Upstate
“My friend and I shared the crab cakes (my favorite!), the grilled squid and kale salad and the scallops with mushroom risotto.”
“We started with about 15 oysters from their extensive oyster list which is split up by east and west coast.”
“The seasonal selection of craft beers has something for every beer lover and the Pinotage is a fantastic red wine selection.”
Upstate
Accepts Credit Cards: Yes
Bike Parking: Yes
Waiter Service: Yes
PokéStop Nearby: Yes
Price range.
$$ Price range $11-30
8 reviews
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I love love walking into Upstate. I love the brick walls, the intimate setting, the craft beers on tap. On their website, they claim that they don't have any freezers and I would believe it based on how fresh the seafood really is. I highly recommend the fettuccine and clams. Both the noodles and the clams are cooked perfectly. I also enjoyed the cioppino; Although the broth wasn't as flavorful as it could have been, the seafood tasted incredibly fresh. Don't be afraid to sample a couple of the beers before settling on a pint! Everyone is super friendly and they want to be sure that you'll enjoy not only the beer but the experience.
The place doesn't seat very many and I would not go with a party larger than 4 but you never know… you may get lucky and be able to nab a table without much of a wait!
Everything I've had here is excellent. The seafood is so fresh I hear that King Neptune himself has a hit out on the owners of this joint.
The service here is stellar. On my last visit the bartender serving me was wearing a Cardinals hat and I greeted him with a hearty, "Go Cubbies" (For you provincial New Yorkers this is the Midwestern equivalent of greeting a Yanks fan with a Go Sox!).
He still gave me stellar service and we talked baseball over oysters. They have a great mix of East and West Coast oysters and they servers know them all like I know the palm of my hand. They are great at recommending different types based on your likes or preferences.
The half a dozen oysters and beer special for 12 bucks isn't to be missed. The selection changes daily because they literally fly everything in fresh. The menu boasts that there isn't a freezer in the place and it shows in the taste of the food.
They're known for their Clam Linguine. It's buttery, garlicky and parmaseany-y. Be sure and scrape the bottom of the bowl to get every last bit of garlic in the noodles at the beginning of your meal.
As for the oysters –
If you prefer a sweet and plump oyster I really recommend the West Coast Kumomoto oysters. However if briny oysters are more your thing the Gliddens Point oysters from Maine are on point.
This space gets cramped so its a great place for dining solo or you can also put your name down and they'll text you when your table is ready as you enjoy one of the many bars in this area. If all else fails they have a sister restaurant named "Fish" which is literally less than 30 yards away.
Food: 3.5/5.0
Service: 4.0/5.0
Value: 3.5/5.0
Decor: 3.0/5.0
Overall: 3.5/5.0
Good happy hour deal (6 oysters + 1 beer = $12) and decent grub but I wished the menu were a little more extensive. The uni appetizer was excellent and definitely worth getting. The clam fettuccine was good (clams were great, fettuccine was okay). I think a little overrated at 4.5* as of August 2016 but still worth trying.
Review is just for happy hour from 5-7pm.
I'm not a huge oyster fan, but I know coming here was a great choice. $12 for a beer and half a dozen oysters is an amazing deal! Comparing to their normal price of about $2.75 per oyster and $6 per pint of beer, I'm glad this place offers HH. I've always heard that east coast oysters are amazing, and I can see why. Quality is much better, and this place offers a huge variety.
I think the server told us that for HH today, they only offer 3 types of oysters: Canada's Fin de la Bai, Virginia's Barcat (smallest), and Long Island's Wild Rocky (biggest). My friend and I both ordered the happy hour special, which brought out 4 of each oyster. Perfect for two people. Looking back at past photos on Yelp, it seems they like to rotate their HH selection every once in a while, so the types of HH oysters depend when you go. There wasn't any hot sauce I believe, but their sauces went really well with the oysters.
Would come back if I'm ever in the area.
This place fills up fast. Come around 4:30 if you want to be able to get first seating at 5 PM. Also, make sure everyone in your party is here, otherwise you will just watch groups of people go past you and take your spot. If you miss the first sitting, then it's at least 45+ min to wait for some slots to open up.
Really great oyster happy hour and beer pairing. Try it if you have the patience to wait in line – but as is the case with almost all things hyped up with long lines in nyc, it's not a you must do it or else place.
It's not that I didn't enjoy my meal at Upstate… it's just that nothing I tried was truly exceptional.
A couple of friends of mine were dead set on going for their happy hour, which is 5-7pm every day and offers six oysters and a beer for $12. If you really like both of these things, this is a no-brainer; I, however, almost never drink (no alcohol tolerance and just don't really like the taste of it) and am only mildly to moderately excited about oysters. Nevertheless, I wanted to try it out just because I've heard such good things about the oysters and because it's a pretty good deal for $12. Try to show up at like 4:45 if you're going for happy hour – once all the tables are filled, you're looking at a solid hour wait. I believe they do take names/numbers down and text you once your table is ready, so that's helpful.
They only offered three of their two-dozen-ish oyster options for the happy hour, so we got an even mix of all three. I can't remember any of the names unfortunately, but they were all East Coast oysters. One of them was pretty briny and not my favorite, but the others were pretty good and they were definitely super fresh. So, no complaints on the quality, but I think maybe I'm just not as into oysters as most.
I had the fettuccine with clams as an entree, which was good but just nothing special. I enjoyed the flavor of the sauce and the pasta and clams were cooked well, but the texture of the dish overall was off for me – way too soft and not toothsome enough. There was some kind of mush in the sauce that I couldn't identify… my friends said it was garlic, but there was *so much* of it and it didn't really taste like garlic, so I'm not sure. It literally had the mouthfeel of grits.
Like I said, though, the $12 happy hour makes total sense if you're an oyster and beer lover.
We heeded the advice of fellow yelpers and arrived at 4:40pm since Upstate doesn't open until 5pm. There were 3 other couples already waiting outside and by the time 5pm rolled around, there was already a huge line down the street. Keep in mind that it was also a rainy, gloomy day today and people were still waiting on this line. We made the mistake of not brining our umbrellas with us.
We were seated promptly at 5pm. They told us to pick any table that seats 2 people. The entire place was packed! So glad we went there early. It was completely worth waiting and getting rained on outside.
We ordered the happy hour oysters which come with your choice of beer. Fresh oysters that are for a pretty good deal. You get 6 oysters & beer for $12. As for the entrees we ordered the scallops with risotto and the fettuccine with clams.
My goodness the fettuccine and clams were cooked to perfection. It was so creamy and the clams tasted so fresh. Didn't taste like the ocean at all. The scallops were also so tender and delicious. Probably the best scallops I've ever had. However, I was not fond of the risotto because it tasted kind of undercooked and hard. But seriously, I could've kept eating the scallops. They were that good. They also give you a generous amount of scallops and clams so you'll surely feel full after eating everything. We definitely will return back here again!
Venue – Dark wooden dive-bar vibe.
Happy Hour – I was so excited for the oyster happy hour but was really disappointed. Their happy hour deal is 6 oysters and a beer for $12. So it's only worth it if you get beer since they don't have any deals only for oysters. The selection is also very limited compared to other places.