I went to Grace for the first time with a rather large group (12 people) and the dinner was much better then expected. The decor of the restaurant is mcuh niced than I expected and the restaurant a little more formal than what the neighbourhood would suggest. Jeans and a golf shirt felt a bit out of place here.
Started off with a great cocktail (the "southern gentleman" i believe), bourbon and peach and smoked strawberries and some other ingredients that I can't recall. But it was good. Really good.
I had the special ap of the day - crispy lobster, and man, was it amazing. So good. Better then the famous rock shrimp dish at Nobu (at least I thought so). Other I was dining with had the pork belly which wasn't bad. For mains I was able to try the Gnudi (ok, a little disappointing after tasting everything else), chicken pot pie (amazing), cocoa and cayenne (i think) rubber tenderloin in foie gras sauce (amazing), the pork chop (amazing) lamb linguine (not that special).
Desserts were so-so but I am not that much of a dessert person. People at teh table loved the banana cake
Service was pretty good (i loved the tap water with cucumber slices, so simple but the subtle flavour difference was great), but our server didn't seem to know the menu very well or the ingredients in certain dishes. It was also weird how they told us we had to give up the table by 9:00 to find the resturant still half empty when 9 struck. We ended up staying past 10.
All in all a great experience.