Grand Vin — Restaurant in Hoboken

Unfortunately I was disappointed with my experience here. I went for a late dinner (9:30PM) on a Friday night as a first time guest. I had a reservation and upon entry we were greeted and seated immediately. The vibes were great; dim lights, a live singer playing classics on the piano, the bar was full of people, dining room had every table full, and the tables are pretty close to each other so it has a bit of a cozy restaurant in Manhattan feel. We were off to a great start until our server arrived, clearly in a rush, clearly not in a great mood, and she immediately told us we needed to order everything at once “kitchen rules”. I had to ask her what she meant by that in case dessert was also included in that request. Thankfully it didn’t seem to be. I’ve worked in restaurants for years, that’s definitely not the way to communicate to a table, but in the moment I wasn’t bothered.

We ordered our drinks and we knew what we wanted for appetizers and main course so ordering “all at once” wasn’t an issue. We ordered everything to share. First came our drinks, we got the pumpkin espresso martinis. I was a little disappointed as I had asked if we could change the base spirit to tequila, to which the server replied “no”, so I asked if it was pre batched and she said yes. I understand not wanting to alter the integrity of the cocktail and I also totally understand that if something is pre batched then it’s even more impossible to change it so I said that was fine but I mentioned vodka, assuming that was the base spirit and she didn’t correct me. My fault for not fully reading the menu I guess, but it turned out to be rum. Fine. I wasn’t thrilled, but didn’t complain. The cocktail tasted nice, but probably not something I’d order again. It was too creamy and too sweet for my taste.

We were then served bread and olive oil. I’ve seen reviews saying it’s great, but I found the bread to be dry and hard and the olive oil was quite flavorless. Again, wasn’t thrilled but would never complain about that.

Our Caesar salad comes out and it looks great! We start eating and it seemed like there wasn’t any dressing on it, but then suddenly there was a lot of dressing all in one spot. I guess we failed to mix the salad before serving myself so that’s something to note and maybe that’s something the server could have told us, but again, I didn’t bother saying anything. It wasn’t a big deal since there was dressing on the salad after all.

What truly bothered me, was that after 30 minutes of enjoying our salad, we hadn’t seen our server and there was no sign of our main courses coming. Initially I liked that we weren’t being rushed, but then I realized we had been forgotten about. It was difficult to get other servers attention, so we wound up getting help from a very nice busboy instead. He apologized about it and sent another server to the table who told us our food would be right out. Still our original server was nowhere to be found.

Our appetizer was cleared, and our food arrived but it was not what we had ordered. They served us fish, and the person I was with, is highly allergic to fish. The same busboy, who seemed to be the only person truly paying attention to the tables at the time, again apologized and got help. We were told that our server had put in fish as our order instead of the short rib dish we ordered.

We got the gnocchi we ordered, which was good and then shortly afterwards, our short rib. What was nice is we weren’t rushed, and the people who took care of us after our server disappeared were very apologetic and recovered her mistakes fairly quickly. All of this is to say that, our experience would have been much better had it not been for our neglectful server.

1 star off for our servers bad attitude and neglect, and another for the food. I think overall it has potential for 4 stars, food is decent and maybe even amazing depending on the dish. I’m not against giving it another try, since my experience could be based on...

I held my birthday dinner here with a group of 15 and, unfortunately, the experience was disappointing from start to finish.

The first interaction I had was with the hostess, who made it clear that my question about splitting checks was an inconvenience. I brushed it off at first, but her dismissive attitude was confirmed again when we left—after I thanked her, she just stared at us without a word. Later, she also rudely asked members of my party to move. While the request itself was reasonable, her tone was not. A hostess sets the tone for the restaurant, and her attitude made us feel unwelcome.

The second issue was the restaurant’s strict two-hour time limit on our reservation for a party of 15. I’ve been dining out for decades and have never encountered such a short window for a large group. To make matters worse, entrées weren’t even served until after 8 p.m.—well past the supposed limit. Clearly, the policy doesn’t match the reality of their service.

Third, the food was disappointing. Many of the dishes were overwhelmingly salty. My gluten-free penne à la vodka was inedible and had to be sent back. I replaced it with a Caesar salad (drenched in dressing) and broccolini (again, too salty). Several of my guests had the same complaint—the pasta, salmon, and other dishes were all far too salty. One of my friends even warned me she had been the day before and had the same problem.

Overall, between the poor service, rushed and unrealistic reservation policy, and consistently salty food, I would not return or recommend...

Calling to the restaurant (for directions/reservation details/parking et all) is an absolute NIGHTMARE! It is sooo noisy that The reps hang up repeatedly on you instead of moving to a quieter area! The place is busy understandably but should never be too busy to take customers for granted and carry on like it's ok..or you need me so accept whatever service I offer!Parking is a nightmare until you figure out the parking garage 1 block lower from the restaurent or you are lucky to find metered /free parking or coming after 9pm one block away! The meal option/portion was good but the Salmon was too salty and so was the steak(possibly from the cheese added over).The servers were ok and relatively attentive and the prices reasonably ok.It was disheartening having to deal with soo much noise on the phone ..creating an inability for clear communication to sort out directions to location and find parking knowing there's a window you show up15 late -you loose your reservation and (2hr) window allowed for your reservation yet the great challenge to communicate and still thru the no fault of customer still charged a $15/per person for cancelled reservation even with reasonable frustrations! Please do better. quiet zone to communicate on phone. 2.Inform/guide customers ahead of visit about no regular parking(residents only)/directions to parking 3.Be more patient/helpful/understanding to customers. 4.lower salt content on items on menu-health...