Serena’s Wine Bar Cafe

Really enjoyed this place last night. fantastic service, good wine and food. What else could you ask for. Server was super accommodating, very nice selection of wines at very reasonable prices. Will definitely go back. Much better choice than Mediterraneo next store.

I’ve been coming here for a while now, love having a neighborhood wine bar so close to home. The owner is a very gracious guy, takes his job very seriously and is super inviting! The rose was amazing and pasta to die for. perfect place for happy hour gossiping after work with your best friends sipping on high quality wine with some amazing apps :)

We came to Serena’s on a Tuesday afternoon. At 4PM, the restaurant was completely empty. But hey, nobody else was as crazy as we were to come drink wine at 4PM on a Tuesday afternoon. Their happy hour started at 4 and includes $ 6 wines by the glass, I believe. We chose to order a pitcher of red sangria instead. The sangria was very sweet, which is alright for me, because I enjoy sweet wine. But even I could recognize that this sangria is unusually sweet. We ordered a tomato basil mozzarella flatbread, which was split into 4 slices and was very very good. The hummus pretty ordinary, and i was a bit bummed by the fact that they charge you $ 1 extra for extra pita bread for the hummus. The hummus to pita bread ratio was just too high!
Serena’s was great, but for some reason I’m not super excited to return. I definitely will return because it’s close to home and I can see my usual gang gathering there occasionally. Maybe I’ll do more research into their specials and deals before returning next!

Love the big salads and great wine list. Feels downtown, hip, casual.
Bad acoustics mean it’s not a good place to be when it’s busy.

This is a perfect wine bar. Excellent quality wine, great food and a very hip atmosphere. The owner is a great guy and makes everyone feel at home. Perfect for a relaxing night, date night or place to take a group of friends and have a fun night out! If you’re in the neighborhood do yourself a favor and go to Serena’s.

I’d suggest not to trust their web site hours and not to expect any apology, when you find the place closed not according to the announced working hours.
Yesterday we were looking for a quick lunch with glass of wine, and found this place on Unilocal.I’ve checked their working hours on
and was happy to find the place is open for lunch:
LUNCH
Mon-​Fri: 12pm-​5pm
Sat-​Sun: 3pm-​5pm
It was raining heavily outside, still, we thought walking four blocks under the rain for a french onion soup and glass of wine totally worth it.
How we were surprised to get to that place, and find the guy who runs the place, telling us that they are opening at 4 PM.
For my question, why the web site is saying they are opening 12pm-​5pm for lunch, I’ve got an answer «we don’t make any money from lunch, so we decided not to open for lunch for a winter».
No «I’m sorry» or «I apologize»… Just like that.
For my polite suggestion to update their own web site at the time when they decide to change the schedule, in order not to make people walking under the rain, the guy become absolutely rude:
«My Web administrator is out. YOU PROBABLY DON’T UNDERSTAND, by I have rights not to open when I don’t make any money!». — exactly like that!
It looks like he doesn’t really want us back there and words like «I apologize for inconvenience» or «I’m sorry» is not part of his vocabulary.
So, please be ready to get a rude conversation instead wine and food there.

Money oriented — party of 3, they added 20% of gratuity after taxes and they would not change! Service slow– a small table for 3. It’s all about their money– not ur experience

Cute wine bar on 2^nd avenue with a bistro feel. Unfortunately with the 2^nd avenue construction it’s a little tricky to find if you are not paying close attention and are on the opposite side of the street.
Like many upper east bars and restaurants they close on the earlier side but while ready to close when we arrived — the manager politely and sweetly invited us/​said to come in for a glass /​last call.
The sweet smiling server surely was done or close to done with her shift so my friend said he could pay her and wouldn’t need her to stay as we had our drink. She was so charming and personable even keeping a big smile when she brought our drinks and I jokingly asked if I could test 3 or 4 wines before she left. She held her charming friendly attitude and smile and said «yes, sure.» Ha very sweet and personable — and relieved laughing /​smiling even more when I told her I was joking.
The manhattan I ordered wasn’t my top but it was closing time and this is a wine bar, so we should have ordered wine.

I was looking for a place by my apartment where I could eat outside and take my sister’s dogs as well. My dogs live with my sister in the suburbs, so they were not well acclimated to the city environment, so I appreciate Serena’s for accommodating my sister’s «children».
Since it is a wine bar, the portions are generally small. We ordered a charcuterie board, which was really wonderful with some great meats and cheese. The server was not very good at suggesting the selection, so we kind of blind eyed it and came out with a good tray. We got the smoked salmon flatbread (I know it’s generally salty, but was wayyyyy too salty), spaghetti and meatballs (really great meatballs, like an Italian grandmother would make), and the italian panini (okay, was a bit cold by the time it reached the table).
My biggest gripe with Serena’s would be the service. Oh my god– they were so slow. Even though the few tables outside filled and a few inside, we sat around for maybe 40 minutes for our food. By the end, our group was annoyed. Maybe it was because we wanted a more filling meal or the dog’s eventual restlessness… no it was probably because we sat around for 1.5 hours and ate for maybe 20 minutes of that time.

Omg I went here and it is awesome delish so cute the owner is adorable and, so is the staff I do recommend neighborhood place across from movie theater yummy

Food: 4 stars. Service 1 star. Our waitress barely paid attention to our table. Didn’t ask how our food was or if we wanted another glass of wine. She didn’t notice that our table didn’t have silverware or napkins. She was just generally unattentive.

Meat and cheese platter seemed much bigger in pictures than it actually was. Panini with prosciutto and mozzarella was amazing!

I passed by and liked the vibe and stayed because of the happy hour. I had a nice Pinot Grigio and the cheese board. The bartender was friendly and attentive. Overall it was a cute place and I would definitely go back.

I’m super happy this place opened up on the UES! I originally went for brunch, and after a kitchen mishap that left us waiting almost 40 minutes with no food, the owner came over and apologized for our wait and remedied the issue by offering a great alternative to what I had ordered. He was SO helpful and apologetic and comped our whole meal, which was entirely unnecessary since he did successfully remedy the situation.
We have been back since, and not only did he recognize and personally greet us, but he seemed to know most of the people in the restaurant. The service and the quality of food is excellent and very fresh. Also, the sangrias are amazing! Like tasty juice :)
The service of this neighborhood bar/​café is second to none, and really refreshing to see. The wine selection is curated personally by the owner, the eggs are bought fresh for weekend brunch, and they put so much care into this business!

We came here on a Saturday afternoon around 3pm or so and found the outdoor space to be full of people. We ended up sitting inside close to the windows to have the same feel as the weather was nice. It was good to see that half of the windows tilted opened to give you the feel of being outside, almost… It unfortunately was still a bit warm (middle of April) and there was very little ventilation inside.
Getting to the food, we had ordered the burrata that was good with balsamic and tomatoes as well as a couple of salads. One was a Greek salad with chicken and the other was a house salad. The chicken slices where so large and the bowl it came in made it very difficult to cut mouth-​size bites and it definitely became a workout trying to figure it out with the salad over-​flowing from the bowl. Overall, the flavors were ok but just very difficult to eat.
The service was terribly slow and we were always searching for someone to give us a menu, another drink, or even to put an order in. After a drink each and tip, it came out to about 45/​person which I thought was a bit steep.

Spent the afternoon at this spot. At 4pm I was the only customer — not surprising since NY’ers hadn’t gotten off work yet. Decided to try an appetizer and a cocktail. Got French Onion Soup and glass of Amaretto. Combination might not sound great but actually it was quite nice. The soup was pipping hot with fancy bread crackers — just right, and of course Amaretto is always good. The service was pretty good… the only issue was 2 hours later when I was ready to leave my server disappeared. Not a big deal maybe she had a long day. All in all I would definitely go back again.

Came with Valerie G. to get some drinks and catch up! We ended up getting two pitchers of their white wine sangria aka a pitcher each. The sangria was mighty tasty and had a bunch of fruit in it. I really like that the fruit is cut up in small equal sizes and easy to consume with your drink. I don’t know about all of y’all, but I really enjoy eating the fruits that comes with my drinks!
We didn’t want to really eat dinner, so we got a meat and cheese plate and some guac. The gauc I thought was pretty tasty. It had a lot of black pepper flavoring. The meat and cheese plate was nothing special… I did enjoy the almonds and cornichons that came with it though!

I dig this place.
It’s a wine bar with small eats (meat & cheese platters, panini, bruschetta, salads, desserts). Small enough that you won’t be competing with the dinner crowds for seats.
Not only that, it’s got the great dim-​lighted feel and you can feel fabulously classy while drinking your wine and speaking in an indoor voice (what? I hate yelling over wine).
The prices are very reasonable (8 – 12 $ for a glass, 34 $+ for bottles), this place has just become my new go-​to meetup spot for wine on the upper east side!

I had brunch at Serena’s Wine Bar Café, and I enjoyed their $ 16 Fresh Burrata Mozzarella and their $ 10 American Breakfast.
The service was okay. When I say that the service «okay,» it usually means that the workers meet the lowest standards to keep a job. They weren’t rude, but they weren’t welcoming either.
It wasn’t busy at all, but for some reason, we had multiple people waiting us. When the female comes over, she highly recommended their chocolate desserts … we asked if it comes with ice cream and she said, «No, but we can add a bit of ice cream on the side.» So my boyfriend and I went ahead and ordered it.
When we received our chocolate cake and ice cream, she literally added «a bit of ice cream on the side.» The bit didn’t even look like a scoop… it looked like «slices» of vanilla ice cream… like the ice cream was scooped without any depth. Ah! What the heck. She was sweet enough to add some ice cream… the highly anticipated $ 7 chocolate cake tasted like it was ordered from Entenmann’s.
Then we got the bill.
We got charged an additional $ 7 for the slices of ice cream. We asked the waitress if the scoop of ice cream was a full serving (like if you ordered an actual ice cream dessert, was that the amount of ice cream you’d get). She said yes.
We paid the bill.
Lesson learned: ask how much it would cost to add «a bit of ice cream on the side» at this place.

Adorable Italian bistro on the UES with a nice wine list (though I ordered my usual prosecco) and a small, but varied menu of pastas, flatbreads and paninis. I highly recommend the fresh Burrata appetizer and the Linguine with Shrimp pasta… delicious!
The décor of the restaurant is perfect for a date night!