The ice-on-metal sound of cocktail shakers echoes off the high ceilings of The Grill, six days a week. From open til close, bartenders concoct stiff drinks and hand off sub-zero, pre-batched martinis to servers, who whisk them away to pour tableside into enormous crystal glasses, from mind-boggling heights.
Inside the Seagram building—where The Four Seasons restaurant wined and dined from 1959 to 2016, and where the term power lunch was born—The Grill has special occasion in its DNA. It’s always full of families toasting middle school graduations, and businessmen who’ve just closed an important deal. (Or whatever it is someone does to necessitate a three-martini lunch.)
photo credit: David A. Lee
photo credit: David A. Lee
photo credit: David A. Lee
photo credit: David A. Lee
photo credit: David A. Lee
But unlike its hard-to-get-into Major Food Group cousins Torrisi and Carbone, The Grill most likely has a table available tonight. If not tonight, then definitely tomorrow. It’s a fancy, buttoned-up restaurant that also allows for spontaneity. Did you just win the lottery? Do you suddenly want to spend money, and a lot of it? Hail a yellow taxi cab—because you are being spontaneous after all—and head to Midtown East.
In a dark wood room that's lit up like a stage, your dinner (or power lunch) should feature enough tableside preparations to blur the lines between restaurant and theater. Keep in mind that you're here to hemorrhage money on an hours-long affair that feels so dramatic—and so well-rehearsed—that it’s hard to believe The Grill has only been around since 2017. Standouts include the avocado crab louis, tossed together in a large wooden bowl; the antique presse, which turns a collection of animal bones into a velvety pasta sauce; and the prime rib, delivered on a trolley pushed by a server who could cut precise slabs with their eyes closed.
photo credit: David A. Lee
photo credit: David A. Lee
photo credit: David A. Lee
photo credit: David A. Lee
photo credit: David A. Lee
That perfect hunk of prime rib is going to run you $95, but tonight that doesn't matter. The Grill has a coat-check downstairs where they hold your prime rib leftovers, and a powder room where you can sit on a leather stool, stare into a well-lit mirror, and convince yourself that money is no object. Pretend you are an heiress to an unnamed throne. Order the bottle, the third martini, and the Baked Alaska. Celebrate something, the right way. And take a cab home.
Food Rundown
video credit: Britt Lam
Martini
If you are feeling spontaneous but not spend-one-million-dollars spontaneous, come to The Grill for a martini at the bar. A martini at The Grill defies the laws of physics. From a height of approximately 16 inches, a server will pour it directly from the shaker into a goblet-sized glass, with no splatter. There are eight different types on the menu, and if you order two, two servers will pour them in unison. Order two.
Free Bread
Because of course there is. Here, it's a basket with soft pretzel sticks, brown crusty bread, and buttery rolls. Plus a quenelle of chive butter that tastes like scallion cream cheese.
photo credit: David A. Lee
The Seagram Crab Cake
Calling this a crab cake is deceiving, because crab cakes are usually 85% breadcrumb, 15% crab. This crab cake is 99% crab, covered in tiny, paper-thin slivers of golden-brown potato, and served on a bed of what's best described as very fancy dijonaise.
Sardines
The city’s most compelling sardines. Erase all memories you have of canned sardines circa 2020—though those are great too—and replace them with something less fishy, more tangy, laid over a bed of thinly sliced onions, and topped with a few teeny-tiny carrots, cut into flowers.
photo credit: Willa Moore
Vegetable Crudités
This platter—really more like a tower, or an entire vegetal ecosystem—isn't messing around. There’s a trio of dips, and the large metal bowl is filled with crushed ice and a variety of crudités, the still-intact carrot tops channeling an island with palm trees, not corporate Manhattan. The best part is when a piece of crushed ice hitches a ride on a carrot, resulting in a bite that's both extra crunchy, and extra cold.
photo credit: David A. Lee
Avocado Crab Louis
Your first tableside preparation of the evening. This butter lettuce salad has a tangy, thousand island-esque dressing, and just a hint of heat from a few shakes of Tabasco. A very soft salad, in the very best way. Something you could feed to a baby, if you were to feed a child Dungeness crab.
video credit: Britt Lam
Pasta A La Presse
Your second tableside preparation of the evening, and perhaps your most exciting. Do not leave The Grill without coming face-to-face with La Presse. It's a medieval-looking contraption dating back to 1901 that Mario Carbone found at an antique store in New Orleans, and one server—in our experience, always the same man—operates it. He cranks the juice out of a handful of bones with the confidence of somebody who does this 40 to 60 times a night (his estimate), before returning it to the kitchen, where the dark, meaty juices are turned into pasta sauce. The final product is downright luxurious, with a rich, smoky sauce, and a dainty heap of soft noodles.
photo credit: David A. Lee
Prime Rib Trolley Service
Your third tableside preparation. Prime rib sometimes gets a bad reputation as overcooked Christmas Eve food. Not this one. This one is Valentine’s Day-pink, brought out on a cart, and sliced at your table. Say yes to the grated horseradish, and gnaw on the bone provided. With your hands.
Steaks
Prioritize the prime rib, but don't forget that you can get a flawless steak here, with a hard crust and a soft pink interior. Some even go so far as to call this place a steakhouse, although prime-rib-and-sardine house feels more appropriate.
Cheeseburger
In comparison to the big steaks and tableside prime rib, the lunch-only burger here is a surprisingly manageable size. You could return to work after eating this burger. Do with this information what you will.
video credit: Britt Lam
Baked Alaska
Your last and final tableside presentation. Savor the show, but don’t worry—if your server thinks the flames were inadequate, they'll just do their live fire show all over again.
