Grand Central Oyster Bar NYC

Grand Central Oyster Bar NYC is tucked inside arguably the most popular train station in the world. Grand Central Station is a classic location and has this elegant ambience, so you would assume the Oyster Bar would have the same feel to it right? Not so fast.

The Appearance of Grand Central Oyster Bar NYC

Looking from the outside in, the restaurant is very beautiful. Grand Central Oyster Bar NYC is located underneath Grand Central Station and the location obviously attracts business men and tourists alike. Now keep in mind, thousands of pedestrians walk through the train station every single day. When we went to the restaurant it was relatively empty considering the fact so many people pass by it. In their defense, we went around 3 PM and no one usually eats at that time. Inside Grand Central Oyster Bar NYC, the architecture is gorgeous with arches supporting the structure of the restaurant and dim lights illuminating the restaurant.

With that being said, when we walked in we already felt that it was a little bit disorganized and understaffed. We walked up to the host and asked for a table for two. The host just tells us you can either sit at the counter or oyster bar. OK. Cool. What does that even mean and where is it? No one walked us to the table, so we walked around questioning where we should sit. We eventually sat down at the counter which was dirty but they were the only seats available since the rest of the counters had signs reading “This counter is closed”. The server went ahead and wiped down the table and proceeded to give us our utensils. One of our spoons was covered with honey and had to ask for a new one (obviously).

The Food

The food was pretty basic. We ordered The New England Clam Chowder and  and a seafood platter which consisted of fried scallops, whole belly clams and french fries. We felt like little details were missed when it came to the food.  For example, the New England Clam Chowder, didn’t have any garnishes on it to make the dish pop. Usually you would serve the dish with chowder crackers, but even that didn’t come with the dish. As far as taste, the soup was OK. It wasn’t anything special. The seafood platter wasn’t anything special also. Although, the scallops were perfectly cooked, so kudos to them. So what was the downfall of the dish? There weren’t any lemons. Who serves fried seafood without any lemons? That’s like serving someone steak and then not giving them a steak knife. We were about to order oysters, but because Grand Central Oyster Bar was pretty dirty, we didn’t really trust them serving us raw seafood.

For dessert we had New York Cheesecake and a Pumpkin Chiffon Cheesecake. Again, nothing special here. It was good but it wasn’t amazing.

We feel like Grand Central Oyster Bar NYC is a spot for people that have a layover and it’s the first restaurant they see. They also need to be really hungry as well. We wouldn’t recommend this restaurant since we feel like there are better options in New York. If you’re curious about the restaurant you can find more information here.