by Rolanda Balestra on My wife and I ate here last night for her birthday dinner. Like many recent patrons, I found out about this place from a certain reality television series, where I fell in love with Kevin Gillespie's (the executive chef) style of cooking. I have to say that the menu was indeed very reflective of Kevin's style of cooking that I've come to know over the past months. Overall, I would say that the food was very good (even great), but nothing we had stood out to me as being a dish that would stay with me. To start, I must say that service was all right, but terribly inconsistent. I felt that the waiter came by too often to start the meal (I felt a bit rushed to order), but then didn't really come by much at all once the food was ordered. I think he stopped by once during our four courses to ask how the food was. In addition, the pacing wasn't particularly good either with our first two courses coming out way too quickly. For our first course, we each ordered a creamy cauliflower soup. We both enjoyed the soup, and you could get a good cauliflower taste. It was served with some (fried) clams, which seemed out of place, but quite good. The flavors were subtle (still very good), but perhaps a bit too subtle... For our second course, my wife ordered the Scallops and I had the Veal Sweetbreads. I have to say that the scallops were delightful. They were cooked perfectly, and their accompanying sides just worked with the dish. My sweetbreads, however, were something of a disappointment. They were breaded and fried and ended up very dry and (mostly) flavorless. They were served on top of apples, potatoes, and bacon, which was a wonderful combination. However, when paired with the sweetbreads, that was all you could taste. Overall, the dish tasted good, but the main protein was entirely lost. For our main courses, my wife ordered the duck, and I had the quail. To start, my quail dish was heavenly. Both my wife and I absolutely loved it. It was served on a bed of creamed Brussels sprouts and pears, which was a great accompaniment to the perfectly cooked quail. My wife's duck dish, however, was quite honestly bad on every level. To start, the duck was dry and (as tough to believe as it is) had absolutely no flavor. One of the main problems was that the dish was not served with a sauce, which was definitely needed. On top of that, the duck was sliced very thinly (which I think added to the dryness and lack of flavor), and it was served on a very mild puree of some sort. Very disappointing to say the least. Because it was my wife's birthday, we got a complimentary dessert. They brought us a chocolate pain perdu, which was remarkably good. We're usually not big dessert lovers when we dine out, but this was really good ... and on the house, so who could complain? In the end, I've very happy we dined at Woodfire Grill. Did any of the food 'blow my mind'? Not particularly. Will we be making a return trip in the future? Probably not. However, overall, the food was very good (aside from the Duck). I did think, at times, that many of the flavors were not as deep or developed as they could have been. I know that Kevin's style is simplicity personified and that he prefers subtlety over knocking someone over the head. However, there's subtlety and then there's subtlety to a fault. Most of the time, the food fell into the former (subtle in a good way), but other times it fell into the latter (too subtle). A 3.5 star experience that I'll have to round down to 3 stars for spotty service and a bad duck dish.
by Manuela Sames on This place is really over-the-top! My boyfriend and I came for the dinner and salsa dancing in Gloria's restaurant. The restaurant is meant to be cheesy so I won't complain about it. The outside is shaped like a pineapple, and the inside, too. The congas in there were fun. There were about 7 birthday parties there that one night. Everytime people sing birthday songs, the light dimmed, the big pineapple hanging from the cieling lit up They played a Happy Birthday Salsa version and the waiters lined up and rushed out with Maracas and other things. Very funny to watch. I don't remember too much about the food. It was not too impressive and not very cheap. The drink was very good though. The dance floor was nice, but we didn't get to dance on it. Instead we were pushed out to the balcony with the concrete floor as the inside was reserved for a private party. There was very little salsa music as most people came here to bump and grind to hip-pop and Reggaeton. It was fun and worth it overall.
by Erin K. on This bar makes up one of my favorite memories in New York with one of my bestest friends... My friend and I had just arrived in the city for the weekend and we had an hour to kill before heading to MOMA for free museum night. We had seen this place listed as a good place to splurge on a classy cocktail. Well, we didn't realize that the bar was in this hotel, so we spent a while walking up and down the block until we figured it must be. So, seeing how nice the hotel looked from the outside and how informally dressed we were, we almost chickened out... But, we made our way inside and to the bar a bit sheepishly, just waiting for someone to call us out on the fact that this bar was totally out of our league, but, no one did. In fact, the nice man who waited on us (who was in a tux!!) even refreshed our snack bowl (it was divided into 3 and included wasabi peas, a nut mix, and pretzel nuggets....and I couldn't help but think that they probably buy these from Trader Joes!!). Anyways, we ordered a couple drinks and ate our share of snacks. It was pretty empty when we showed up but filled up by the time we were leaving. An attractive young woman wearing a very short skirt and knee high boots sat down near us and my friend was convinced that she was a "high class hooker" (which is very hard to mouth across the table with out being heard) and we eagerly awaited her companion to show up. Well, we guessed wrong, and it looked like she was just meeting up with a girlfriend for drinks... Anyways, to wrap up this rambling story, we loved our drinks and the snacks and the people watching. What we didn't realize until we were on our way out was just how strong each of the cocktails was... (at $23 a pop, we could only afford 1 a piece) we were quite buzzed! To say the least, we had a very different experience on the way to MOMA and once there than we had expected, and it was all very memorable. So, moral of the story: go to free museum night at MOMA and instead spend your money on a shi shi cocktails here.
