Gross Confection Bar — Restaurant in Portland

This place is TOP NOTCH. Gross Confection Bar is a single location restaurant located in the heart of Downtown Portland, Maine. They serve high-end deserts and cocktails in a laid back atmosphere with friendly and knowledgeable servers helping you along the way. This place is everything but gross which I believe is the whole point of their name but it was an absolutely fantastic way to end the night. They have indoor and outdoor seating and allow dogs outside. The inside seating is all brick and underground with a bar which is pretty cool. The desserts are complex, high quality, some are deconstructed and some are just magic. Coming from a culinary background, I can see the effort that this place is making at it certainly pays off in flavor. If you're looking for a sweet after dinner, this is the place to try out.

My wife and I shared The Tasting Board which had five different desserts on one large plate. We thought the desserts were going to be one or two bites each but they were a bit bigger than we were expecting which was okay with us!

The first dessert was Cherries, Chocolate and Coffee which included, a brownie, triple chocolate pudding, chocolate micro-cake, cherry jam, cocoa nib nougatine and coffee creameux.

The second was Maine Strawberry Profiterole which had Maine Strawberry compote, amaretto cream, almond-orange florentine, raspberry coulis, and white chocolate lime crumb.

The third was Citrus Goat Cheese Cake which consisted of, citrus curd, candied kumquats, orange powder, and white chocolate pearls.

The fourth, a Vanilla Buttermilk Panna Cotta. It had, pistachio financier, yuzu gel, roasted strawberries, and coconut crunch.

Lastly, the Brown Butter Carrot Cake. This dessert had, rice crack, espresso tuile, tonka bean creme anglaise, and apricot vanilla jam.

My favorite was the Maine Strawberry Profiterole and the wife's was the Vanilla Buttermilk Panna Cotta. It's hard to even describe the flavor anything short of AMAZING. The complexity and care that goes into these desserts is insane and I would totally love to stage here if I lived in Portland haha. Our least favorite out of the five was the Citrus Goat Cheese Cake. It was too sour and tart for us. My first bite literally made me pucker and I felt as though I was eating a Warhead. It got better as I ate more of it but overall was just too sour and was hard to enjoy. But considering how it was a tasting plate I'm not going to give any less stars because the rest of the desserts pulled through. If I had just gotten that by itself though I would have sent it back for something else.

Also, the server went over the menu but only to tell us that "The Taste" was smaller dessert portions and "The Set List" was bigger portions. I would have liked to her what they are about and what her favorite dessert and drink was without having to ask. It adds to the experience to be walked through the menu as a customer who's never been there before.

Food - 5 ⭐ Atmosphere - 5 ⭐ Service - 4.5 ⭐ Overall - 5 ⭐

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This establishment needs to retrain its entire staff. The employees were not only rude, but they lacked basic training as well. To the owner, I hope you read this. Your staff genuinely made our entire party uncomfortable. We were consistently spoken down to and treated like a nuisance.

Please see the following:

1. The hostess, employee with a large beard/bald head, and bartender were pretty rude. When I walked in with a party of five, I asked what the wait would be. She said 30 minutes. I asked if we could sit at the bar. She said it's full. I said I didn't get a good look at the bar since it extends past the view when you walk in. She looks at me, smirks, and says "it's right there, you can see it when you walk in."

While I was talking to her, some of my friends went to look at the bar. Immediately, three employees descend upon them and begin telling them: a) "you're not allowed to be here"' b) "can I help you?" in a rude tone; and c) "what are you doing here?"

This blows my mind considering I've never been in an establishment where potential customers are not even allowed to LOOK at the bar. We were genuinely taken aback because all the staff in the establishments were visited in Portland were polite, easygoing, and professional. Except this place.

2. Basic misunderstanding of how to speak to customers

I gave my number to the hostess. She says it's a 30 minute wait. Sure - we go around the corner for ice cream. She calls me back in 10 minutes. Okay fine, let's go back. We go inside with our ice cream and sit down. After glaring at us for five minutes she runs to an employee with a large beard and bald head. He comes up to us and says we needs to leave or throw it away because it's "illegal"

Illegal. Pretty strong language for an employee to use with customers, no? You can say it's against our policy or we don't allow outside food and drink. But to tell us it's illegal was aggressive.

No worries - he doesn't know that half of the people in our party are attorneys. We throw it away. Let's get to the experience itself.

3. Our server did not know how to open a bottle of wine. Did no one teach him how to do this? He then proceeded to SPILL wine on my friend's coat.

We order the charcuterie and cheese board. He serves it to us with NO plates. He looks at us blankly when we ask for plates. After being treated like a nuisance by the entire staff, we received mediocre service.

4. There was one good employee. A much older gentleman who had the sense to bring an extra table over to our party so we could be comfortable. He was actually polite as well. Unlike the rest of the staff we interacted with. Kudos to him.

I'm giving this two stars because the charcuterie and cheese board was good. I would not recommend this place to any of my friends and colleagues back...

This is the only restaurant in downtown Portland that I left regretting spending my $70 at. The flavors just weren’t for us. We ordered two drinks (espresso martinis), the brown sugar warm cake, and the “cheesecake”. The bartender was so sweet and knew a lot about the options on the menu. He really sold what we got! However, i understand culinary experts- chefs and bakers- love to experiment with ingredients. This didn’t satisfy us at all. You’re paying for the atmosphere and experience of trying something different imo. The cheesecake was in a small cup and wasn’t disclosed to us that it’s technically not even made the same way as a normal cheesecake. The warm sugar cake was drenched in Carmel and cheese (yes, this is on the description so I’m not complaining about that necessarily!). The flavor profile just didn’t hit well. The Carmel is raised to almost a burnt temperature and you can taste that, it’s almost consuming. When we asked someone local about going to this place they said they heard hit or miss reviews and I can see why. I wanted to love it so much but it’s almost too desperate to concoct odd flavors to be different when it doesn’t need to be that complicated- people will visit simply for being a dessert bar! I debated writing a review bc I appreciate the effort. If you’re reading this, don’t go if you’re wanting anything traditional...