Le Grand Caffe

He raised the prices 50% on a burger —not worth 15.00.

Ten stars service– we were treated like Royalty
4 stars décor and charm
3 stars food probably more like 2 for NY standards
We had a great evening with a Sky– Auction certificate so the price was half. However, the food is not great, just okay. The Wood Fired chicken was dry and flavorless try something else. (I was surprised being in Ny) Our service was the best I have ever had. The south African waitress loved us. (Sorry I can not remember her name) Lol– slow night when we were there on a recent Saturday night.

Good service, plain old diner food. We sat down and immediately wanted to leave. The menu is extremely boring. It’s a shame because they have so much potential (brick oven, bar). We came for breakfast and spent $ 39 on two lame omelettes that came with «homefries». They must have used ¹⁄₆ of a potato for both of our plates.

Staff was warm, welcoming attentive. Same goes for the service. Lasagna, Pasta Pesto were on the mark and delicious. Décor was modern and spacious. You won’t be disappointed.

Came here for lunch and ordered the turkey sandwich. It was really bad! The fries were undercooked and they used Oscar Meyer deli meat. I could get the same sandwich at a deli for half the price (and better quality). Do not go here!

This place rocks! Great little local spot, with a solid menu and great natural lighting (big windows!). Come here all the time. Ask for Hido. He’s the new manager — a very nice guy, who seems really invested in running a successful operation. Worth a trip!

My favorite neighborhood restaurant! Great coffee, paninis and salads… And the staff always makes you feel welcome (ask for Hido!). Don’t miss it– perfect for a date or lunch with friends.

Eh. I purchased a voucher for $ 29 for an app, a pizza and a bottle of wine. When I arrived to the venue, the hostess didn’t have the slightest clue what the voucher was or even that deals existed… as if I were the first person to come in with a voucher. She was 100% clueless.
The food was eh. I would not pay full price for it, it would have been SO NOT worth it. It was really not great.
Sorry…cannot give this place a better rating… I think they tried to be better than what they were but failed.

One star for restaurant cleanliness. They advertise a brick oven, but like so many NY pizzerias, the only brick near the oven is the cheap brick façade that covers the gas-​fired oven.
Our first pizza came out looking watery. They also added Parmesan cheese when we did not ask for it. Our second pizza got cancelled before they could start it. The whole experience was brief.
The real problem with this place is that it doesn’t know what it wants to be. They are a pizzeria/​diner/​restaurant/​lounge. I would recommend not helping them decide.

Food wasn’t very good. I ordered the linguini with pesto and felt sick soon after. In addition I had heartburn for several hours till I finally took some alka seltzer. My girlfriend asked the waiter a question and got a half assed response that was totally unhelpful. On the way to initially being seated; a customer came up to me and said avoid the pizza.
So to sum it all up; awful waste of time, bad service and worse food.
Better to eat a can of soup than at this less than charming dump!

Service so bad you’ll look to the heavens and ask, «why me?!»
No, but seriously, I have never in my life tipped $ 0. Until I went to Le Grand Café.
It took upwards of 30 minutes after ordering to bring out salads (we’re talking your basic greens, nothing fancy or requiring preparation other than putting vegetables on a plate), and then, only upon prompting the waitress who had evidently forgotten to put in our food order. There was plenty of wait staff and they were not especially busy, so there was no reasonable excuse for the error. I ordered a burger, medium well. It came out rare. I mean, still mooing. I sent it back and it came back still rare, under the smattering of toppings I had specifically asked them to hold. My friends waited an hour for a pizza which was served with uncooked onions clearly added as an afterthought by the cook who forgot that toppings are supposed to go on the pizza before it hits the oven. Our drinks sat empty for the eternity that it took for someone to pay attention to us to ask for refills.
We asked to speak with a manager and our waitress said she could help us which, like «your food is coming right up» and «I’ll have them re-​do your burger» was clearly a lie, since the only purported «help» she offered was to comp us the sodas which no one could bother to refill.
It took two requests and ten minutes to get the check, not that we were especially in a hurry to pay for the food-​poisoning-​on-​a-​bun or pile of uncooked onions on a pizza crust. Multiple other parties complained of similar issues with other servers (poor service, incorrect/​undercooked orders) and I’m frankly a little surprised there wasn’t some sort of restaurant mutiny or mass table-​flipping.
When asked what else she could bring us, the only reasonable answer was a time machine so we could have the last 90 minutes of our lives back. Enter at your own risk.

Kitchen nightmare candidate 2014!
We popped in today for a quick lunch and it became the worst meal to date in NYC! We had to wait ages to be acknowledged by any servers who were clearly really busy and not coping with the stress too well. My husband and I tried to be nice and sympathise with the waitress but our patience was severely tried when we still didn’t have our order after waiting for over an hour! They didn’t bring any drinks, including water until we reminded them several times. It seems our order got lost and therefore after two other staff asked «have you already had your food?» (Seriously?!) they finally confessed that there had been a breakdown in communication… quite. The staff were clearly frazzled and were not taking ownership of the tables. There was no clear management or leadership and the staff didn’t even know eachother’s names… not sure if this was a one off but seemed a very odd way to run a business.
When the food finally arrived my «Italian panini» was not as described on the menu… it was missing at least two of the key ingredients and tasted solely of balsamic vinegar. I finally managed to flag down a member of staff who seemed perplexed as to my issue with the meal. He went off to get a side dish of one of the missing ingredients and thought that would solve it… it did not. They took it back to the kitchen and then decided they didn’t have everything needed to make it afterall and offered me an alternative. By now I was seriously hungry so I ordered the chicken noodle soup… it came quickly but was standard stuff and had two tiny curls of pasta (not noodle?!) in the whole bowl (hardly noodle soup me thinks!!)
My husband’s burger was the worst he’s tasted but he was so hungry he ate as much as he could stomach… too much it seems as it gave him food poisoning!
Needless to say, we will never return and I would caution anyone who values their health, time or food to avoid at all costs!
The worst restaurant in NYC!

Strange place, although neighborhoody. coffee was beyond horrible, so i ordered a cappuccino. it was somewhat better, but still strange. the broccoli rabe in my panini was replaced by regular broccoli, cooked al dente. the menu described an Italian sandwich but it did not taste that way. Skimping on the ingredients for a $ 13 panini is shameful. Forgetful yet friendly waitresses will bring you anything if you request it multiple times. The only explanation I can think of is that uptown folks enjoy eating mediocre food, because tables filled up.

Full bar, nice basic italian food, comfortable, open space, good for parties and kids, friendly staff, brick oven pizza, free wifi. All the good stuff.

This is as far from GRAND as it gets! Took 22 minutes for my $ 14 turkey burger to arrive– dry– stale bun– salad with no dressing! Top it of with huge bottle of generic ketchup and lousy service! First time here, last time here!

Okay so the brunch at Le Grand Caffe is far from glamourous. It actually borders of mediocre, but hear me out here…
There are little places in New York that you can eat a small, affordable bite, have a cup of coffee, and relax. The cutest cafés are filled to the brim with students and professionals working on their laptops, brunch restaurants have lines out the door, and even your local Starbucks, nice or not, is out of seats. Le Grand Caffe offers a nice and open atmosphere with limited bustled, and most importantly no rush. They even have a few large flat screen televisions playing the news and sports! You can grab a cup of Illy coffee, or a breakfast dish that won’t break the bank and just take a breather. You won’t deal with the hangover brunch crowds, or all the hype. The egg omelets are slightly better than what you’d be able to prep at home, their bacon and home fries are tasty as well. Service is sweet and attentive.
Le Grand Caffe definitely is not the next destination brunch spot but it’s great weekend morning hideout in Sutton Place.

I just tried out this place last week with some friends. Frankly, after listening to their remarks about the restaurant, I’m surprised they even wanted to come here. They commented how that while most of the food was good, the service was poor. So why go back (as they all live in the neighborhood and go on a rather regular basis)?
My impression: it’s a really nice spot aesthetically. I remember this place from back in the day when it was a tapas bar. The staff is super friendly. BUT — it took THREE of us to ask to *order* our food. Then we had to repeatedly ask for water refills. Forget about how long it took to get our food — which was good, by the way.
Would I go back? Not likely. As I said, the food was tasty, but dining out shouldn’t take that much work for the customer. Sorry.

More like a 2.5 for brunch. The prices are good and the service is great. However, the pancakes were dry and too doughy. The omelet isn’t bad but really nothing special. It comes with hash browns, but the portion for this is meager.

This place is nice and breezy, with open doors and windows, making it a great spot for those fabulous summer NYC days. My sister and I came here for lunch on a weekday around 2pm. We weren’t in a hurry, but the service was still painfully slow. We just ordered some coffees and then split a pizza. The coffees were very cute but took so long to get that the coffee was tepid by the time they arrived. The pizza was a flat bread mushroom pizza and was pretty good for a gourmet NYC pizza place. The restaurant is clean and nice. Overall, a great little find.

6-​month update: I haven’t seen the pizza maker mentioned in my original review since that initial weekend. Otherwise my original review stands, and is as follows:
I was here on the fourth and final night with their «soft open» menu. They didn’t start their regular menu until the next day, so the selections were limited and it was BYOB – which I was prepared for. The margerita pizza wasn’t bad, but has room for improvement. The crust was a bit dark, the cheese and sauce blend was kind of soupy, and the slices weren’t cut anywhere near even. The beet salad was pretty good, though. I did see the pizza maker go outside for a cigarette, which isn’t a problem per se, but he didn’t wash his hands before returning to make more pizza. Hopefully that gets addressed. Their regular menu will offer breakfast until 3PM, paninis, burgers, sandwiches, pizza, coffees, espresso, and a full bar.