Grasso’s

This the best restaurant in Cold Spring Harbor, and one of the best in the Huntington area. Great Sunday menu !

The restaurant is a ramp up off the street in the quaint town of Cold Spring Harbor. They provide street side outdoor terrace tables dining. Their dining room is split into two rooms with one room where the bar resides along with the band which is performing nightly; mostly very talented jazz bands. I have been dining at this restaurant for many years and always had a good experience. The service is excellent and my favorite’s entrees have been always their fish specials. This time I had the Halibut along with a nice bottle of wine. Dinner without wine does not make sense.

Went for lunch on a Saturday afternoon. Staff unfriendly, food ok, drinks outrageous prices. They must think they are located in Manhattan. A rum and Coke was $ 11.00 and a house wine was $ 14.00. Last first and last trip there.

Always a fantastic time there. Food is always fantastic and the live music is wonderful!

Great food, great service a lovely place for lunch. The pounded pork chop on the bone was lightly breaded with Panko, just heavenly.

Googled jazz spots in LI, this place came up. The Jazz crew was awesome, I really enjoyed just hanging out listening to them. I ordered a salad and drink, which was good. The service was great, the people are friendly. The Jazz musicians even went table to table to speak to the guest in between sets.

I have visited Grasso many times over the years and recently had an unpleasant
Experience there. Although the food and waiter service were excellent, the manager, Janet
Was awful. She yelled at the bar tender in full view of all the guests and had an awful disposition which was evident to every diner. She also began to push my party of four up from
Our table when we were seated for about 90 minutes and still enjoying our dessert.
She told us she needed the table for another reservation and when we told her we would like to finish our dessert first, she stood near the table and stared at us with a very unpleasant look on her face.
She then asked us to move to the bar for a free after dinner drink and we declined and told her we would rather leave and not ever return. Certainly Gail Grasso deserves better from her staff. Apparently, this is a common problem at what would otherwise be a fabulous dining experience. Get rid of Janet, she degrades a fine restaurant.
Michael C Northport NY

I went to Grasso’s for dinner last weekend and was completely amazed at how great the experience was.
I had a conversation with one of the managers and I was surprized to hear that she was reluctant to engage « Unilocal» as a valid source of information — «always negative about everything»…
This is a great restaurant and venue.
We were seated at the time of our reservation– Our table was waiting on a Saturday night at 8pm!
The jazz entertainment was great.
The service ws attentive and cordial. Our glasses were always full.
Our table was cleaned off and reset at each course of our meal.
I had the Filet Mignon — generous portion cooked to perfection. I also tried the Lobster Mac and Cheese — Excellent.
For desert I had the Vanillia Bread Pudding with Ice Cream… OMG — I ate it all — cleaned off the plate.
We were left to finish our coffee and drinks as long as we wanted and were not bothered by the staff to «move along».
THIS IS BY FAR ONE OF THE BEST KEPT RESTAURANT SECRETS IN HUNTINGTON —
To the management I say — 1^st: GREAT JOB… I am coming back… a lot. and 2^nd: Look — a positive «good» Unilocal— Go figure !!!
My advise — Give it a try (When I am not trying to get a reservation) you won’t be dissapointed.

I read the reviews before going to Grasso’s. With a ⁵⁰⁄₅₀ good and bad set of reviews we decided to try it anyway. I am sooooo happy we chose to go. Without any hesitation, I can honestly say this was one of the best dining experiences I have ever had. Just as a reference point, I eat at the Huntington upscale restaurants frequently. The second you walk in you immediately feel comfortable. The décor, lighting, and jazz sets the stage for a comfortable, upscale, and memorable experience. I glanced at my husband and he said «Good choice!» I responded with «I hope the food lives up to the ambiance.» Well it more than lived up to it. The service was impeccable. Wait staff was attentive and efficient. The silverware was replaced at every course and the table was wiped free of crumbs (2 things you rarely see done anymore). We were a party of 4… all salads were delicious we got the arugala, the watermelon feta and the caesar. My salmon was cooked correctly (a little underdone in the center… perfect!!!) which no one seems to know how to do. The pork chop was delicious. The desserts were outstanding… bread pudding, berry Napolean, and mousse cake. We stayed til closing… we truly did not want to leave. A singer joined the musicians half way through our meal which made things even better. I cannot wait to go back. This is my new favorite place.

Good food in a charming ambience of beautiful Cold Spring Harbor village. Very nice bar where you can see out to the village while you dine. Also live music at night. Outdoor tables provide charming atmosphere with pretty plantings and flowers… very enjoyable for a nice lunch! Recommend crab cakes for lunch!

Outstanding food. Excellent mussels and burrata. Great swordfish and lamb chops. Triple mousse cake outstanding. Service very good.

I came here with my wife and another couple for the first time recently. We all were happy with our food, the taste of the presentation were both very good. I’m just taking off 2 stars for the service. The hostess and the bartender in particular just made you not want to be there. It’s as if we were being so cruel making them do their job. It’s too bad because we liked the food but we won’t be back.

We went here for a retirement lunch for one of my co-​workers. Our entire department went. The woman of honor was a bit disappointed because instead of one large table (we were only about 24) they had 4 small round tables. She wanted a more unified setting but due to our time limitations we had to accept the setup the way that it was.
As a started I ordered the walnut salad sans blue cheese; I loved it. For a main dish I ordered the chicken burrito. I liked the burrito but it was served with a side of potato salad, which I found strange, and didn’t even touch. Finally the dessert platter was outrageous; there was mousse, cheesecake, cookies, ice cream, etc. That was my favorite part.

I came here with co-​workers for lunch. Ordered black fish with crab meat on top and rice and spinach on the side.
Cons: The presentation of the food was mediocre, same as you would get in a company cafeteria. A piece of fish next to boiled rice and steamed spinach. The spinach leaves were not cut, the bottom of the stems looked liked it was steamed right out witout cutting a small piece to get rid of the discolored part. The rice was cooked using vegetable broth, it was not cooked properly, still crunchy. Fish was mediocre, not juicy or tender, also very little carb meat on top. For the $$$ price point definetely not worth it.
Pros: Service was very attentive and polite.

Fantastic meal!
We started with Blue Point oysters, baked with pesto, and seared diver sea scallops over a butternut purée. Beautifully plated and perfectly prepared. So delicious.
We are here for Throw Back Sunday, and Grasso’s is celebrating their 20^th year in business. They are presenting their original menu from 1994.
The Caesar and Beet salads were terrific. For entrees, we had the filet mignonette, medium rare, and black fish special. Every bite was fantastic. The filet was cooked exactly as we requested and the fish was melt in your mouth tender and flaky.
And, the best part of the evening was the service. We never waited more than a few moments before one of the staff members came by to check on us. The highlight of the evening was a visit from Gail Grasso, who confirmed that wedding had a great evening and then shared a few stories about how she and her partners opened the restaurant.
Great food, great service, great live music and great sense of local connection to the history of the north shore.

This place pretends to be upscale in presentation and service but the food is awful. Completely tasteless, unoriginal, overcooked and most importantly, overpriced. If I wanted rubbery meat with gravy and frozen vegetables, I could have made them myself. The owner seemed to give us attitude for wanting to be seated? Judging from the other reviews, it seems we’re not the only ones to notice the off-​putting attitude of the owner. The only reason this place is still in business is because it’s the only restaurant in the area. Stay far far away.

I just ate at this restaurant tonight and I was so annoyed after I left I immediately said I’m writing a review on Unilocal.The service at this place was horrible. It took so long for the waiter to come take our orders after we were seated. My parents ordered wine and they definitely forgot about it until my dad said something. Whenever the took our plates away they were very aggressive, didn’t ask if we were finished and I felt very rushed even though it wasn’t busy at all. I had my fork and knife on my appetizer plate and instead of the waiter taking it off by picking them it, he just slid them off onto the table. It was NOT classy. The food was nothing special; mine and my sister’s pasta dishes were pretty tasteless. I got chocolate gelato that was not gelato, it was just ice cream and probably Edys. It took forever to get the check since they never came to our table to see how we were doing. Also, the check said there is a 3% discount if you pay in cash… (See picture)
The ONLY good part was that there was live music with a singer/​pianist and bass player which was really good.
I do not recommend going to this restaurant at all! It is horrible.

Nice décor with live music. Unfortunately this the only good thing about this place. Overpriced specials ($ 39 Veal), horrible food (frozen vegetables) with mediocre service.

Have been going here for over 5 years, and it has really gone down hill. Today will be my last visit here, sadly. Quality of the food has slowly eroded, and there is ZERO creativity. Today was the last time after previous mediocre at best experiences over the last few months. Each time it has gotten worse.
Today we were served a strudel that was full of grease and a sloppy mess of a tomato bruschetta… it wasn’t even close to a proper bruschetta. Chicken sandwich and a turkey burger… both very dry, sandwich was suppose to come with a pesto… it was garlic butter. The rolls for both were the ones you get at the supermarket in the plastic bins that you have to use tongs to pick up… really? Not even a decent bakery roll to hide the flavorless and uninspired food.
Like I said, I LOVED this place years ago… it’s not even close to what it use to be. I would have to think there is no real chef or the original chef must have left. Won’t be returning again.

I really liked this place —
Cold Spring harbor is just an adorable town to begin with (all .25 miles of it), and this place is set up on sort of against a hill, with some intimate outside seating, a larger dining room and a nice bar area.
I came here because my Aunt sings here every so often, and I wanted to toss her some support, so my friend and I took the train in (taxi, about a five minute ride) and decided to sit at the bar and split some appetizers.
The waitstaff is extremely friendly and helpful, and when I walked through the dining room, it wasn’t over crowded with tables to jam people in — also, in the ladies room, there was an amenities basket that you don’t usually see any more with cotton corks, hand lotion, nail files — nice touch.
The bar looks right into the cozy, smaller part of the room with a small dance floor and a handful of «intimate» seating — I hate using the same word to describe something, but thats really the best description — and the bartender was just fantastic. Very sweet lady, NICE pours on the wine, and very, very friendly. We wound up splitting figs stuffed with goat cheese wrapped in prosciutto over argula, crab cakes over mesculn greens and oysters two ways — 6 raw, 6 baked with cheese.
every single thing was fantastic. I kept thinking «which one would be my favorite» and I couldn’t decide. they also give you a bread and flat bread basket accompanied by an olive tapanade, hummus, and this lovely garlic/​basil infused olive oil.
over all, we had a wonderful experience with the setting, the people, the staff and the food. If I can get the beefcake up to the north shore for a date night, this will probably be on our short list of places to go — every dinner sounded delicious.