Grindhaus

The much talked about burger exceeded all of the hype, it was phenomenal. The sides that we ordered were delicious too. The owners are super friendly and made sure to talk to us at length both times we visited. I’m salivating just thinking about the burger while writing this review, will be back soon.

Good music doesn’t help, played my bloody valentine, love the atmosphere. However, food… is terrible, failed.

I can’t tell you enough how much I LOVED my New Year’s Eve meal. Delish! This place is so cozy and inviting– with an amazing wine selection to boot, that you really do feel at home here. Erin (the owner) pays so some much attention to every aspect of your meal, that no rock has been left unturned. I love that they can do special events in the Grindhaus space (they have outdoor seating too– HUGE PLUS!). Try the burger! YUMMY!

I never did update and really this place deserves something more spirited and specific than what I wrote last time only I’ve lost my Unilocal mojo after watching the hilarious South Park episode. But you can’t take the douche out of the douchebag so I’ll sally forth: regarding Grindhaus, is this food delicious or what? The current chef is just incredible. How lucky we are to experience this junction of SUBLIME food things, transcendent and yet naughty, under-​worldish ambiance, and mother’s teatish service? Regarding the food, I was actually so moved upon eating this earthy and yet springy and poetic flounder dish the other night that I actually shed tears, I don’t think I’ve ever experienced such a perfectly composed dish. The fish was so fresh and light. The dukkah was nutty and funky and smoky and rich and yet bright. Have you ever heard Joni Mitchell sing «Girl of the North Country?» I can’t stand Joni Mitchell (no offense) but that cover testosteronically grounded Joni’s voice and screwed the annoying little darling out of her. really worth a listen… Where am I going with this? Point is, I’ve never cared for flounder previously but I now realize that Flounder is just the canvas and in the hands of a master, it can be lovingly stroked, coaxed, and/​or pounded into utter delectability. This review is going absolutely nowhere but luckily three act narrative structure is bankrupt and God is dead.

Nice interior design. food is good. But food portion is way too small. Entrée is like appetizer size. Even too little for a small size Asian girl.

Last Sunday I finally made it here for lunch and luckily they were open. We actually had the place to ourselves as most people were away for the long weekend. We were greeted by the owner and allowed to sit anywhere we pleased. I asked about the backyard and was shown to the back.
I was even provided with bug spray now that’s full service.
It was a really cute space well decorated both inside and out.
For drinks we had the white wine which was recommended and I was pleasantly surprised as it was not dry and not sweet yet still flavorful and perfect for a nice sunny afternoon.
I had the soup it was garlic with a cauliflower base and it was amazing. Even my husband who doesn’t like garlic loved it.
He had the famous burger for main and I had the carrots. Burger is handmade so it’s not uniform but he truly enjoyed it. Wow those carrots they are something else. So simple yet delicious with walnut oil smokey and on a bed of goat cheese with walnuts on top. Yum. Very simple and very impressed how much I enjoyed it.
Didn’t notice the white horse until we were leaving.
Got to talk to the awesome down to earth owner and the chef came out to say hi post meal. We got to pick his brain about food and travel and it was such a great experience. These are the nicest two people I could have ever imagined spending the afternoon with and what small business is all about.

Awesome staff! Erin, the owner was our server, and has a great personality! Nice, quaint, very «Brooklyn» backyard/​garden, where we sat for burger dinner, as we had heard that they were fantastic, and they truly held up to the hype!!! Glad it’s down the block from me, I’ll def be returning!

Amazing place. Amazing service, I had a really good super fish, tasty, well presented… Amazing! I wish I could come back but I leave in San Francisco. I will always remember this place.

This place is insanely good. INSANELY good. The «Leaves» dish is probably the best salad I’ve ever had. Worth the walk from whatever mode of transport you end up taking to get here.

This place is a gem in Red Hook. We had house bread, lettuce soup, burger and fussili rabbit ragu and each of them was just amazing! Every dish is presented beautifully, smells awesome and tastes out of this world!

Love this restaurant! 3 out of 3 of our dishes were outstanding! Clementine salad, perfect blend of freshness and texture. Gnocchi like airy flavorful clouds and the brown butter scallops…
The Chef is thoughtful with her ingredients yet shows restraint in the blending of flavors always making the main ingredient the star of the show.
One of my fave restaurants in the boroughs!

Don’t be alarmed when you walk into the restaurant and see a white horse’s head!
We had the fluke crudo sprinkled with yuzu sauce, perfectly grilled octopus with a hint of lemon and the tagliatelle ciao + pepe to share for two. All great however tagliatelle was a bit dense so we drizzled their amazing olive oil to lightened the dish. The flavors were very clean & delightful.
We were still left hungry so we had their freshly baked bread and the amazing olive oil. I really want to know what they use!
A peeve I had was that all their wine by the glass was pricey starting at $ 15. But I understand, they need to make money somehow.
All three dishes plus three glasses of red wine including tax & tip came out to $ 115. I’m a fan but we were still hungry after. Don’t come here if you’re extremely hungry & looking for a big meal.

Decent food and friendly staff, however their Valentines Day Specials are deceiving. Menu states all entrees are to be shared for $ 75. Turns out to be $ 75pp! Which is totally disappointing. Felt scammed on such a good night.

2 stars NYTimes? Really???
The place is so ugly. They have a depiction of a character vomiting in the back. I am a fan of taxidermy, but that poor preserved horse is puking too– branches. A sign indeed. Thanks for the cue Grindhaus.
The service was good, the chicken liver pâté was ok but everything else was pretty unappetizing. Cabbage, meh, squid ink pasta I almost gagged, the other pasta, pretty little bundles with braised lamb neck. Looked good, braise was alright but the pasta had a weird crunchy sort of texture, underdone and it was so salty. And I love salty. I hated the experience. I hated being there. I hated the place. A very unenjoyable experience indeed.

Great place to go for a intimate date without the stuffiness based on the backyard décor/​setting. The menu was minimal which eliminates the general issue of being overwhelmed with too many options. We were disappointed that they ran out of the bread because the description on the menu was enough to make this carbivore’s mouth water.
We ended up ordering the carrot salad, duck breast, and black sea bass. The flavoring for each dish like a taste bud rave! The only downside for me personally is that I’m a big eater and the portions was not sufficient for me (I have a really serious appetite to be the point of being offensive); but if portions isn’t an issue to you and you’re a pure taste enthusiast then I highly recommend trying to this place out. I still need to come back here for the Saturday Phở!

Amazing arrangements of ordinary and extraordinary ingredients into delightful plates! To quote my collegiate dining companion: stupid good.
I can only think of one tiny suggestion for improvement at Grindhaus: serve the bread with the food instead of as the first course. That foie gras berry sauce in the big bowl simply cried out to be mopped up!
Starter (amuse bouche) was a tiny wine glass with diced peach and tomato in a slightly salty foam. Yum!
Three craft beers on tap that summer evening: a very light summer ale, a slightly more robust summer ale (Blue point), and a nice non-​summer ale. No flights but they’ll let you sample all three, sweet. Servers must not be beer people, they struggled to explain the choices
Sourdough bread for $ 6 was about 5 small slices with a generous dish of olive oil. Oh yeah it’s just fine but for me it would have been better accompanying the food instead of preceding it.
A salad «purslane» had dots of fluffy carrot purée, crunchy quinoa, little tomatoes, slices of beets, dots of a smooth creamy cheese (ricotta maybe?) and other delicate goodies I just couldn’t quite identify. Wow, $ 11 wasn’t too bad.
That fois gras might well have been our best dish, little lobes nicely warmed and served in a rich sauce of blueberries, balsamic, black pepper and other great stuff, about $ 20, spendy.
An entrée of blackened sea bass was heavily crusted on one side & perfectly cooked, served atop a fresh corn chowder described as polenta, with little globes that our server finally had to explain were special tiny eggplants. Excellent but (as other Unilocalers have noted) quite small, more tapas size than dinner, about $ 25.
Vegetarian rating: 2ish stars, choices are salad and bread. The menu is so, so tiny, and they have not chosen to put on a proper warm veg entrée.
Warm & friendly service, happy to explain what we were eating. The 20 seats are folding chairs, ok but you won’t settle in too deep lol.
Worth the longish walk from the 9^th Street subway stop west into Red Hook, but definitely bring plenty of money.

Holy cow, I was so impressed by this place! We went for a Mother’s day dinner for 6 ppl and one 1.5 yr old. Even though I picked the place I was a bit wary, because there were no high chairs so I expected the environment to be not so kid friendly. Boy was I wrong! We brought our own clip on high chair, and the staff was extremely friendly to us and our son.
Now on to the food! When the bread came out I knew I was in for a treat — a delicious sourdough brushed with olive oil and seemingly hot from the oven. The rest of our appetizers came in quick succession (we had the prix fixe special mother’s day menu): First: a salad that may very well be the most creative and interesting salad I’ve ever had in a restaurant. It was all very unusual greens. I am a gardener, and am very familiar with exotic microgreens, I could only identify a few. There were also some shaved roots (hakurei turnips if i had to guess). It was well dressed but you could also taste the individual earthy qualities of the spectacular greens.
A creamy cheese course followed with beets and microgreens (purslane and some kind of green that tastes like peppercorns). Spectacular cheese, great with their sourdough.
An incredibly unique dish of napa cabbage with bacon, sour cream and huckleberries followed. I usually don’t like fruit mixed in with my savory dishes but it worked here (also my son loved the huckleberries). The cabbage was dressed with a briney fishy tasting sauce that really worked for me. And the cream on the bottom was a very welcome surprise.
We then had linguine with clams, and chicken with greens, a housemade ricotta-​like cheese and what seemed like fresh garbanzos. I was very full at this point but both were excellent.
The cherry on top was the rhubarb tart for desert — nutty, grainy and not too sweet and topped with what I think was cultured whipped cream (!). I forced my stomach to make room for this and ate my whole portion.
The ambiance was also delightful, whimsical, not too «brooklyn farmhouse» which is so played out. All of us, my toddler included loved all the food. I was especially blown away. Thanks Grindhaus! We’ll be back!

Pros: Food wise, this is a potentially Michelin star restaurant. That’s how good the food is. PERIOD. Cute décor and ambiance. Outdoor space looks promising but still in progress as of this writing.
Cons: THIS IS NOT A $$ RESTAURANT. It tastes like a Michelin starred restaurant so it is priced like one. You can’t reasonably expect to walk out of this place without $ 80 per person without alcohol feeling somewhat full.
Overall: Adventurous and innovative restaurant in an area that is up and coming. Do give it a try, but be prepared to spend!

I went with a very open mind, based on the stellar reviews. While I loved the inspired food and combinations of flavors, the portions were extremely small, especially for the price! The ambience and service were also wonderful. The music was great but slightly too loud for intimate conversation.
While I do recommend the restaurant, don’t go if you are extremely hungry. The micro portions leave much to be desired. While that might be expected in Manhattan, I would not expect that in Red Hook.

I joined Unilocal to write this review. The service, the ambience, the menu– it’s all exquisite. And the food!
It’ll Blow Your Effin Mind.
Go early or expect a wait. There aren’t many tables & you seriously should be seated at one
Stepping into Grindhaus is like stepping into somebody’s home it’s so incidentally casual, warm & gracious The unaffected atmosphere might suggest homey low-​key food, trendily rustic, average food compensated for with enchanting bed&breakfast ambiance & sophisticated charming service: That would be so wrong. Yes, you get all that, but then, relying safely on the thoughtful recommendations of the owner & the waiter, the food arrives: & every plate blows your expectations clear out of the water
The dishes are often astonishingly plated, composed with delicate Japanese notes of beauty & immaculate architecture. As the evening passes, plates stream in a procession of criminally luscious triumphs, one tour de force topping another. At points I thought, Oh, it really can’t get better than this. And then: It gets even better.
New York chefs understand plating but often its a nice house with nobody home, pointlessly beautiful plates wasted on muddled flavors of a skilled amateur gourmet. I’ve eaten here several times now. At Grindhaus I could almost weep at the beauty of some of the dishes. Then I start eating & I’m stunned. These guys are young, but they’re no amateurs. With each forkful I quietly mutter to myself, over and over, Omigod Omigod Omigod Omigod
The two chefs here are masters of graceful and ingenious balance. Their repertoire of textures, layering, colors, subtleties & evanescence, of wickedly daring spicing, of hot & cold, char & sous vide, of innovative simple flavor combinations & unexpected– even unheard of –ingredients, sly flavors that surprise, all the disparate parts come together on the plates with masterful restraint; each dish is like an aria– and the breath that follows it. In somebody else’s hands this could all go horribly wrong. Here, in theirs, their incisive choices ring with clarity & reverberate with astonishing harmonics and lingering echoes of succulence. Some dishes are simply masterpieces, assembled on subtle complexities, arriving casually on their plates with the élan of breezy effortlessness. This is how beautiful food should taste.
Most chefs fail precisely where these two excel. The guys at Grindhaus combine simple elements with deft versatility; for example– monkfish liver with celery shavings, little bits of orange & amaranth. Conceptually alluring, but now I’ve had it; I can’t help feeling this is how monkfish liver should always be served, because I’ve never eaten better. Discreet simple combinations are astutely infused with vivid flowering subtleties. The food on the menu sometimes reads as too simple, unpromising, but when you finally put the first forkful in your mouth, what you taste is sumptuous, complexly delicious, heartbreakingly luscious
Cabbage with beef, pomegranate & pear. Beets with squash, blood orange, rutabaga. Scallops with grapefruit & kale. Cappellacci, mole rojo, rabbit, avocado. Black bass crudo, sour orange, chives, crackling.
It’s all so refreshingly r i g h t. It’s Impeccable.
& nothing’s ordinary about their traditional combinations. Lamb, polenta, cauliflower, gremolata. Kale, sunchoke, garlic, anchovy. Inky black pasta, razor clams, chili, bottarga. The ingredients are the finest, Combined they’re magical. Food here sometimes explodes in your mouth and blows every fuse.
The menu always has a dish with merguez. Order it. It’s the best I’ve ever had. Dinner is sometimes punctuated with an unannounced amuse bouche, an ingenious shot of juice, vegetable extract… and whey! (It’s remarkable!) Or a glass of profound corn chowder that tastes like an acre’s worth of corn fanatically concentrated into a few tablespoons.
I’ve never had so many ingredients explained to me, ingredients I’ve either never eaten or heard of. Flageolet, freekeh, jonah crab, sea beans, vuoto, ghost chili, kelp, nasturtium, timothy hay. None of them exist for peculiarity’s sake or smug novelty. These are flavors that now seem natural here as if always essential to the dish & now they augment, intensify or transform its nature. Their choices come together on the plate with masterfully orchestrated intensities & gossamer tones of flavor few chefs match. They neither slip up nor do they let up.
This is a destination restaurant. It opened recently & opened at the top of the charts– its purpose, its repertoire, its menu– fully formed. Grindhaus can easily be in any New Yorker’s Top Ten. Their haus-​made bread! You have to sit down & immediately order their bread! It will blow your mind.