Photo by: B.A. Nilsson

Amsterdam Rising
By B.A. Nilsson

Michael’s Restaurant
4465 Route 30, Amsterdam, 842-7399. Serving Mon-Tue 4-close, Wed-Sun 11:30-close. AE, D, MC, V.
Cuisine: continental with a touch of Italian
Entrée price range: $16 (chicken parmesan) to $27 (blue-cheese-encrusted filet mignon)
Ambiance: warm and pleasant
Clientele: upscale Amsterdamians

I’m told that you have to go back to the early 19th century to understand the gulf that separates Schenectady County from its western neighbors. The Capital Region heads in that direction only when it’s traveling some distance: “Let’s go shopping in Amsterdam” is a phrase that probably never has crossed an Albanian’s lips.

Yet the highway that runs north out of Amsterdam—Route 30—has sprouted a series of strip malls over the past few years, supplanting thousands of acres of farmland with the macadam-fronted sprawl of big-box stores and their little satellites. On a clear night you can see the lights of this development from many miles away.

Route 30 wanders north, and the sprawl diminishes into noncontiguous businesses and the occasional residence. Cross the town line into Perth and you’ll soon see Michael’s Restaurant on the right, where it has flourished for five years.

Before Michael and Barbara Russo bought the place and took over, it was the kind of cocktail lounge that didn’t even bother to offer food. But the Raindancer, a well-known area steakhouse, is just down the street, and this is the direction in which the area is expanding. And the Russos have brought together the elements both scientific and intangible that make a fine-dining operation appealing.

Michael grew up in the business. His family owns and operates Russo’s Bar and Grill in downtown Amsterdam, one of the best and friendliest pizza venues in the area, and he pursued his dream of offering fancier dining by studying at the Culinary Institute.

Sometimes I feel like I’m visiting restaurants just to trip them up, to catch them offering bad service or lousy food. Those are the easier experiences to write about, because, as any Rush Limbaugh listener knows, it’s easier to mock and tear down a subject than it is to come up with constructive criticism.

My first visit to Michael’s was so unexpectedly pleasant that I elected to return on a busy Saturday night. Despite a busy bar and crowded tables, the staff—most of whom have been with the restaurant since it opened—was just as attentive. Green wallpaper, dark paneling and dried flowers contribute to the dining room’s elegant farmhouse look, a very comfortable place in which to sit.

Let’s look over the appetizers. They’re priced at about $8 apiece, and you’ve got a dozen to choose from (fewer at lunch). Yes, the loathsome chicken tenders are there, as are the redoubtable mozzarella sticks, but you also can get fresh mozzarella with roasted red peppers. Deep-fried artichokes stuffed with Boursin cheese also are a regular menu item. During one of our visits, we were treated to a special of salmon lollipops ($7), a clever construction of smoked salmon wrapped around Boursin and impaled on a skinny breadstick, presented atop an excellent green salad with slices of grilled eggplant.

Given the chef’s background, it’s not surprising to find a listing of greens and beans. It seems a pricey starter at $8, but it also sports a generous addition of spicy sausage, and the overall flavor is robust enough for an entrée, enhanced by lots of tasty garlic. The portion is huge: What I brought home needed two soup containers.

I’ll confess that I ordered the escargot appetizer to gross out my daughter—isn’t it fun to find a 7-year-old’s buttons?—who nevertheless examined the critter with care before issuing sounds of disgust at my enjoyment of the beast. Not that they burst with dramatic flavor. It’s more about the texture of the thing as your teeth close over the . . . but you don’t need me to go on. Michael sautées them with tomatoes and artichoke hearts and plenty of garlic.

Both soups we sampled—seafood bisque ($3.50) and French onion ($4)—were more than usually good, the sign of good soup stocks.

Entrée selections present beef, veal, chicken and seafood in a variety of guises, with breaded pork tenderloins ($17) as well. And you’re directed to ask your server for vegetarian suggestions.

Not surprisingly, Russo knows his way around the Italian aspects of the menu, and has crafted an excellent sauce for the chicken parmesan ($16) that I usually can persuade my daughter to eat in lieu of the dreaded chicken fingers.

But you have to start with good supplies. The cut of sirloin used for the garlic lemon steak ($24) was excellent; the flavorings, while almost superfluous, were well suited to the grilled meat. And the sides—garlic mashed potatoes and a vegetable medley, with spears of fresh asparagus and sweet potato crisps as decorations—were excellently done.

We weren’t prepared for the expanse of the seafood medley ($22), on which an outer layer of shrimp and crabmeat guards a filling of calamari, scallops and clams, all of which gets a white-wine butter sauce touched with tomato over a bed of linguine. We got two more meals out of that portion.

The colorful eggplant ravioli ($16), a special, had grilled chicken and a spinach cream sauce alongside the asparagus, an unusual array that set this dish apart. Another special, sesame-encrusted yellowfin tuna ($19), was cooked rare, as I prefer it, and was enriched with teriyaki seasonings and a vegetable stir-fry.

Service, as noted, is attentive and friendly. There’s not much to complain about here, unless it’s the distance you may have to travel to get here. But we’re talking about Amsterdam, so it’s closer than you think.

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