French Grill House — Restaurant in West Palm Beach

We stumbled onto French Grill House in West Palm Beach, and what a find!

They're located in Northwood Village off of Palm Beach Lakes Blvd a little north by US-1. For the uninitiated, Northwood Village is a great street that was gentrified similar to Wynwood, with boutiques and shops and great little restaurants and cafes.

First of all, on a beautiful day in January was the best time to eat here. It's almost all outdoor seating, so I'm not sure how that works in the summer. They have a fantastic back area that's green and colorful and so relaxing. The lighting is great as it gets dark and for those that crave ambiance this has it.

The whole concept is almost everything is wood fired grilled, and you combine that with their homemade sauces that just got better and better with each one we tried, everybody in our party of 6 was throughly buzzing. The sauces are incredible. Beurre Reuge (red wine creamy butter sauce) was outdone by Shallot "AuPoivre" sauce, which was outdone by the Bernaise sauce. On and on we all were swapping sauces for taste tests and ordering more.

The meats were perfectly cooked to order. The meat of the day changes from tomahawk to hangar to porterhouse and on depending on the day. All amazing and everybody at the table recognized the chef knew how to properly handle a fire grill.

I snuck a bite of my wife's duck filet with the Shallot Red Wine sauce. I've never had a better texture to a duck. Normally a chewy meat, the meat was unrecognizable in a great way to every other duck I've had. Absolutely a must have.

The grilled avocado with chickpeas and tomato relsih was a great healthy blend of avocado and tangy tomatoes. The sides of grilled asparagus, or corn with chipotle butter, even the rice pilaf were all top-notch. Coupled with my 1664 beer (fantastic French beer I struggle to find regularly on menus), I was content and full. (But never stuffed enough to not order dessert if the food is this good.)

The star of that show was the Creme Brulee. The top was not over caramelized and crunchy, the rest was airy and creamy with the slightest hint of lemon. I know this is personal taste, but I've never had better in South Florida. The profiterol had ice cream in it, and even though it was very good, I did do a double take when I saw it because that is not how I'm used to eating it.

We wanted to meet the owner, who was clearly walking around and serving dishes while bellowing out names of meals with a thick French accent (proudly strolling through wearing suspenders and his infant baby strapped to his front chest). See picture below.

Turns out the restaurant was started by him and his other brother, who found a family friend who became the head chef and owner as well. Curiosity compelled me to find the picture of the family off the website and I placed that below as well. This talented family brought such an authentic French twist to the wood fired grill concept. Please check them out if you're...

I had really high hopes for this restaurant, but unfortunately I was so disappointed in atrocious service or lack thereof. I had a 7pm reservation and was seated within a few minutes. The restaurant was about half full. After being seated, I looked over the menu and waited to be greeted by the server and be told all the daily meats and fish(as the menu consists of many daily this or that. I waited as the server took the drink order of the table next to me. They insisted on wanting their drinks before hearing the daily items, so the server left to get their drinks. He didn't say hello to me or say that he would be back, etc. I waited until he returned with their drinks. Upon his drink delivery, he glanced over at me without any acknowledgment. He proceeded to describe the daily menu items along with his favorites, they asked several questions after overhearing everything, I thought I was ready to order... the other table placed their order, and because of availability, he went back to the kitchen to find out what size Cote de Beuf they still had. Again, I waited for some sort of greeting or acknowledgment. Nothing ... he returned told them the sizes and finalized their order. Again, turned around and went to the kitchen. I waited another 5 minutes, he never came back. After waiting 30 minutes without even a greeting, I got up and left. I've waited tables before and told be amassed what a simple acknowledgment or explanation of being in the weed will do and how much time it would buy you. Instead when I explained to the hostess why I was leaving, she gave a lame explanation of how busy they were. Again, the restaurant was only half full. Wow, the food may be good, but the initial contact was so abysmal, it would have negatively colored anything from that...

French Grill House- Rustic French style cuisine. Been open for 4 1/2 years now

Served by Sophie, kind, sweet, and charming, but most importantly knew her menu! Service: 10/10

Virgin mule- light and refreshing not too sweet very good 8.5/10

Salmon Carpaccio- I added the crostini to my order was pretty decent. Very light and refreshing. It’s sushi grade salmon with the olive oil, lemon, parsley, basil and capers. The crostini made a hell of a difference when the salmon was added on top cranked up the flavor and tasted better with it. 6.5/10

Grilled Skewer Of The Day- today was beef. You get to pair with one sauce and one side. I choose the Au Poivre sauce (didn’t really care for it kinda bland) and the Hasselback Potatoes Scallion & Butter as my side that comes paired with their house made chive sour cream. Skewer was pretty good I cooked mine medium, came cooked perfectly, and the Au Poivre paired okay with it. But I must say the real star of this entree is the Hasselback Potatoes with their sour cream! Phenomenal! Would come back just for the potato and sour cream alone! 8.5/10

The one thing the French can never miss on is an amazing dessert! I had the Croustade (warm pastry/ apple compote) paired with one scoop of vanilla ice cream. This dessert hands down made my day the Croustade was baked perfectly and warm to perfection not too hot I’m not even exaggerating, just right! The apple compote was so delicious it truly gagged me. If the Ice cream was just a bit more creamier and a little sweeter this dish would’ve been a...