Stella’s Bar & Restaurant

First off, my experiences at Stella’s drinks have been positive, but this is a review about just an awful dinner experience I had tonight.
Service was pretty good– they seated us right away, in a quiet downstairs area and gave us glasses of water after a couple minutes. Our waitress was respectful and patient and would come check up on us every now and then. The table we sat at was pretty small – and might I add, somewhat uncomfortably shaped, but that may just be personal preference.
I ordered the $ 26 10oz medium-​rare steak (after they reformatted the menu) because I felt like splurging. It’s an espresso rub with demi glacé, which sounded fantaaastic. However, when it came out, the steak looked dry – the dry rub looked like the gritty leftovers from the bottom of a bad pan and tasted even worse, and I got MAYBE a teaspoon of sauce. I reminded myself this was a $ 26 steak, so I asked our waitress if all the little over-​grilled bits on the steak were OK to eat because I kid you not, this steak looked like it was thrown into the dark flames of hell and then dished back onto my plate. To which she replied that the glacé probably just caramelized and looks like that.
I’m no Gordon Ramsey, but I cook enough to know that caramelized sauce – no matter how thick the sauce may be– does not end up looking or tasting like gritty black things on the bottom of a pan. Add on top of that the espresso rub and the resulting taste is just inexplicably bad. My medium rare steak also was medium rare on one side, and well done on the other. Yikes.
My friend did get the chicken, which we both agreed tasted much, much better. I’m being generous and giving Stella’s two stars for dinner. My advice would either to just get drinks and munchies here, or eat brunch instead with some very good company.

Terrible service. Took over 10mn for two drinks to be made and we were only customers at the bar. To make it worse, once we got the drinks, they were not good and very weak. When the bartender is measuring the actual alcohol being poured with a small shot glass it can’t be the sign of a good drink.
Advertised happy hour 7 days a week is misleading… charged full price for a Cosmo because it wasn’t a menu drink! Bartender recommended their cocktail special and failed to let us know that it wasn’t a happy hour item!
Staff on their phones.
Will not return.
Ever.
Again.

I’ve been coming here since my senior year, so many years ago. Back then it was expensive, but kind of worth it in that they made some pretty good drinks and had a nice selection of local beers.
Having gotten a job and visited Ithaca at least once a year since graduation, I can say that Stella’s is probably the cheapest nice bar I can go to. Laphroiag 10 for only six dollars? Ridiculous.
And those local beers just get better and better. Nostalgia really does make things taste better, don’t they?
Anyway, if you’re in town, check this place out. You won’t regret it.

This place tries to be classy, but there’s not really much competition in the immediate area for that. Service can be pretty slow, even when there aren’t many people around. Food is decent but doesn’t really compare to Carriage House down the hill.
The brioche French toast was pretty good, though it could go with less syrup.
They also have some awkwardly shaped tables which were kinda wobbly so be careful about those too.

A friend and I came here for Sunday brunch. While there was no wait for a table, we were seated in the comparatively dingy basement with dirty floors and a dated look. We ordered hot drinks to combat the Ithaca weather which were quite satisfactory. I had the Royal London Fog and my friend had the New Hampshire Communist Latte. We places our food order before the drink order, and yet waited an astounding 50 minutes for the food to arrive. This delay was only made worse by the waitress insisting the food was «coming right out» some ten minutes into the wait. When the food finally came, it was disappointing. The French toast had way too much clove and was hard to eat because of it. Further, $ 5 of bacon apparently means 4 medium small strips. All in all, I was not impressed and cannot recommend.