The opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not reflect the views of Spoon University.
Being born and raised in Miami (and having dined from Michelin Star restaurants to college dining halls and impoverished street grub worldwide) means that … I know what food I like and what good food SHOULD taste like. So, I am on a mission to find the Boston restaurants that are worth your time, effort, and money.
I have had better steakhouse experiences on cruise ships.
If you are anything like me and love a good steakhouse (and are immersed in what’s trending/being hyped up in the Boston food scene) then you’ve seen Grill 23 & Bar floating around. Grill 23 & Bar is an independent steakhouse that has been in Boston since 1983 (according to their website)... so I’m not sure why it kept popping up on my feed.
I figured: it has been around for a long time, has good Google reviews, is near me, and I could get a reservation, so I should try it. I even told myself ‘How bad could it be, it’s a well-rated steakhouse’. I’ll get back to that question in a minute.
The Ambiance:
I arrived a few minutes early to my reservation, and the hostess was quick to seat me. As I sat down I realized how few people were in the restaurant. I know 7pm is a bit early for dinner sometimes… but I happened to forget it was Super Bowl Sunday.
It was quiet, with no loud music blasting. In fact, it was a bit weird that there was no music at all. My server was nice when he was there but seemed to favor me less than the two bigger tables he had. He (and other servers) also asked everyone else who was seated if they were celebrating anything, but not me. Normally no one is celebrating alone, but it felt more than a little rude when combined with how little they were at my table when the restaurant was practically empty.
What I Ordered:
Bread Basket
First came a bread basket, which thankfully was free otherwise I would have full-blown cried. This was the saddest bread basket I have ever been handed at a restaurant. All of the breads were cold and did not feel fresh in the slightest. The ONLY pro here was that the butter was spreadable and soft.
1/10.
Burrata Salad
I went with the usual sequence I follow at restaurants I review – one starter, an entree, a side if applicable, and a dessert.
For my starter, I went with the Burrata Salad.
The menu describes the Burrata Salad as “roasted beets, figs, endive, sunflower vinaigrette“
Yes that white egg-looking thing you see is the burrata. For $24 they gave me the smallest burrata I had ever seen. I seriously thought they where pulling my leg. On top of that, the burrata itself had no taste – my $10 container of burrata from the grocery store is better.
The beets were the golden kind but tasty, and roasted well.
The sauce was a mystery, and I was not a fan. It was everywhere and did not taste like any sunflower vinaigrette I have ever had.
The only good part of this dish was the beets, so it got a 3/10. It had the potential to be great but was unfortunately a letdown.
Thumbelina Carrots
My side of carrots came out before the actual steak.
I’m normally fine with the sides coming out before the entree. But this side did not help the realization I was coming to on how much money I had just wasted on a horrible meal.
The carrot side dish is described in the menu as “A5 Thumbelina Carrots smoked honey, everything spice 18“
I love roasted carrots. If they are on a menu I will always be ordering them.
The Thumbelina Carrots were cute and that was about it. Mine did not come with everything spice, just an ungodly amount of sesame seeds.
They did not clean the carrots before cooking them (as in taking off the carrot hair things) which made it texture hell, and it would have been so much better without the surplus of sesame seeds. In addition, the carrots were not fully cooked through as they weren’t as soft as roasted carrots normally are.
The honey was faint at best but I’ll give it points as I sort of tasted it.
Overall the dish got a 5/10, as the few carrots I could actually eat were tasty. But the undercooked carrots and overuse of sesame seeds ruined this one for me.
Filet Mignon
For my steak I ordered the Filet Mignon.
The menu described this as just “Filet Mignon 10oz” and I beg you to keep that in mind for what I am about to say.
I always order my steak medium well, unless I have a strong trust in the restaurant and then I will order it how I actually enjoy: well done.
Now please don’t come for me, I swear I just am not the biggest fan of a pink or red center. The chewy texture kills me- and If you have read any of my other reviews you know- I HATE weird textures.
So image my shock when they confidently served me a rare steak. At this point my order had already been in for an hour, how exactly do you mess up medium well so much that you go RARE?
My server than disappeared from the face of the planet for a solid 10 minutes and I had to flag down a server that was not mine, which was hard given they sat me in a corner next to a pole as the only solo diner, and they promptly took my steak.
The steak had a weird orangey butter sauce dumped all over the top, which was NOT on the menu. Given this butter sauce I thought they would cook me a new steak, as it was their mess up and I knew the sauce would burn.
Instead, they came back with the same steak that now had the sauce burnt but was still only a medium. I gave up as they had already burnt the sauce and edges of my steak but the center was pushing a medium rare. I let it cook a little more on the plate and it turned to medium.
A few minutes later the manager came around, apologized, and then left me alone. I had not noticed at this point the unwanted butter sauce had burnt otherwise I would have pointed it out.
The butter sauce ended up ruining my steak and it tasted like a burnt thousand islands sauce. The steak came with sad and cold looking onions on the side.
The meat I could eat without running into burnt, or too rare, was actually pretty good quality and I could see the potential.
This got a 6/10 as I was able to eat about 3/4th of the steak and enjoy it given the good quality of meat… but I hated that they ruined my steak in the process of getting it back to me with their thousand island butter sauce that was put on top even though I asked my server if anything came on the steak when I ordered and he confidently said “no”.
Chocolate Layer Cake
By the time dessert came around I wanted nothing more than to go home, but I stuck around in hopes that dessert would be better. I know desserts come from a different kitchen and team so this was my reasoning for staying.
The chocolate layer cake is described by the menu as “confit oranges, cinnamon sugar tuile“
The cake arrived drowned in ganache that had been clearly reheated and thus separated on my plate. The cinnamon star on top was facing the wrong way which was a bit annoying for my photos and plating-wise, but was tasty. The confit oranges were plain sad, like a lot of my meal.
The cake itself was dry but the whole being drowned in the ganache part did help it a lot.
I could not finish this cake, but it was the best item of the meal.
It got a 7/10 from me as I would eat it again but as a girl who loves dessert… I have had far better cakes in my life, and at a higher frequency of times than I’m handed one like this.
Closing Thoughts
I have quite literally had better meals on cruise ships. Some of my favorite anecdotes I wrote in my review notebook while eating this include: “I’m going to rip my eyeballs out”, “hear me out- if I start sobbing will they finally pay attention to me?”, and “my eye twitch is back and I’m disappointed”.
A good steakhouse does not have an off night, even on Super Bowl Sunday.
I truly think this one was beyond overhyped. I paid $128 before tax and tip, and I cannot recommend this restaurant to anyone under any circumstance.
Grill 23 & Bar is not worth the hype, in fact – I have zero clue how they have any hype in the first place. There are plenty of other steakhouses in Boston, this is me begging you to skip this one.
Overall this got a 3/10 from me and a 2.9/10 on my Beli. I will not under any circumstances be back here.
Grill 23 & Bar is located at 161 Berkeley Street Boston, MA 02116.