peas, shaved radish and asparagus in a buttermilk dressing with toasted walnuts; and Palouse Harvest, featuring vegetables procured from the local farmers market.
Chapter IV — Seafood
Three salads, three starters swimming in a sea of cocktails in our bellies, it would seem appropriate to bring on the Seafood. Brung! Brown Bag Clams, manila clams steamed in brown bag – or was it brown clams in a manila envelop? Ah, yes. Bag, brown. Clams, Manila – with charred onions, superlatively fresh green onions and roasted garlic butter; and Miso-​Bacon Mussels, which we flexed into our increasingly sated stomachs, steamed in miso broth with bacon, garlic and rice wine and topped with crispy togarashi potatoes.
Please flip over menu.
Chapter V — Large Plates
Plates larger than our eyes, which were presently quite large from our ongoing culinary adventures, filled with more delicious and more substantial concoctions. Fortunately, our dishes were dwindling in number, just two this round: Northwest Paella, a local take on the Spanish staple, stuffed with mussels, clams, shrimp, chicken, chorizo, steelhead and vegetables in saffron-​golden rice; and Grilled New York Striploin served with potatoes and asparagus. Troy, our meat and potatoes fellow, was delighted to finish what our half of the table could not of this hearty well prepared classic.
Chapter VI — Nap
Chapter VII — Dessert
Strawberry-​Rhubarb Cobbler, topped with whipped sour cream freddo, because what else could top such a dish, accompanied a locally harvested huckleberry cheesecake served with lemon anglaise, candied hazelnuts and lavender syrup. We rose to the challenge.
Chapter VIII — Coffee.
Yes, volontiers! With cream.
Afterword
Now, go to the Cellar. Bring friends. Choose your price. Choose well. Get many good things. Or go à la carte. But I think you want a feast. Yes. You want a feast. Chef’s choice. And a few cocktails for good measure.
P. S. Somewhere in the story we switched to wine. A great selection to be had.

We were in Spokane to drop someone off at the airport. Having never been in Spokane before, we walked around and decided to eat at The Cellar because of the music bring played and also the ambience of the place. Loved the furnishings. Better than the music and the furnishing, the food was great! We had a ham sandwich with cheese, a roast beet salad and sangria. Such a treat to my taste buds. The ham sandwich came with a sauce that made a good sandwich wonderful, and the fried chips were awesome. Everything about the roast beet salad was wonderful, the goat cheese, the beets, the lettuce used etc. It was a wonderful experience! My husband had the strognoff and want so happy. He said it was good but tasted more Italian than German.

The wait staff was the best thing about this restaurant. The wine list was way overpriced. The flank steaks two of us ordered were tough and chewy, more like jerky than steaks. The Paella was good, the gnocchi with chicken was tasty and the bread was good with the garlic butter they served. The menu is very eclectic, but not really in a good way. We had wanted more of a Tapas kind of setup.
I’d like to recommend it for the atmosphere– potentially very fun or romantic, depending on the company and if you’re there for the music. Check out the menu before you go, that was our mistake.

Started with escargot and beer steamed clams– snails were delightful and the clams were alright. Our server profiled our red wine preference accurately and have us 3 options. Ordered the flank steak and prime rib and ordered the walla walla vintners which perfectly paired with bold red meat.
Great quality food (priced fairly) wine marked up but with the atmosphere and live music, I’ll be back. Not to mention our server who knew her wines and gave us options

The Bacon Bloody Mary!
I love wine, but you can get that anywhere. What you CANT get anywhere is this spectacular bacon-​adorned cocktail, completed with bacon vodka.
Worth the price, which is way over what I’d like to pay for a cocktail: but like I said: worth it!
Decent appetizers on the menu, as well.

This place is great!
Server was upbeat, prices moderate. Had the steelhead salmon which was great (substitute the orzo for parmesan polenta. Italian wedge great and the wine was really nice. The cume has it right here, 4.5 out of 5 right on the mark.