Shadows on the Hudson

"What an enjoyable evening! My wife and I stopped at Shadow ‘s for dinner not thinking we should have had a reservation. Well luck have it the nice hostess found us a table in the bar area. Which was great. The service was awesome thanks Kaitlyn and so were the drinks, thanks Scotty. Timing was right because it was happy hour. And if that wasn’t enough it was Twenty five percent off of our meal. Talk about being in the right place, nice job Shadow’s ! See you soon and I will call for a reservation on a Saturday evening, thanks"

"Went to Shadows for the New Years Eve dinner and it was very good. The place looked great with all the holiday decorations. The food was also very good. We had crab cakes and polenta frites for appetizer. Shrimp fra diavolo and filet mignon for entree. Tiramisu and cheesecake for dessert. The service was very attentive and it was a wonderful experience all around. We also got a champagne toast after dinner at the bar. Wonderful way to end the year."

"Great place with amazing views. The food is really good. The place is quite upscale. They have covered outdoor seating which is a definite plus!"

"Loved the atmosphere and food! Had a great time and the service was phenomenal. Would recommend getting a reservation if you decide to go!"

"Sigh. Frustratingly disappointing restaurant, where it ultimately feels like you’re just paying for the view. Service is okay, food is truly not enjoyable, establishment feels like a veneer of fine dining, and the price is $$$. My husband and I received a generous gift card to Shadows and went for a date night last week. It was practically empty (with no guests waiting) and we had a reservation, yet it took almost 5 minutes to seat us. Regarding atmosphere, Shadows is huge and flashy in a gargantuan casino-style way. Cool color schemes, modern styling, curtains to the ceiling etc, giant wine menu, impressive not intimate. Some really dig this, but it felt cold. My review is heavily weighted on food. The menu looks like standard upscale casual ultrafusion steakhouse fare. $16 Caesar salad, $38 seafood house made pasta, $63 surf and turf, $175 Russia caviar, they have it all and it’s expensive. We started with warm rolls and two butters: a salted butter and a flavored-yet-flavorless chili butter, these were fine. Appetizer choice was calamari. It was tough, not fresh tasting, and in spite of being very pale it had a distinctive char flavor, old frying oil I suspected. We couldn’t finish it because we were grossed out (and believe me we are clean-plate club members all the time so this was hard to do). Drinks: beer (fine) and a dirty gin martini. The server didn’t know what Nolet’s gin was (which I picked from their menu) so that delayed my martini a good 10 minutes. When it came out it was served in a small martini glass, with a layer of ice shards on top. It tasted watery the moment those shards melted. Entrees were brought out by the manager (I think), which was the only moment it felt like fine dining. The choices: truffle mushroom fettuccine and basil & spinach pappardelle. The truffle mushroom fettuccine was a good sized portion and the pasta had a decently silky texture, however it lacked any trace of truffle, and generally fell flat with the flavor profile. Sauce was so light on mushroom and overwhelmingly rich from butter and cream that if there were other flavors, they were masked. Overall, it was bland and heeeavy. If you’re lactose-intolerant, don’t even consider. While my pasta was aggressively mediocre, my husband’s papardelle on the other hand was laughably gross. The pasta was so thick and chewy that it practically bounced off of his fork. After about 10 bites he said “I think rubber bands may be more supple than this pasta.” The sausage was tough, the raw cherry tomatoes were confusing and out of place, and the little bit of sauce pooled at bottom would not stick to the poor rubbery papardelle. If we hadn’t had a gift card for our $26 and $28 pastas I’d have been upset. After my bowl of butter and cream I thought an espresso martini may be the perfect dessert as a digestive. Conveniently they can make it decaf and I appreciated that, but the drink itself tasted like a watery cold brew! Most definitely the worst espresso martini of my life, and just as expensive as ones I’ve had in NYC, and other places where you expect high prices. 2 for 2 with the watery drinks. Throughout the dining experience we waited a lot, even though the place was nearly empty. It felt sad, and eventually irritating. Because it’s so big the servers are probably walking a quarter mile just go to a table and tend to their needs. This seems to result in veeeery slow bussing, infrequent checks on dinner progress, etc. Overall our meal was about $150. We didn’t spend all of our gift card because server didn’t know how to put gratuity on the card. So we’ll have to go back to use it up. Whenever that happens I think we’ll stick to beers… A final note: this place could be so much better if it felt like there was any love in it and that it wasn’t just following the ‘generic upscale American steakhouse’ formula. Servers look exasperated, the menu lacks soul, and for the quality of food and drink the prices are outrageous. Want to say I hope this is a one time flub for Shadows, but I strongly suspect it’s the norm."