Seneca, Saratoga Springs

I’m not the only one with a Capital Region food bucket list, right? Seneca has been on my list for a while and finally, before a show at Universal Preservation Hall, I crossed it off.

Seneca was started by Mike and Michelle Spain, whose names you may be familiar with from Druthers where they once worked and cooked together. Seneca opened in August 2019 to great reviews and then, a few short months later, they were shut down because of COVID-19. During the shutdown, they created a ghost kitchen in their space called The Pierogi Shoppe. That’s when I started to take notice- I love pierogi. So, when I was making dinner plans before the show, there was no other place I had in mind (well, maybe except Rhea, the sister location, that’s also on my list).

Before I headed over, I had heard that the rolls were necessary, so obviously, I ordered them ($4). They were house-made and the butter was whipped with a bit of honey. We knew with how delicious just the bread was, that we were in for a delicious meal. Next, we had to order what attracted me to them, the pierogi ($14). Farmer cheese & potato filling with caramelized onions and some butter alone had me drooling. Sometimes potato and cheese pierogi are lacking in flavor, not here, they were delicious. Another app that grabbed my attention were the roasted Brussels sprouts ($15) with apple butter, bacon, maple & mustard dressing and toasted pumpkin seeds (I skipped the pumpkin seeds). The bacon was perfectly cooked, crunchy yet flavorful and not dry. I also liked that the pieces were small, yet chunky so you aren’t missing the bacon flavor in any bite.

For dinner, I ordered the Wagyu burger ($21). Honestly, the whole entree menu sounded delicious but I knew I’d be full of appetizers and wanted to make sure I had dinner I had room in my stomach for. The burger was tomato jam, smoked cheddar, roasted shallot aioli, brioche bun and house-cut french fries. Everything was delicious. The burger was a little unevenly cooked but since we ordered it medium rare, we were fine with the medium some of it turned out being. The french fries were okay, but I’m not fond of steak-cut fries. I like my fries thin and crunchy. What was delicious was their house-made ketchup. I can’t describe what made it delicious but it was sweeter than regular ketchup and not has vinegar-forward as what you get in a bottle. I would buy a bottle of that in a heartbeat.

Overall, it was a delicious meal. The service was wonderful, I loved being able to see into the kitchen while they were cooking. Our drinks were delicious and well-balanced. It definitely lived up to my expectations.