Estela

The food and service easily explains the Michelin Star rating. We shared 7 dishes. We had the ricotta dumplings, the black ink fried rice, scallops, wagyu beef, oysters, mackerel and endive salad. All are meant to be sharing dishes. As always, we skip desert.Incredible experience. They bring the food out in order of light to heavy...meaning the oysters are first and the wagyu is last.Our server was spot on.A bit on the pricey side, but definitely worth the price.

After a recent dinner date at Estela, I felt compelled to write this review after falling victim to a deeply troubling, yet clear-as-day issue with this restaurant. My date made the reservation. We were guided to the seating area and ushered to a small two top. I am a male, roughly 4-5 inches taller than my date, so I took the outer chair, allowing her the bench against the wall (Mind you, I'm not staunch about gender norms. It just seemed like the thing to do). To my dismay, when we both sat, I realized that the seat of my chair was dramatically lower than the seat of her bench. Thus, for the remainder of the dinner I was relegated to the posture of a child sitting with his guardian. Fortunately for me, she and I are familiar with each other already, so we could laugh about the absurdity of it. And yet, I felt infantilized at times during the meal. I was so thrown by the difference in eye-line that I even started to behave as a child. Fidgeting, loss of concentration, and so on.. I was even tempted to ask for a straw for my drink. I thought to myself, as I was sampling the black rice, and various dishes featuring a reductions of this or that, what if this WAS a first date?? Then, the dynamic would be completely thrown off by this establishment given the perversion of their seating. Dare I say, I could imagine a pair meeting for the first time with the potential to fall in love, to get married, to have children, only for that dream to be decimated by the folly of Estela. Because one thing is for certain, it does not matter how self assured you are, if you are forced to sit in a child's seat across from someone, your date will be an inevitable failure. For what it's worth: The food is very good.

I've been to Estela so many times over the years and every time I go back I am surprised that it has maintained the high quality of food and drink since I remember it opening a decade or so ago. The space is small and cute on Houston. It has the vibes of a quintessential cute neighborhood New York restaurant. Something you would have wanted to go into on a first date, or with your significant other of 20 years. Estela really hits the occasion for anything intimate and nice - and the space is quite intimate, not large at all.The service matches the intimacy with honest, kind, and interactive servers. This is what I wish of more servers, however many fancy places have felt much more formal and distant in their service, thankfully Estela does not do this. We spoke to the bartender and requested bespoke drinks, they were all fantastic. We had a great conversation with the waitress and she made some great suggestions on the menu, again all fantastic.I had many of my favorites, including the ricotta gnudi with mushrooms and black rice (both of which you should get), but really enjoyed the scallops that come served so beautifully and the duck, which was new to the menu and the one thing I hadn't tried yet. It was fantastic!I'll keep coming back to Estela, it's such a treat. I don't come more than once a year because there's so much dining to do in NYC - but I do think Estela is a standard for NYC small plates and if you haven't been you probably should come.

Food was unique and so flavorful with unexpected combinations. The waitress guided us well! Highly recommended the beautiful Bay Scallops with date and hazelnut! The chocolate cake was alsoA standout!

All the dishes we ordered were extraordinary!- endive salad: 100/10 (I loved the combination of the crispy endive with the salty, vinegary, and crunchy sauce. I can eat this salad everyday)- ricotta dumplings: 10/10 (loved the texture of the super thin mushroom. The ricotta dumplings were great!)- crab omelette: 10/10 (the omelette was super silky smooth. The pickled greens on top really helped balance out the richness of the whole dish.)Service was good, ambiance was very cozy chic. Be wary though that the seats are super small!

1/1 Ambience; 2/2 Food; 0.5/1 Service; .5/1 ValueTucked away behind a discrete door on an otherwise sprightly Houston St. is the charming and intimate Estela featuring inspired takes on tapas-style western Mediterranean dishes. The ambience traverses rustic bistro with modernity, evocative of a European bistro with chic accents and finishes. It is certainly a small, narrow space, so expect to be privy to the conversations surrounding you. However, it still makes for an excellent date night spot, romantic or otherwise. My friend and I ordered a number of dishes to share: crab with celeriac and dulse, grilled tuna belly, fried arroz negro, the ricotta dumplings, and the striped bass with the chocolate cake and celeriac ice cream with figs for dessert. The food was incredible from start to finish with an exquisite array of flavors and textures from the subtle, savory broth and cloud-like dumplings to the umami-rich, slightly crisp arroz negro to the fresh, flaky crab under delicate, buttery celeriac sheets. My favorite was the arroz negro, but the striped bass was a close second as I enjoyed the unique combination of fruits and vegetables paired with the flaky fish. My least favorite was the grilled tuna belly as the fish was difficult to cut through and a little too chewy. The chocolate cake was very dense and almost had a lava cake like consistency, being the dish that finally filled us up. However, I enjoyed the celeriac ice cream more because of the earthy brightness that compliments the figs well, a flavor combination which I was really surprised to find how good it was in ice cream. Otherwise, the food was prepared fresh and it was a delightful experience.The only setbacks on which I felt the experience could have been better: the service was so-so. When my friend and I ordered our dishes for the main meal (not even dessert yet), our server made an off-hand comment about if we were sure and that we were ordering very heavy today. Neither of us had eaten lunch that morning due to our professional commitments, so in effect this meal was our only real meal of the day. None of the main dishes were particularly filling given the very small portion sizes relative to the steep price, even for the neighborhood either. We were both put off by the comment and initially hesitated to order dessert until we decided that we were still too famished not to order more. Our other server, however, was much kinder and attentive without being intrusive. Barring these setbacks, the culinary experience at Estela was excellent, and I would definitely consider returning for special occasions and treat-yourself dining!

I don't have pics of everything I ate because we were too busy enjoying the food and conversation at the table. Service here is always A1. They are attentive w/o being annoying. The restaurant is cozy, it doesn't feel cramped. This was my second time here. What I love about the food at Estela is how playful every dish is. Every plate was cleaned, no crumbs. My friend even took the ricotta dumpling broth from bowl to her face, it was so good. Things I highly recommend are the beef tartar, the Endive granola, the arroz and ricotta dumpling! We also did the cheese board and chocolate cake . Tip: I always recommend making a reservation. They be booked and busy.

I came here to celebrate my husband's birthday, and we were both a bit disappointed. We came here for brunch on a Friday afternoon, and it was fairly packed. After looking around, we noticed that everybody had the same thing on their table, which was a dish of smoked trout. It was fine, but nothing too special and too expensive for what it is. We really enjoyed the black sauce that was paired with it but they only gave a small dab of it. The scallops were our favorite. It was delicious and we enjoyed the creaminess and nuttiness of the date. We also ordered a truffle omelette, which was way too salty. The egg was not fluffy and was overpowered by the saltiness of the cheese. Although I did enjoy the wagyu steak dish, I felt the potato chips weren't really necessary and quite random. Some chips were salty and others had no flavor at all. My picture of the steak just looks like a pile of potato chips as it was buried under underneath a mound of them. Overall, just not very worth it for the price. Each dish was pretty much $30 or more, with the most expensive dish being the potato chips (with a side of wagyu) at $54.

The spot: The restaurant is on the smaller side. As a party of two, we were seated in a cozy little nook in the back of the restaurant. Larger groups were seated in the narrow space between us and the bar seating at the front. The drinks: The cocktail program here is great and perhaps even rivals the food. I tried the Halo Spritz, an elevated spritz comprising Tximista Blanco, Sirene Canto Amaro, lemon, salted lime, and cava, and the Tomato Never Dies (cute), a martini riff that reminds one of a caprese in beverage form. I think the spritz, with its lively Spanish vermouth, citrus notes, and depth of flavor, was actually my favorite, but the martini was so refreshing and had really strong basil notes. The only thing that would've made this better would've been a mozzarella and tomato skewer garnish. The food: If you're a sourdough lover, definitely start your meal with the delicious bread. It's a filling option and only $5 and the butter is heavenly. As we were first-timers at Estela, we largely stuck with their classic dishes, including the endive salad, fried arroz negro, and ricotta dumplings. We got one rotating dish, the Crab (celeriac and dulse) which was fantastic in its simplicity. I mostly just tasted sweet, fresh crab and butter, and honestly that was perfect. I only wished that the dish was a bit larger. The endive salad was presented as a little foraging adventure, with the vinegar-dressed endives on top of a bed of ubriaco rosso (cheese), walnuts, and anchovies. It was great and not a light salad, but pricey at $28.Ricotta dumplings were also very good; the best part was the umami-bomb mushroom broth. This was a hearty dish. The fried arroz negro, served with squid and romesco*, was a delightful surprise for us. We don't always automatically go for dishes dressed in squid ink, but this was very good. I loved the crispy element to the rice, seafood-flecked bites, and the lively but delicate savory sauce that pulled it all together. Finally, we saved a bit of room for dessert and tried the panna cotta. Good but not my favorite version, and I wouldn't probably try a different sweet to end our meal next time.

Honestly can't say enough good things about Estela. I've yet to have a bad meal or bad dish here. I dined here 2 days ago and decided to only eat pescatarian friendly dishes. Usually I go all in on meat dishes. I ended up being just as happy. The oyster presentation was good (but those are hard to screw up). The tuna tartar was extremely tasty. The black rice with crab has a wonderful flavor. The ricotta dumplings were light and mouth watering. What I wasn't expecting was how good the desert was. I ordered the pana cotta. It had honey, sea salt, and perhaps vinegar. The flavors worked exceptionally well with the super creamy pana cotta. If you can't tell, I'm officially a fanboy for Estela. I probably should eat at some other restaurants when I'm in Ny, but it's hard not to come to this little charming spot when I stay in the lower east side.