Curean — Restaurant in Greenville

Let me start by saying this is the first and only review I have ever written for a restaurant. I figured this would be a kind gesture to show how thankful I am for our experience, and to show support for this welcomed addition to the Greenville food scene. My husband and I had a date night on Saturday. We had our 10 month old baby with us. It was our first time at Curean. We were a walk-in with no reservation at around 5pm. The owners’ mother greeted us and was able to accommodate us even though they were pretty booked up. Our server was attentive and answered all of our questions about the menu. Our Grenache Syrah blend was delicious. Escargot, oysters Rockefeller and bone marrow were well executed. The restaurant is beautiful. Darker sexy vibe, but still elegant, classy, and timeless. Very nice, but not pretentious.

All that being said, I was still nervous to have our baby there since she had missed her nap earlier. So of course our baby started to get a little fussy. The staff noticed that we were trying our best to attend to our baby and make sure we weren’t disturbing other guests. Without hesitation the hostess, the owner Vicky and her mother insisted on jumping in to entertain our baby so we could actually enjoy our food. This genuine act of kindness displayed true hospitality. We left feeling like family! Everyone was so thoughtful and friendly. Needless to say our baby had a wonderful time hanging out with the staff and getting a “tour” of the restaurant.

Of course we don’t plan on needing/relying on this extent of attention or help next time we come, as we’ll make sure our baby is well-fed and prepared for sitting through a quick dinner, or we’ll have a sitter. However, it was much appreciated in the moment! There are many great restaurants in Greenville, but very few go out of their way to connect with their guests and make them feel so welcomed. Very memorable to say the least.

In short, the atmosphere was wonderful for a date night, the food was tasty and plated beautifully, and the whole staff exceeded expectations in terms of hospitality and attentiveness. We look forward to returning!...

The expectations were pretty high because of the hype and the impressive culinary names tied to the restaurant - but it ended up being a flop. We ordered arancini, oysters Rockefeller and patatas bravas as a shareable, then a charcuterie board and wine.

The wine and charcuterie board were standouts - the wine in particular was excellent. We had the cab sav/merlot red wine and it was very nice, well balanced, not too dry and left the palate open to try other flavors. Reasonably priced at $12 per glass. The wine selection itself was a 10/10 for me. Not a huge selection but everything on the list was carefully handpicked and our server confirmed this when we dined in. The charcuterie board was excellent but I also find a good charcuterie pretty easy to curate if you find the right specialty local vendor (Swamp Rabbit Cafe or Cook’s Station, for example).

That being said, the shareable plates were really not impressive. The arancini tasted completely flavorless and it was $14….we ate 3.5 of the 5 balls and sent the rest back. A little surprised it wasn’t comped because it was bland and borderline inedible.

The patatas bravas were okay, but again not a lot of flavor. They really needed sea salt or something on top.

Lastly the oysters Rockefeller - really really good and a slightly smokey take on these but I’ve had better. Price is decent at $20 for 6, so I would get these again.

Service was just okay. Spent $150 total with tip and was ready to leave when we walked in - there were 2 of us and they sat us at a bar-like high top table. Which is disappointing because if I’m going to spend $100, I would like to have somewhere to rest my arms at the very least.

In the end, I would not recommend this restaurant. There are plenty of other places to try in Greenville where the food is incredible (Coral & Indaco), the service is amazing (also Coral again), tables and seating are comfortable (Coral), and you get what...

I appreciate that they were able to seat our table of 3 on a Friday night with no reservation. Since it was a weekend, I anticipated that the kitchen would be quite busy, but I did not expect to wait as long as we did for our food. At first we were sat outside, but decided to move to the bar since it was about to rain. This was within the first 5 minutes of our arrival. We also placed our whole order very quickly. I saw the server put our order into the device as we spoke to her. This could not have been any later than 7:30PM (we cross-reference with when we paid for parking and walked over). Once we were seated at the bar and finally got drinks, we ended up waiting one whole hour for the BREAD. This is not an exaggeration. We asked the bartender at least twice about it. The first time we were told that it was left out of the order when it was initially taken. Second time, we were told it was still in the oven. When it finally came out, it was just ok. I was having serious doubts about even staying for the rest of the meal but we were reassured that the rest of the food order was definitely in the system and that they were working on it. I also knew that, since it's restaurant weekend, we probably wouldn't find an open spot elsewhere. My entree came out a few minutes after the bread. The other 2 entrees for our party came out about 25 minutes after that. Mine just sat there, untouched. I won't lie, when I finally did eat it, it was pretty good, even though it was cold. I got the gnocchi. I also tried the beef and potatoes and those were also good. None of it was good enough to be worth the wait and poor service though. If I had confidence that this is a one off event, then I might recommend it to others solely based on the food. However, given the way our night went, I cannot recommend this to others. I feel that my time was...