Sam’s Italian & American Restaurant

Over the years, my wife & I have been to numerous Italian restaurants, not just in Albany, but throughout the surrounding capital district, & there isn’t another Italian restaurant that even comes close to Sam’s. We have never had a bad experience In all our visits, the waitress’s are all very professional, & don’t forget to order Carmella’s cannoli’s to top off the meal, they’re excellent!!! «ENJOY»!!!

I used to go to sams all the time as a kid as it was my grandfathers favorite resurant (he used to eat there every week). I went a few years ago and it was still the same old good food and nice Italian atomosphere. Im probably going to stop by next week and see how they are keeping up.

One of the best family restaurants in the Capital Region — Delicious! Try the menu! All of it!

we ordered and it was delicious!!!

Outstanding food and service! Lasagna is soooo good and cannolis are the best I have had. My family totally enjoyed their meals. More than ample portions. If you haven’t gone, you must try Sams. They were great in the 70’s and are still great!

Great food, and nice atmosphere. Our waiter was friendly and attentive. We will be repeat customers.

Just went tonight and well, we just need to go more often. This place is simply good food. I recommend the Fra Diavolo sauce and they will put it on anything you want. Rockin good food! Wish I was still hungry so I could finish all my left overs!

The food at Sam’s is really good. Good solid Red Sauce Italian Restaurant. It’s a little pricey, but we really enjoy going out there when we have no clue what to eat.

Small but friendly family restaurant. Great selection of Italian meals. Close to Exit 23 of the Thruway in a residention location of the city.

Lemme just say, it wasn’t a terrible experience. But being realistic and considering the American Italian market, I don’t see why I’d ever go back to this place. They don’t have that «umphf» to set themselves apart.
I ordered the sausage marinara with penne and the half loaf of garlic bread with mozz. Their sausages are homemade but most Italian sausage taste the same to me. When the pasta dish came, I couldn’t see any of the penne, the marinara sauce came in over abundance, which wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. The sauce was quite tasty and didn’t taste like it came out of a jar. So I would say this dish was actually about a 3 or a little higher. I asked my friend how her spaghetti and meatballs was, but she said it tasted like something she could make. So I guess that’s not great.
The free bread that comes before the meal was stale. Not rock hard stale, but quite disappointing. For a classy place that seems to take pride in homemade, they need to up their game in the bread department. Also, I love the garlic butter that most Italian places serve with their free bread, but all they had were packaged butter. Again, nothing special. Their garlic bread with mozz just tasted like toasted bread with cheese. I hardly tasted the garlic or the butter. The garlic was obviously the powdered kind and it was weak sauce. And it didn’t quite taste like fresh mozz but those square block kinds.
The waitress was quite nice, but the kind that you can tell they’re working for their tip. Not anything bad, and definitely not the kind who are fake with their attitudes. But you know, I kind of want the people who work there to love what they’re doing. You’ll know what I mean if you go to Phoenicians and talk it up with Robert (pronounced like Colbert).
So with so many Italian restaurants in the US, there’s nothing that set Sam’s apart from any other place. The prices are way too high for their pasta (mostly $ 15 – 25), and my econ 101 mind is telling me, go elsewhere. The supply is not adequate enough to meet my demands here. Thank you college education for helping me make this important decision in life. Well worth the 40K+/yr cost!

Our enthusiastic waitress asks me, «Meatball or Sausage, or one of each?»
When this is the most difficult decision you have to make at meal time, life that evening is good, very good.
This protein selection is of course to accompany two heaping portions of my most beloved item on the menu: Homemade lasagna (15.99) stuffed and layered with meaty and cheesy goodness. It’s enough food for two full meals! I always bring home leftovers from Sam’s.
It was the last weekend of Sam’s 40^th anniversary and they were offering a very reasonable special of salad, soup, entrée, and dessert for the very affordable price of 19.99.
The entrees on call for this special were all appealing: eggplant or veal parmesan, scrod, linguini in clam sauce.
All sounded good, especially the clam sauce as the smells from the fresh clams wafted as we entered the small neighborhood restaurant. But I come to Sam’s for one thing that no one else does better– the Lasagna.
My friends ordered the veal and eggplant and I sampled both. The veal was beaten till tender but flavor was not sacrificed, the eggplant was «meaty» for a lack of a better word and succulent.
Although I would have been happy with both, my monstrous portion of lasagna was perfection as always.
It may be the homemade quality or perhaps having the best Italian red sauce in the Capital District– I don’t know what it is, but Sam’s never disappoints.
A few bottles of the affordable house Chianti later, and a great meal was had by all.
As it was birthday, to top the meal off, I was generously served a tasty and filling canoli on the house whose batter was pressed in waffle iron.
Sam’s is my favorite Italian restaurant in Albany and perhaps the Capital District. It’s a homey spot in a quiet neighborhood that serves casual Italian American food that rivals anything you could fine in more upscale settings.
Let’s hope for 40 more years of Sam’s goodness.
Oh and to answer the waitress’ question at the beginning, I ordered one of each– but they gave me a sausage but 2 meatballs instead of 1-​an unneeded extra star for that.

Quite simply the best Italian restaurant in Albany. Everything is homemade (except the bread, I suspect). Friendly, good service and the best eggplant parmigiana ever (i have tasted it all over the US and none is better). Also, absolutely authentic made on premises tira misu — phenomenal! Reservations accepted and not a bad idea.

If you are looking for a cozy night in with your honey, I strongly suggest picking up take-​out from Sam’s. It’s hot, delicious comfort food, and no one has to do the dishes. And have a drink at the bar while you are waiting! We did this two years ago for Valentine’s Day, and we still talk about it. Maybe it was the simplicity of it all, but it was a nice way to do dinner that night.

Sam’s is an Albany staple offering several traditional Italian dishes in a neighborhood setting. Pasta and desserts are home made. The food is well prepared and served by a very nice wait staff that have all been with the restaurant for many years.
My favorite dish is the veal parm with spaghetti. I also enjoy the chocolate mousse for dessert. I usually have leftovers from the good sized portions.
The intimate seating is good for groups of 2 to 4 up front, and larger groups in back.
Sam’s is closed on Sunday and Monday as well as some other holidays.

This is one of those local neighbor hood jems that is severly underrated. At any given time you can see a limo or a tour bus outside of the restaurante, and pictures of stars who have eaten there (like andre the giant) grace the walls of the place.
The food is old school italian, and the portions are huge. my favorite part is that the wine is very attractively priced. markups on the wine are typically 50% over store prices (as opposed to Olive Garden which is 300−400%). Every day they have a $ 20 wine special (i have seen as many as 5 different bottles of wine for 19.95.
Carmella herself walks by and greets the patrons, and has on one occaision dropped off a complimentary canolli.
Make a reservation on friday and saturday night.
Try the veal/​chicken gondola (with escarole), and spicy fra diavolo sauce.

Nobody’s reviewed Sam’s yet?
It feels like a little piece of Albany history. I have no idea, but I am guessing Sam’s has been around forever. And the parking lot on a weeknight at dinner time was almost completely full.
This is another example of the classic Albany red-​sauce Italian-​American bar and grills. A la Ralph’s Tavern.
Steve B.‘s
family turned me on to this place when I told them how much I liked Ralph’s… and it makes total sense.
And really, if everything on the menu was $ 5 less, it would be a 4* joint up there with Ralph’s. Actually, that’s not true. That was just the most obvious and glaring incongruity. Sure, the place feels fancier, with linen napkins and bottles of dipping oil on the tables. But at the end of the day, what comes out of the kitchen isn’t any better than places of its ilk. Which makes it difficult to justify paying more than $ 15 for eggplant parm with a meatball.
In some ways, it’s maybe even a little bit worse. Their homemade sausages were oddly tough. Their meatballs were a bit too bready. Their eggplant was battered. The bread was not warm. The dipping oil was pretty tasteless (except for whatever herbs had been added). The cheese on the eggplant was pretty tasteless too.
I liked that you could order ½ carafes of their house chianti. I wasn’t so crazy that the chianti tasted more like manischewitz. To be fair, my wife thought the wine was perfectly fine.
But this is a charming old place. When we entered, we received the most sincere and warmest greeting I can remember. And I can understand why people have probably been coming here for generations.
I would have loved to try their cannoli, but seriously, I could not imagine anyone being able to eat dessert given the gargantuan portion sizes. I worked very hard and was proudly able to gorge myself and eat about 80% of my meal, The missus ate about half of her dinner.
Sadly the economics of sharing a dinner and paying the $ 5 surcharge for splitting a $ 12 plate of pasta with sausage seemed a bit out of whack. Maybe next time we come back we’ll try it. Then maybe, just maybe, I’ll be able to report on the cannoli.
N.B. Weekday lunch specials are available which seem like the best way to experience this classic Albany establishment.

Don’t go to Sam’s looking for a fine dining experience. In my experience, it’s like a great dinner at the kitchen table of the Italian grandmother you might or might not have ever had. The last time I was here, I got the Calamari Marinara, with the excellent mildly-​seasoned sauce. Tremendous portions, a bowl filled to the brim with pasta. Unfortunately, the onions in the sauce overpowered the taste of the calamari and the calamari itself was just a bit overcooked. But it sure did hit the spot.