Grassa Gramma — Restaurant in Northfield

The quality of service and food served has significantly deteriorated since this establishment originally opened. Having just dined at Le Moo (it's sister restuarant) a week ago where both the food and service were amazing, the experience at Grassa Gramma is so bad its hilarious.

So lets start with the service. When our party arrived at 5:30 for a 5:30 reservation we were instantly checked in and informed that another hostess would be there in a just a moment to seat us. A moment later we were served the most pitiful sips of sparkling wine I've ever had - pitiful because the glasses provided literally only had a tablespoons worth of beverage. Everyone in the party was so confused so we asked the hostess serving us the drinks if she could fill up the glasses and she replied she wasnt allowed to. This was such a joke - if you are going to take the initiative of spoiling your guests from the start of the evening, actually follow through and spoil the guests, dont give them empty champagne glasses with a sips worth of beverage. Very weak start to the evening that we all laughed at.

Now though we were the only party in the waiting area, it took the hostess 15-20 minutes to seat us past our reservation time. Once we were seated our server was all over the place - both in actually giving us his full attention, walking us through the menus/specials, and checking in with us through the evening. That evening we interacted more with the food runners than our actual server. The only time he appeared was when we were bites away from finishing the meal right in front of us.

Now the best thing about the entire evening food wise was the tirimisu and the actual pasta used in the entrees - everything else from our appetizer (crab cakes) to the entree (ragu bolognese) could have been avoid. Neither had substance, flavor or seasoning. The crab cakes were so paper thin to the point where there was more bread crumb than crab. When this establishment orignally first openend the ragu was such a rich complex dish that within one bite you knew your day would was made. Now it so simple and lackluster that is nothing special - I could have made better at home.

While I overall havent written this establishment off, for the price charged one could definitely find a better place to spend their money for a truly special...

Great ambiance. Very good flavors. Long service time (due to reduced staff from flu). The long service time pulled this review score down.

I originally put this down as 2 stars. But because management reached out to me and we had a good discussion I’ve moved it to 3 stars and will be returning. I will explain below. If the staff had not been short and the food more timely I could see this being a four star, maybe five star review. ….

While a Saturday is expected to be busy we arrived early and were seated early but near our reservation time.

First - the service person who was responsible for water, bread, taking up dishes etc. was great and busted her butt all night long. I tipped her separately and wish I’d given her more.

Our initial order for appetizers arrived in a timely manner. The duck meatballs are wonderful especially when paired with a Caesar salad. They split the salad onto two plates for us since the whole salad is a little much for a full meal with appetizers etc.

Our wine eventually came out - our original choice for a pinot grigio had sold out. The wine we settled on was very nice cab.

About an hour after being seated we were informed the kitchen was running behind due to the busy night but our food would be out soon.

The food arrived about ten minutes later. My wife’s dish looked impeccable. Salmon on risotto. Mine was the seafood imperial. It was tasty but I would have like more pasta in the broth

The absolute bright spot for us was the ambiance & decor and the young lady working hard to service the tables. ….. About my rating. I originally gave this a two star rating and went into more detail about the circumstances - that probably did not help anyone.

The manager reached out to me this morning easily less than twenty four hours after we dined. We had a very good conversation and he explained about the short staff situation. He offered a full refund but we agreed to a partial as my wife and did enjoy the food and the ambience. His reaching out is a five star effort in itself. However this single visit still is no more than a three star due to the low staff conditions making service run very late.

We plan to return sometime when it’s not a holiday to be able to more enjoy...

I took my mother here for Mother’s Day! The food and atmosphere were great! It was what I hoped for! The only issue is I booked reservations ahead of time Thursday night (May 8th) around 7:24pm for two ppl in the balcony (top floor) on MD at 7pm, and spoke with a female when I called. She put me down and I even called back after 5 min or so to make sure I specified the balcony and a female answered the phone again (sounded like the same person) and looked my name up and confirmed for two ppl, top floor on Mother’s Day.

On MD when we got to parking lot it was 7:01pm and I jumped out the car while my mother looked for parking and was in the door at 7:02 letting the hosts know I had arrived and a female checked me in and said they’re waiting for my table to become available shortly. I was perplexed as I thought no one would be using our table at least close to the time we’re to arrive. We had to wait 15-20 min (at least) and were seated on the main floor. I asked the female seating us what happened to my reservation for balcony and she said that the main floor was the only table available for two but I would have to wait longer to get upstairs; again that perplexed me. My mother let me know it wasn’t an issue and that the food was most important but I was agitated because I tried to be proactive and give my mother the full experience of this beautiful restaurant.

What’s the point in making reservations if it won’t be honored? That is why I took one star off. I am still slightly agitated and would remove two stars for that but the food and service was really good, so one star off is fair. I plan to return again one day soon and plan to book reservations for the balcony and I hope I won’t encounter that again. Reservations I thought prevented ppl from having to wait long and settle for seating they don’t want, so I’m genuinely disappointed about that. However, you have great chefs! :)

Oh, and I must add I wish there were officers outside the restaurant keeping the area safe because someone tried to break into our car. I am grateful the car was still there as it’s electric and for some reason was running when we came out (even though I saw her turn off the car and walk around it checking locks) but...