REVIEW: BLOOM, Albany
Bloom Boutique Bar & Eatery, Albany
Boutique bar & eatery • New American small plates & shareable dishes • private events
563 New Scotland Avenue, Albany, N.Y. | bloomalbany.com | @bloomalbany
We like it for: After work drinks, dinner with friends, dinner on a budget, the floral-fantasy room that makes everything feel like a party, and a beverage program generous enough to include nearly two dozen wines by the glass plus mocktails for the sober-curious.
To try: Carajillo or Street Corn Named Desire cocktails, bananas foster pancakes, bang bang shrimp, $39 NY strip (dinner)
Vibe/Style: Lush, feminine, and unapologetically maximalist. Floral walls cascade from floor to ceiling, and the private events room takes it further — blooms overhead in every direction. Boutique hotel meets garden party, with an energy that's warm rather than precious.
Sound: Here, we generally mention a few songs from the playlist but it was hard over the absolute roar of the packed Saturday lunchtime crowd. Even our server had trouble hearing us with every item we ordered and while apologizing pointed up at the exposed beams and pipes in the industrial black ceiling to acknowledge a lack of sound insulation. We deciphered Prince and some Sabrina Carpenter pop, but the overall volume during busy times will be an issue for some.
Our dish: You could walk past The Rise | Midtown Square, a sleek new mixed-use high-rise on New Scotland Avenue, thinking it’s an apartment building or mistaking the sign “Bloom” for a storefront florist if you didn’t know a colorful, all-day restaurant is nested on the ground-floor. Bloom Boutique Bar & Eatery opened in January 2026, some two years after it was first teased, and a year after Bombshell salon and PrimoHoagies (a second location to the original in Latham) opened in the same building. The modern American restaurant is a partnership between building owner and developer Ryan Jankow and Rob Malkus who co-founded City Line Bar & Grill on Western Avenue. In the kitchen is Chef Ryan O'Shea, who spent a decade running his own event catering company, Suburban Kitchen, and was the former City Line executive chef.
From the foyer wallpaper to tall uplit flower vases, Bloom is quite literally in bloom. Going for themed Instagrammable vibes like The Scene in Guilderland, Bloom opts for darker walls, high top nooks and slim booths for two, while anchoring the room with a massive floral wall installation by interior designer Valerie DeLaCruz. A rear private dining room goes further, trailing flowers from the entire ceiling — an immediate draw for photo ops, birthdays, bridal and baby showers. At lunch on Saturday, maybe it’s no surprise we noticed about 90 percent of Bloom’s dining room guests were women at the round tables, large booths and high tops. A few couples and some invited guys at all-girls’ tables rounded it out.
O'Shea's menu brunch menu focuses on big flavors and popular, shareable plates like Cuban bao, chicken and waffle nachos, Philly steak meatballs, churros priced comfortably in the mid-teens, brunch entrees are under $20 while dinner entrees range from $24 for adobo-seasoned half chicken to a $39 NY strip steak. Not gonna lie. With sides included, everything feels like a good deal — a deliberate calculation, especially with a built-in audience at St. Peter’s Hospital directly across the street. On any early afternoon, you’ll find hospital staff at the bar; on a weekend, the dining room and rear private room are literally packed. You can always grab a seat at the bar.
Stacked bananas foster pancakes are shockingly good with fresh cream, toasted pecans and a warm brown sugar rum glaze ($17), thoough it might be a fight between that and apple streusel French toast. Food is fast casual, bright and unfancy like sticky tempura battered bang bang shrimp, shrimp tacos and an 8-oz burger topped with fig jam, arugual and bleu cheese. Everything comes out fast—in our case before drinks hit the table—including a curious Loaded Potato Funnel Cake which appearss to make use of the churro extruder to pipe and fry mashed potato served up a criss-cross pattern, scattered with bacon and in a cheese sauce puddle. Look, it’s not great or upscale, but it’s something for the ‘gram.
Bar manager Brett Steele comes to Bloom after more than five years at dp: An American Brasserie, and ran the drinks program at O'Shea's catering events. Cocktails are creative with “morning spirits” like an avocado margarita, spicy Bloody Mary, or classic Carajillo, and all-day sippers like a banana bread Old Fashioned and Street Corn Named Desire (which I featured while he was at DPs.) Steele’s drink list is inclusive with 21 wines by the glass, three non-alcoholic (rare to see); four mocktails under “For The Driver” and a selection of draft and canned beer.
Overall, Bloom is unfussy, fast casual, good for friends, a quick drink or a reasonably priced meal, even if the floral space, while modern and pretty, feels themed corporate chic.
* The Dishing intel: A trip to the bathroom is not to be missed. The gender neutral bathrooms each feature an unmarked wall-mounted red buzzer which, when pushed, starts a disco dance party. A different track plays each time.
Parking: Street parking + possibly The Rise | Midtown Square rear parking — although we confirming whether that’s only for residents + their guests.
Nearby: 1. Allen Street Pub 2. PrimoHoagies 3. Ragonese Italian Imports 4. Albany Ale + Oyster 5. Little City Luncheonette
