Grappa Mediterranean Bistro

We’ve lived in Denver for about 2 years and have been on a mission to find good restaurant s. Grappa is our go to place. Consistently good food, service and wine and love the patio overlooking Clear Creek. Wonderful place!

Came here for an office lunch, ordered the following:
Eggplant parmigiana — bland, eggplant was like rubber
Raspberry cream brûlée — came with 1 raspberry, could getter better for less at Costco.
Overall service was terrible, our group were the only people in the restaurant and, somehow the servers managed to screw things up. Anything from forgotten appetizers, drinks, entrees to serving overly burnt bread. They also ran out of signature dishes on their menu, on a Friday afternoon!
Glad this was on the office, I would’ve been even more disappointed if I had to pay for it!

After my second time eating here, I have to say it’s just not worth going to. The service is anxious, but ineffective, the napkin I received was already used and dirty, and the minestrone was far too salty.
I want to like this place; the location is fantastic, but it may have seen better days. I’ve gotten overlooked meat, over salted food, and underwhelming in between. There are better options.

I have been attending this place for years and is the best casual fine dining restaurant in Golden. If you haven’t tried you need to do so as it serves the best food money can buy. The service is fantastic and the prices are perfect and worth the drive. Thank you for being here.

We fully enjoyed our dinning experience. The food was delicious. There was 4 in our party and we all enjoyed our meals. The restaurant so pretty and was it was beautiful to enjoy Golden’s Christmas lights from our table.

The service was great. We had a large party without a reservation. Tikal was our server and he anticipated our needs. We were in a hurry and we received our lunch and check promptly but never felt rushed. The caprese salad was good. The Minestrone soup was ok. A bit oily but still good. Lovely interior. Would recommend and would go again. BTW was told that they had new better wait staff. Our experience confirmed that.

Patio was nice, service was friendly, wine was good… but the food was just okay. Not a good value for what to pay. We like the Golden hotel across the street when we want to sit by the river and eat good food.

I have never written a review before, nor am I great at expressing my thoughts into words… but I will try to because Grappa Mediterranean Bistro has become my new favorite eatery!!! The choice of food was exceptional and presentation was top-​notch. The service was professional and Tikal knows his product. Service is important to me as well as the food Tikal and Liz are great servers and deserve to be recognized for the work they do.
I will return again and again… please give them a try. A great find in Golden.

The best thing about this place is the patio. The food is decent but overall over priced. The service is slow — so don’t come by if you’re hoping for a quick lunch. Worth it tho if you have time and want to overlook the river.

BARF CITY. Don’t be fooled. Under the guise of an expensive restaurant with good food… Grappa is regurgitated lean cuisine with fancy table cloths at best. Microwaves around the world would provide better value and service than what can be offered at this shit hole.
Our server was clearly brand new– or on her first day, she made that clear many times. She handled it well, covered herself explained she didn’t know most of the menu. We repeatedly saw her asking her manager questions on some of the specials… Oddly enough we saw on multiple instances the manager rolling his eyes, shouting or turning away. Ordering our food took over 20 minutes of back and forth between our party and the staff. Red flag!!!
Crap on a plate is still crap. $ 15 a plate you would expect at least edible food. But nay, ’twas shit.
And the Coup de grace…
11:45 AM: Enter our party of 8
12:05 PM: Server starts to take our orders after 20 minutes of waiting. I ask what the chef’s special is. She doesn’t know and runs off
12:10 PM: Back with an answer, at this point most people are impatient and want to order. So I end up getting the special because it sounds ‘aight.
12:45 PM: Finally get our food
1:00 PM: Now the fun starts. We’re about done eating and we ask for separate checks.
Flash forward one hour to 2PM. It’s clear the server has no idea what she is doing and is struggling as hard as she can to figure out the POS system. She comes over check by check for 1 hour, almost to the point of tears because she was so stressed out. While the misogynistic manager looked on from across the bar the entire time while still doing nothing. Not sure what his problem was but he clearly didn’t give a shit about his restaurant.
And neither should you. This place sucks. Fuck Grappa.

I love this place! I’m not sure why it doesn’t show up when I do a Unilocal!search of restaurants in Golden. Luckily, I knew the name. Great ambiance, service and food!

Great food when you actually receive it BUT every time we come here the service stinks. We’ve been here 4 times and every time we wait 20+ minutes for a drink and then another 40/​50+ mins for our food. Ridiculous. Even when they are EMPTY! We keep giving this place the benefit of the doubt but I will never be coming here again.

Patio dining with our four legged kids on the patio!!! Even though they are both service dogs, the hostess had no problem with any dogs and dining on the patio. Just sipping Chardonnay, watching rafters float by while waiting for the next course.
I ordered the Grappa burger with frites. The garnish for the burger was a bit of mixed greens from the salad which was great as the burger and bacon were overcooked (yes I ordered medium it came well). That was a shame as the burger had great seasoning and the frites were delicious!
My wife ordered the French grilled ham and cheese sandwich which was undercooked. She was grateful that she had enjoyed the French onion soup which was delicious. The dressed mixed green salad was enjoyed by me.
I guess we either hit the chef on and off afternoon or they cook well enough for tourists who dine once at Grappa. We will be back for wine and frittes but nothing else.

The service here is terrible. The food was mediocre at best.
Really good bread though.

I will start by saying I live with a chef and am somewhat picky about food reviews. We tried 3 appetizers and all were wonderful. The standout was the escargot which has a great sauce which worked perfectly with the fresh bread.
The entre was a buffalo crusted sirloin. Ordered med rare, it was perfect. Tender juicy and amazing combo of spices.
The staff was attentive and the outdoor setting could not be beat. If you are looking to get away from the chain restaurants and experience a great meal, look no further.

Pros
Atmosphere: Amazing. Great views and a nice patio
Band: Sounded great and was perfect for a nice dinner
CONS
Under staffed? Took 5 minutes just to get our waters after being seated. After drinking from my glass I was told of the giant piece of food that was stuck to the other side of the glass. When my fiancé ordered her drink he had to come back (because he didn’t write it down) and asked what she ordered again. Ordered pasta and after it came out and I waited for it not to get too cold I ended up having to walk to the back of the restaurant to get my own Parmesan cheese. I don’t think I’ve ever had to do that at an «Italian» restaurant before.
Food: Blah, I ordered the Spinach Fettuccine a la Primavera. Now when I order a pasta with no meat for $ 18 I’d expect it to be flavorful. Instead I had to empty the salt shaker on it (Not really and I don’t love salt but I don’t think they added any). After that and the parmesan cheese it started to taste like a pasta dish but was still highly disappointed by their pesto sauce, pesto keep in mind is one of the easiest sauces to make! I actually went to Noodles & Co for lunch today and was far more satisfied!
My fiancé ordered the Salad Nicoise, pull out a quarter (for size comparison), then cook the hell out of it and that’s the piece of tuna that came out (ordered medium rare). She liked her dish (after they brought out a second slightly over cooked piece of tuna), but I’m not kidding when I say it was probably 4 bites worth of fish.
Overall if they didn’t have the location they do I would have given them 1 star. I may go back but ONLY for drinks, I’m pretty sure I can find a place to drink elsewhere.

This evening was remarkable! Our Greek salad was delicious… the dressing devine. The special crusted Snapper this evening was prepared to perfection. Dessert was so wonderful. Our chef Maurice came to our table and shared his insights, warmth and hospitality. Wait staff exceptional.

I’ve been to Grappa several times. Sadly, every time we go they get worse from the time before. And it’s not just me — you can watch the Unilocal ratings decline steadily over time. What’s more, it appears to be endemic across both locations — the Belmar location isn’t faring any better than is the Golden venue.
We went for lunch on a Saturday a couple of weeks ago. They weren’t busy, but still, our service was dreadful — not unpleasant — just slow, inattentive, and generally incompetent. When our food finely came, it was no better than the service — overcooked pasta and dry and flavorless eggplant (Eggplant Parmesan), ciopino quite unlike any ciopino I’ve ever had or seen elsewhere (Ciopino with Andouille), and an uninspired «Grappa Panini.» Honestly, two stars is being pretty generous — our experience was perilously close to the dreaded one-​star.
Given that both locations are foundering and declining from an already low baseline, I thinks it’s safe to wonder if there aren’t major ownership and/​or management issues. But that’s not my business, even if there are. What is my business is where I spend my restaurant dollars, and while I’ve given Grappa ample opportunity, I think it’s time to wave the white flag of surrender and concede that enough is indeed enough.

Sigh. I should have checked the Unilocal reviews before coming. I’m easy to please and I was disappointed by just about the entire experience. The food was decent but sub par for the price. The staff is laughably rude, insulting our orders and ignoring us essentially the entire time. Great location better served by a new restaurant.

I dined at this restaurant recently and ordered a steak dish. I am extremely allergic to mushrooms and told the server when I ordered. The server assured me that there were no mushrooms in the sauce that covered the steak. When they brought out the dish, it looked to me like there were mushrooms in the sauce and I asked the server to double check with the chef. She came back and assured me that there were no mushrooms. With about three bites left I saw that were some mushrooms under the steak. I popped 3 Benadryl and asked to speak with the chef (who also owns the restaurant). Very concerned, I asked him how the mushrooms got there and he repeatedly denied that there were mushrooms. After five minutes and the waitress bringing over the plate to show him the mushrooms, he finally came clean and was extremely rude. He did not offer to comp my meal and berated me for having an allergy.
Never have I experienced such rudeness. I wonder what the health department and better business bureau will think about this. He will find out soon…