Harbour Lights

This is the perfect place for people out of town or tourists that don’t know much about good food in the city because of the nice iconic bk bridge view, (I took relatives visiting from out of state lol) but for a New Yorker this place is a joke when it comes down to good food and service.

Waited a fort night (45 minutes because of a kitchen inspection) for our simple salads and then when we finally got them, they were soggy. Our waiter, young kid Ryan, was awesome and very apologetic, but his idiot of a boss didn’t concede when it came taking a little off for our insane inconvenience. Also, a reviewer said something about basically sucking it up because it’s a tourist trap. FALSE!!! A tourist trap makes money because it’s overpriced, NOT because the food is badl! I’m a true New Yorker and there is no way on earth i’d send anyone to this awful establishment. People at the next table hated their food too. Don’t eat here. I beg you.
*Note: We came 7÷5÷11 at around 3p. Maybe the night staff is better. Doubt it.
ps: View was nice though.

Crappy food, AWESOME sunset view of the Brooklyn Bridge! I would still recommend going, right before the sun sets because right when the bridge lights turn on and everything is twinkling and you’re really enjoying yourself, you forget about how bad the food is. If you can’t get on the balcony, ummm, well!?!

I thought I was coming for the food AND the view, but I forgot the food isn’t that great. The view wasn’t that extraordinary this time also. I think it worked its magic when i was 19. fish and chips were eh, goat cheese ravioli was good but presentation was lacking. It looked a little frumpy. Prices were too high.

Great place from which to see the waterfalls. Thats it!
Actually, Harbour Lights was a really lovely place when it first opened. Now, its just a way overpriced tourist trap with lousy yukky food and awful, just AWFUL!!! service.
Nice waterfalls, though.

Somebody I worked with picked this place for us to take a bunch of our colleagues who were visiting from out of town.
Yes the view is good, but you can see the view from the end of the pier without paying the prices here to eat food.
Those who had the steak said it was good, but they were all visitors from overseas who frankly I feel would have said that wherever I took them for a steak
I had an alleged apple wood smoked chicken breast which was hard, probably been through the microwave a couple of times and was smothered in some sticky glue like sauce
I’m not sure which wine was picked but it was pretty grim, and indeed several people were complaining of headaches the next day even though they hardly drank anything
In short if you want to see the view, just go to the end of the pier, if you want to do so whilst easting crappy food, grab something from the indoor food court and save some money

You guys are totally missing the point of this place… duuhhhh! Who walks upstairs in a tourist mall for fine cuisine? Hello? Are you guys for real?
So you really walked the entire length of the cheesiest, most over-​rated pier (shopping strip) in NYC where all hope of ambiance is completely killed by fanny-​packers walking 5 abreast slowly, while reading a map; where all of the double-​decker tour busses dump off their binocular-​toting loads into the mouth of this mall disguised as an interesting outdoor space, described as a «destination», and filled almost exclusively with these people who almost exclusively are here to buy gimmicky knock-​off «Polo» tee shirts and closeout lots of «WTC 911 — Support Our Troops» souveniers, and you really climbed 3 flights of stairs, fighting swarms of these Globus-​drop offs on your way to reach Harbour Lights, only to expect what you would find at say, Le Circ? Really?
You need a firm slap back into reality. This place is for :
1. them to make money off of trapped tourists who don’t have any options for a «nice/​traditional» place to eat with a view (since all the others on the Pier are gimmicky chain-​like corporate joints with pulsating music) and they don’t want to get too far from the rest of the Globus tour group
2. A place to come for a drink with your office lover, where no one you know would ever go, so there’s no chance of being recognized
3. The same as #2, only you want to get romantic, make-​out over bad wine with a postcard backdrop, and not be bothered (the deck has some tables that are secluded way out on the end — you can sit here, whisper quiet nothings, gaze at eachother, and make your lover think you have class if you come here, with prices and a certain scenery that makes them think you’d leave your spouse for them without saying so)
4. A place to go for a doubleshot of single malt, while you sit alone with your dark glasses on, crying about whatever misery is going on in your life (i.e. your lover left you for a dragqueen) looking out at the City from the perspective of a tourist — a place you thought you knew… but now it all feels so foreign… and you contemplate which bridge to jump from as the breathtaking view gets blurrier and blurrier…
5. A place to quietly discuss plans for your next mafia hit (or carry out a hit at one of the tables) over oysters on the half shell and poorly-​done surf-​n-​turf
6. A place to take your high priced hooker for dinner if you’re a sleazy guy, or if you’re a sleazy chic, this is a place where that fat, toupet-​wearing Wall St. sugar daddy might take you before you blow his mind for a coupla G’s (Again, total annonyminity while feeling bearable in the moment).
Harbour Lights is good as a total distraction from the reality of NY living — it has nothing to do with NY life (namely, yours) while overlooking the City in all of its complexity. No, Harbour Lights surely is not about the food, nor the dining «experience» — it is about you removing yourself from your social circle and normal routine to go to a place where nobody knows your name, and nobody knows why you came…
And that’s the point.
So if money is not really the main worry when all you want is to be left alone to suck on your 19-​year-​old loverboy’s neck with a romantic view, and you don’t want your wife to ever have the smallest chance of finding out, come here.
Get it?
Do your dirt, fooool

My dining experience here prompted me to write a new wait-​service code of conduct:
1. When a customer tries desperately to make eye contact with you, while waving and quite possible blinking faster than normal, don’t duck away.
2. Please speak enough English to take my order.
3. Daily specials? How about mentioning them.
4. At least have the courtesy to use your mobile *after* you’ve ducked away from us while we’re still waving and looking in your direction and blinking faster than normal.
5. Are you in a hurry? Stop hovering over our check to see how much we’re tipping, because you ain’t gonna get squat.
6. I hate you.
That said, the view is very pretty. Please, have a star.

I went out with some colleagues to Harbour Lights for the view and to be outside. I was surprised with how expensive everything was and didn’t really feel like spending $ 18 on a chicken pot pie. That being said, there was a $ 8 burger that when topped with bacon and cheese was pretty good. If you’re ever at this place and don’t feel like spending too much cash, I’d suggest the burger.
The portions are very big but still expensive, in my mind, for the quality of the meal.

As Steve C mentioned below, it isn’t the best place. Had lunch there yesterday with a client. The fish and chips had a pretty soggy crust. The New England clam chowder tasted worse than the cheapo Campbell’s soup brand. My god, at least they could have thrown in some more potatoes or clams.
My client started with a salad; he talked so much he didn’t put a dent in his salad by the time our entrees were ready. So he told the waiter to leave his salad on the side, as he’ll eat it with his steak entrée. I swear, at least 5 different waiters tried to take his salad away. They all thought he was done with it or didn’t want it b/​c who eats salad at the same time as their meal, right? My client had to hold a fork over his salad in a «ready-​to-​stab» position.

I ended up at Harbour Lights after hanging out at the South Street Seaport last weekend. My friends and I were looking for a sit-​down restaurant to avoid the massive crowds (early St. Patricks Day revelers) and found this place. We decided to sit outside, which has amazing views. You’re facing the Brooklyn Bridge and it’s very postcard-​esque. Well, we were all excited until we waited 15 minutes for our server to appear with our menus. So we proceeded to flag down 2 busboys and the host to find our waiter…10 minutes later, she finally showed up. It was weird because there were about 8 waiters inside just chilling around and this poor girl was waiting on all the tables outside by herself! Totally chaotic and not organized at ALL. So we order our food and then 15 minutes later, I’m told that the crab cakes I ordered are no longer available. okay… so i ask for the menu again and of course it takes another 15 minutes just to get the damn thing. I decide on the warm spinach shrimp salad but I tell her that the other entrees should come out when ready and not to let mine hold them up. She says of course. It started getting chilly outside so we decided to move inside. So the second we sit down, another waiter comes up to us and introduces himself to us like he’s our server. We tell him we just moved inside cuz it was cold and he looks confused. Then our original server finds us looking all frantic and says «oh! there you are! I thought I lost you guys!!» OK WHY ALL THIS CONFUSION!!! Our food finally comes out, and of course everything comes out together despite the fact that I asked that my entrée not hold up the others. Amazingly, the food was awesome! My salad was sooooo good. It had a great taste with bits of bacon. My friends loved their food too (banana stuffed pancakes and the fish & chips). I was pleasantly surprised given the sub-​par service up until that point. So bottom line, the food is great but the service and ambiance is TERRIBLE. So I’m not sure that I would ever go back because the service was THAT bad and i left with a bit of a headache. Plus the prices weren’t too expensive, but not worth the chaos.