Today I want to do a short review of the Grape Street Cafe Wine Bar & Cellar (http://grapestreetvegas.com/) which is located at 2120 Festival Plaza Drive which is at the Summerlin Mall here in Las Vegas. It is unusually for me to do a review on a restaurant since I write about wine but the family and I were walking around the Summerlin mall the other day and I happened to see the name of the restaurant and figured this would be great considering the name. The Grape Street Cafe Wine Bar & Cellar was ranked "very Good to excellent" by Zagat for it's cuisine and named a "Top 10 Las Vegas Wine Bar Restaurant" by Gayot. So how do real people feel about it? When you walk up to ther restaurant you see a decent size open air patio. The restaurant has a very open feel, even inside since the whole front is open and faces into the mall which is built to look like an actual city square with shops all around. It is located next to Macy's, which by the way has the only Starbucks as well as being centrally located in the mall. When you first walk inside there at first glance appears to be a large wall of wine bottles (which is right behind the bar) stacked to the ceiling. When you take a further look at it however you see that only about one quarter of the wall is actually real wine the rest is clear bottles with nothing inside. This becomes rather noticeably and I thought, rather noticeable when you take the time to look around. To me it appeared that someone took a shortcut and was too lazy to finish what was going to be a nice project. Scattered throughout the restaurant is wine related items such as wine boxes used for display along a with a few half wine barrels as well. There was also a large wine fridge situated when you first walk in. Overall I must say that they do sell the whole "Grape" thing rather well and the decor was pleasing to the eye. Being that the whole face of the restaurant is open and as I said there is a decent sized patio with rails going around the perimeter and yet low enough at the same time where you can watch the people walk by as well as come and go to the stores, if you are a people watcher you will have plenty to watch. Remember the whole mall is set up like an actual city so it is almost like you are eating in the middle of a real neighborhood.
When we first arrived we were greeted very nicely by an employee who seemed genuinely happy to be there. The wait was about five minutes and which was nice. Our server was Miguel who was also very happy and welcoming and also appeared as if he wanted to be there. Miguel was also VERY accommodating. I'll give you an example. As I have told my fans my two four olds drink Welch's Grape juice which is sold in a bottle similar to wine bottles so they are under the impression that they are drinking kids wine. With this I am able to teach them the whole wine pouring / swirling bit. I quietly asked Miguel if there was a drink they had that could be served in a wine glasses to give the appearance of wine. He was quick to come up with suggestions and we agreed on Apple Cider.
When he came back he informed me that they did not have any Apple cider and he worked pleasantly with me to come up with another idea. Miguel then said he had an idea and off he went. When he came back this time it was with two wine glasses filled with Sprit. Since no one in my home drinks Soda I informed him that that would not be acceptable. Miguel (with a wonderful attitude) further talked with me about another substitute. We ended up settling on Cranberry juice which I told them was Cabernet Sauvignon and they loved it. The point here is that Miguel was GREAT and the restaurant should be glad he is an employee there. I went ahead ordered an appetizer which was the Crab stuffed Shrimp which arrived with 6 medium sized Shrimp with a small amount of what appeared to be a very lightly breaded crab mix on each Shrimp. All of this was laid out nicely in a sauce. The appetizer tasted very nice but I must say was pricey at $14. It was also just enough for one person so if you are thinking of splitting with someone think again. With the Crab I ordered a glass of the Swanson Estate Merlot which was priced at $15. I thought the wine was on the sweet side bit was more that drinkingable so I did just that. By the way there are over 80 wines by the glass sold here. For my entree I ordered the Jumbo Cheese Raviolis at $16.
As I am sure you can see now, this place is not inexpensive (http://grapestreetvegas.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/grape-street-downtown-summerlin-cm.pdf). When the meal arrived the presentation was very nice and the Raviolis were seasoned very nicely with tons of flavor. One word of caution here, If you are expecting a portion size like that of an Olive Garden you are in the wrong place. If it weren't for the great bread and real Butter that was provided and some of my Daughters food I would have left hungry. I guess it is great for a nice Lunch. I will admit that I have a big appetite but I still felt that my portion was on the small side. My Wife had Spaghetti which came with Two large Meatballs. The babies had Mac & Cheese and my Wife's and all my Daughters portions were of nice size. My oldest Daughter had the Angel Hair Primavera and it arrived with some nice vegetables and Pine Nuts. I have to say that the food was very good. The restaurant was very clean and MOST of the staff (see next paragraph) seemed very happy and glad to be there so I think says something about the management.
I am going to place my final thoughts here on the restaurant in general and then move onto the a BIG issue and the only real drawback that I experienced. The restaurant was very nice. The atmosphere was very accommodating and welcoming for a family, there was no "partying" going on. This is a place you can take your Family and not be worried they will run into drunken fools. I cannot speak for night time or a weekend however. The food was very good and full of flavor and the Pasta was cooked to perfection. The glassware and Silverware were clean and very nice. The service and overall cleanliness was great, thanks Miguel. The decor was also appropriate for the name of the restaurant. In summary, if you have a little bit of cash laying around and want to treat the family then I highly recommend the Grape Street Cafe Wine Bar & Cellar in Summerlin Las Vegas. One thing to note is that there is no kids menu so they will either have to share. This place would also make a nice location for a night out with the Spouse as well. If you want guaranteed great service ask for miguel.
Now that I have gotten the good parts done there is one more thing that being The Desert Wine Guy I feel I need to mention. The restaurant has a Sommelier which I thought was a nice touch. Miguel during talking with him pointed out the Sommelier and I asked if he could let him know that I would like to talk with him. Miguel immediately went over and relayed my request. About 5 minutes later the Sommelier wonders (yes I said wonders) over to the table acting VERY uninterested, eyes and head everywhere but where they are supposed to be and that is on the person who is talking to him. When I introduced myself and handed him a card he still insisted on looking everywhere but at me, which should have been his focus. When I explained to him what I do he STILL CONSTANTLY had elsewhere to look and other things to pay attention to. I felt blown off. Not once throughout the one sided conversation did he act in the slightest bit interested in talking to me about wine or anything else. He had no idea if I was influential in the local wine scene or not or for that matter did he even appear to care. When I handed him a card he said that he would e-mail me but I am not holding out any thoughts of that. To say that I was insulted simply as a guest would be an understatement. To make matters even worse I watched him a present a bottle of wine to a table. The whole process of the presenting, opening & pouring of the wine was terrible and again done without any real interest or attention to his guests. There was no proper label facing to the person who ordered the wine, he simply acted like a Robot. He again simply acted uninterested in his customers. Looking at the wine list (which was very nice) you can see from the pictures of the wine menu I included that the prices per glass as well as the whole bottles were not inexpensive. The bottom line on the .....Sommelier is that he was TERRIBLE. Here is a restaurant that needs to fire their .....Sommelier RIGHT AWAY and replace him with someone who actually likes wine. I have one thing left to say. Grape Street.....your wine lovers and guests in general deserve more.
The Desert Wine Guy
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Today we are going to do a quick review of what I think is a wonderful wine. That wine is the M by Martellotto 2012 Cabernet Franc. This is A slight departure from the Cabernet Sauvignons that I usually drink. While still a Red wine I thought I would delve into new territory :) I received this wine from The Wine Of The Month Club and you can check out my review on them here (http://desertwineguy.blogspot.com/search?q=wine+of+the+month+club).
