Stella's Fish Cafe

1400 W. Lake St
Minneapolis, MN
612-824-8862
http://stellasfishcafe.com

Category: Seafood

Rating (Scale 1-10, with 10 being the highest):
Food: 7
Service: 6
Ambience: 7

Recommendation: Very Good. Stella’s is an affordable seafood restaurant with a fabulous Rooftop patio that has great views of downtown Minneapolis.

Stella’s serves good, fresh seafood in three levels of restaurant space. The first floor has an oyster bar and good views of Lake Street, an excellent spot for people watching; the second floor has a casual feel (not romantic) with booths and tables; the third floor, the rooftop patio is our favorite place to be! Sometimes the wait for rooftop seating can be more than 2 hours (even on weeknights) so be prepared and plan ahead (they don’t take reservations for the patio). The service here is also spotty because they get busy. Once you’re seated though, all the hassles become worth it because the patio has a great view of the downtown Minneapolis skyline. Portions of Stella’s menu change daily and they have a wide variety of fresh seafood, from fish (usually 4 or 5 different varieties that you can order with a sauce of your choice), plump oysters, peel and eat shrimp, and lobster. They also have a good selection of cocktails, martinis, wine, and beer.

For appetizers/sides, we really like their Jalapeno Skillet Corn Bread, served with honey and butter. We wouldn’t have ever thought of ordering corn bread (out of all things) at a seafood place but our server recommended it once and ever since, we’ve been hooked! The Sushi Grade Tuna Dip is also delicious; it is diced tuna served with pico and chips. The Fresh Oysters are another one of our favorites; they typically have a few options from each coast and the servers gladly made recommendations. The Jumbo Buffalo Shrimp is nothing special and we would not recommend it.

We’ve never been disappointed in their fish entrées - whether it is the Swordfish with Hollandaise Sauce or the Horseradish and Parmesan crusted Halibut. We like the option to add a King Crab leg to an entrée for $8.95. If you like trying different types of seafood, the Cold Platter is an excellent choice. For $39.95, you get a platter of food big enough to feed 2 people (this is great value for top quality seafood). It includes Peel and Eat Shrimp, Ahi Tuna, Fresh Oysters, Lobster, and Ceviche.

$$$. You can make reservations online at http://www.opentable.com/

Update (April 23, 2008) – We were at Stella’s for a quick drink and appetizers today and were glad to see that rooftop patio was open and the weather cooperative. The wait for a table was about 15 minutes, just enough to chug down a beer from their admirable selection. In addition to the ever popular Jalapeno Corn Bread, we ordered the Spicy Fried Calamari and the Halibut Cheeks. The Calamari is what you would expect from something breaded (not lightly) and fried – it wasn’t light and nothing about it was spicy. The Halibut Cheeks were great – a mild butter sauce with garlic, tomato, and cilantro was a perfect companion. Nick tried the Tanqueray Rangpur Mojito and wasn’t impressed – there wasn’t much lime or mint flavor and the only thing that categorizes this drink as a Mojito is the green stuff floating in the drink. Be mindful that if you eat on the rooftop, the service is a little slow and the food takes a tad bit longer to get to you…none of the food we were served was warm.