Cervo's

Really fresh seafood done well. Favorites were the mussels and the cockles sautéed in wine were excellent.The space is pretty small so if you walk in just 2 people otherwise have a reservation.

Very cute little seafood wine bar in the LES. We came on a Saturday night for a lite meal and enjoyed the food and the ambiance very much!Food highlights:- spicy mussels - mandarins with smoked cheese - our waiter strongly recommended this, which seemed a bit odd at first (little orange slices mixed with cheese? lol have not heard of this before), but really quite well done and refreshing- sea bream Service was friendly. Can't wait to come back and try more of their food.

Moody. Dimly lit. Date night vibes I was looking forward to and enjoyed. The service was fine, no complaints. Might come back if I was in the neighborhood. ***Drinks Ordered***-Organe wine: not memorable -Daquari: strong and perfect -Some other drink with gin, stiff it was and gone in 5 mins ***Food Ordered***-Olives -Mussels escabeche: Flavorful with a small hit of spice |Second favorite of the night|-Scallops with fresh horseradish: great flavors in this dish |favorite of the night|-Sourdough bread: okay -Prawns: large butterflied, grilled, bites the sea--well seasoned. |Third favorite of the night|-Sea bream: decent, warm, fine

Overall, our experience was good. Some things I think could have been better but certainly worth having done, especially for a place with such hype.The menu is a bit limited and in looking at the pictures on Yelp, it seems there are some dishes that are much more popular.- Crispy shrimp heads: This was seemingly a "must". Six in total, which was a nice surprise. Beautifully crispy and quite delicious without being overly flavored/salty. However, I think this dish needs a dipping sauce mostly because the texture can be a bit much to chew, i.e. a bit on the dryer side.- Pea shoots w/ watercress & walnuts: Delicious dressing and overall a lovely choice in the midst of some heavier other options. A bit difficult to eat, though, as the leaves are just quite large so any scoop you take ends up taking up a lot of food. And I honestly didn't even notice that there were walnuts present until I got to the bottom. They were great, but really should have been mixed into the salad a bit more.- Louisiana white prawns: It feels like every review included pics of these, so this was a must. And I get why. So plump, so well seasoned. Easy enough to peel the shell off to suck the shrimp out of the tails. I will say, I wish I had requested a new napkin following this dish and it can be a bit messy-especially for a restaurant like this. Best dish of the night.- Cockles w/ vinho verde: I didn't really care about the cockles-they were fine. But the sauce was divine. We ordered sourdough for really no reason and were a bit bummed when it didn't come with butter. Out of all the dishes we got, this was the only one with a sauce that was nice to dip the bread in (we thought the prawn sauce would be, as well, but it really wasn't). - Half chicken piri piri: A really solid portion of chicken. The skin was perfectly crispy in an ever so slight layer. The piri piri sauce was very nice- a surprising spicy kick. Glad that the previous dishware was cleared before this came out- a nice touch. The fries were great: thinly cut and perfectly crispy with a (I think) mayo/aioli dipping sauce flavored in a way I'm not even sure of.Got 2 chilled red wines and we loved them both. Tons of chilled red wine options which you don't see so often and we appreciate.The biggest drawback for the place, though, is the setup. It's incredibly packed with very small tables which is tough when the menu is mostly small plates. When we got there, a table of six within ~1 foot of us was enjoying a very loud birthday celebration and when we left, a new table of 8 maybe 1 foot 2 inches away was starting theirs. Looking around, it seems like all the tables were this way and I constantly felt like we were in someone's way. Definitely not an intimate night but would probably be difficult for a group (as it's a lot of small plates) so I'm not sure really what the ultimate vibe even should be.

I was looking forward to a date night here because I got raving reviews from my coworkers, but I was pretty disappointed. The dim light makes the space intimate. Service is good and food is mid, nothing special. I don't think that I am a seafood snob, but the flavors were bland/salty here. It was cool to sit at the bar and watch them cook though. It's a tight space.

My family came here for my sister's birthday. I'll start with my first impressions when I took a preemptive look at the menu and the pictures online. I was honestly not that impressed with the menu. I thought that the food presentation wasn't great and I thought it was weird that everything was growing in oil. When I got to the restaurant the day of I noticed that they cramped the restaurant to an extreme. I questioned whether it was safe and it was honestly pretty overwhelming. We started off by ordering drinks and they had soda options. I try to stay away from alcohol for the most part. However, they didn't have any diet soda or "coke/sprite/pepsi zero" so I thought it was weird that they only served soda that was high in sugar and calories. They didn't even have seltzer so I stuck with tap water for the first time ever. When it was time to order the food we ordered pretty much everything on the menu. There was a lemony fish with onions, a salad that was almost like Caesar, shishito peppers, oysters, tomato with onion, and a white fish, a second salad with grated cheese on top, crispy shrimp heads, muscles, and the grilled calamari. The flavors were incredible and while the buildup for the dining experience could have been much better, the overall flavor of the food was impressive and changed my outlook on the restaurant as a whole. Thank god the chef is a culinary genius when it comes to flavor because it really made my night. Their hot sauce was also really good and I was delighted to discover that I could purchase a bottle and take it home. It was a pretty good night.

Excellent seafood place in chinatown.The crunchy shrimp heads were addicting to chew on, although I recognize not everyone will like it.The chilled mussels are great and refreshing.The fish dishes were cooked to perfection. Really solidified my 5/5 rating.Good service and ambiance from what I recall.

The vibes at cervo's are top tier. Gorgeous bar and seating area and ambiance, we went on a Monday night and it was still packed and so alive! The shrimp a la plancha was a fave of the night. Order the sourdough bread on the side to soak up all the juices. I think the clams are skippable, wish we went with the shrimp heads as our other small plate as those looked more interesting. The lamb burger with anchovies was such a bomb mix of flavors. There was a fennel and celery slaw on top with some sauce and the pairing with the anchovies was fascinating. The huge arugula on the side was a bit perplexing but still fun. The fried fish with leaks was exactly what it sounds like. It was a bit too much breading for my taste but the leaks were delicious and the fish was flaky. Beware the flan is made out of goat cheese so it is almost savory sweet and a bit tangy in a cheese way. I would not order it again but very interesting experience. The service was great too no complaints!

This place is VERY popular. It opens at 5:30pm and when we arrived at 5:15, there was already a decent sized line (8 people or so ahead of us, some just trying to out their names down for a table later in the evening). We weren't able to get a 5:30 but got a 6. The food was tasty. I recommend the half chicken, which was surprisingly juicy and came with deliciously crispy fries. The Louisiana prawns were also good, though a little overcooked. The mussels, clams, and peppers were also good. My husband's favorite dish was the crispy shrimp heads, which he found extremely flavorful. For drinks, we got a margarita - fine but unremarkable.So why only 3 stars? Service and ambiance.The service was INCREDIBLY slow. We got 6 dishes total, most of which were just small dishes. They only brought them out one at a time, with very long breaks in between each. This means we were only able to enjoy each dish by itself, not contrast them and eat them together which was what we expected and would've been much better. We only got one entree to share - the chicken - and it took more than an hour to come out. Needless to say, we were starving. And when the chicken was finally ready, we just watched it sit there on the counter waiting to be brought over to us. I think they are understaffed. I was tempted to grab it ourselves it took so long.The ambiance also isn't great. Very loud and cramped inside. We were at a high top and stools, which I found very uncomfortable, but I did like sitting next to the kitchen bc it was fun to watch them cook. They do also have outdoor seating.

Gluten free safe. I have celiac and the staff always takes care of me. This is another place where you see the menu and might have hesitations...but it will be the best you ever had.I LOVE the food here and wish I could be here all the time.