21 Greenpoint — Restaurant in New York

My partner and I booked a table at 21 Greenpoint for NYE only to be let down by the food and the cocktails. Usually we would let certain things slide if the food was worth it, but there was nothing to write home about that will bring us back.

Food Starters: For $32 we ordered the meat and cheese platter to start our evening. It lacked variety of options, quality of the cuts and the quantity was not worth the money we paid for. No prosciutto, no olives, no crackers. 2 unidentifiable spreads, pepperoni and salami slices surrounding a mountain of burnt edged bread.

Appetizers: I ordered the seared scallops with mushrooms and broad beans. Although mine tasted okay, it certainly was cold by the time it reached my table. My partner ordered the wild boar lettuce cups. I was able to sample the dish as well and we were unimpressed with the lack of flavor in the meat. The stew-like consistency of the filling dampened the crispness of the lettuce cups and at the end of it all, the lettuce cups looked more like boats, floating in a pool of meat broth.

Mains: My partner ordered the pork chops and I ordered the cacio e pepe pasta dish. After waiting over an hour for our mains, we finally got served our food.

The pork chops were salty, and did not come with the fingerling potatoes that was stated in the menu. The pasta dish was even worse. In my entire dining experience I have never sent a dish back but considering our bad run with the restaurant that evening, we needed to say something. Our waitress was kind enough to send the dish back and have them re-make the dish dish that was too salty and cold. We were told that the dish is quite salty due to the Romano cheese that is used to make the dish, however it would be nice to have our feedback taken into consideration when the dish was remade. When the second version came out, we tasted the exact same dish, only it was lukewarm instead of cold. Defeated, we simply asked for the bill and wanted to leave immediately before the rest of our night was ruined. We both like salt so you can imagine how bad it must have been for us to deem it too salty.

Even if the dish was by standard - a salty dish, I think it should be in the customer’s best interest to remake a dish that was less salty when it was specifically requested. Instead, I genuinely believe it was the same dish I sent back, just re-heated under the lamps.

Service Although the service wasn’t as prompt as we would have liked, we do understand that it was for NYE dinner service. The couple dining next to us ordered the pork chop dish and did not take long to be served to them. This makes us question the quality of the service...

Brooklyn has so many new and interesting restaurants opening up everywhere, it is not easy to keep up. The name of the restaurant is the address of the restaurant, makes it easy to find and to remember.

It was pretty packed, and seemed rather small. They had a bar right at the entry, and very small amount of seating... But, we discovered they actually have more seating in the back with bigger tables! The back room was very nice and cozy, quiet and relaxing. Well, until this room got filled up.

We ordered a few items since we were all hungry. We got a Special Pizza of the Day, which was white pizza with mozzarella, permesan, and pepperoni. It had quite the punch from the chili flakes, good and spicy!

We also ordered a Market Fish, which was Scottish trout. The fish was very much like salmon. It had great mix of fish and sweet watermelon!

The last item we ordered was Pork Chop New York. The pork chops was nothing like I imagined, and quite tasty! The meat was packed with flavor with perfect amount of seasoning.

For dessert, we asked what the “Seasonal Cobbler” is, and we were told it is apple and pear. It came out piping hot, rather small but since we were full, that was ok. It had some rosemary that added aroma and flavor which was quite pleasant. It was not too herb-y but just enough.

I was used to getting ice cream with cobbler in the past, but their cobbler does NOT come with ice cream. So, we added order of ice cream as well. We chose Vanilla and Blueberry Olive Oil ice cream. The ice cream came out first, and it took a while for the cobbler to come out. So about the time the cobbler finally reached our table, the ice creams were gone…

The service was good and friendly. We were taken care of nicely, felt welcomed in a relaxing atmosphere. It was a good find on the restaurant, with good food and service. The price point is rather...

This place used to be so great! We used to enjoy bringing family and friends to 21 Greenpoint, but after the past two experiences we can no longer recommend it.

Let's start with the great parts of 21 GP: great decor, exceptional wines, killer burger, nachos that are flavorful w/ generous portion, the fries and dipping sauces, and the shrimp and grits!

Overall the quality of the food seems to have slipped over the past 6 months. Burgers have come out noticeably overcooked. Nachos have been soggy when they reach our table. But the main dealbreaker is the drastic drop in the quality of service. On our last two visits we have waited for over 45 minutes to get our food. The last visit was the worst. Our server was impossible to find for a majority of our visit and was obviously overwhelmed. We saw basically the whole patio around us get seated, get all of their food, and cash out before our mains even got to us. When asking what kind of water we wanted we asked for sparkling and did not realize that it was $10 bottle (not a huge deal, but let us know). After a 40 minute wait post-appetizer cleanup, we asked where our food was and we were informed by another server that it was "up next". When we finally did get the check (had to ask the other server before our server brought it) there was no acknowledgment of the wait or service. Nothing. Unacceptable at this price point with so many other great...