The Grill

Book Four to Six Weeks Out — and Request the Bar for Late Arrivals

If you are visiting The Grill for the first time, here is the most useful thing to know before you do anything else: this room is hard to get into, and it rewards people who plan ahead. The Seagram Building address and Major Food Group ownership mean the reservation calendar fills fast, particularly for prime dinner slots Thursday through Saturday. Four to six weeks out is the realistic minimum if you want your pick of seating. That said, if your schedule is less rigid, the bar area is your leading friend for a late-evening visit — arrive after 9 PM and you have a better chance of walking into one of Midtown East's most architecturally dramatic rooms without a weeks-long wait.

The room itself sets the tone immediately. Walking into The Grill is not a quiet experience. The Philip Johnson-designed space, soaring ceilings, the famous Seagram bronze sculpture, those gently rippling chain curtains, creates an ambient energy that lands somewhere between a grand European brasserie and a Wall Street victory lap. The sound level during peak service is high: conversations are audible but the room hums with the kind of purposeful noise that signals a full house. First-timers often underestimate how theatrical the whole thing is. Tableside presentations are standard practice here, not a party trick reserved for special occasions, and the floor staff move with a confidence that is performative in the leading sense. This is not a room designed for quiet intimacy. If you want a hushed, contemplative dinner, look elsewhere. If you want the feeling of being inside a New York moment, this is the address.

The food is American chophouse, executed with serious intent. The prime rib, tableside-carved, which is worth specifying when you book, is the dish that defines the kitchen's approach: classical, generous, technically precise. The pasta à la presse is prepared using a vintage silver duck press, a piece of theater that also produces genuinely good food. The lemon chiffon cake has received enough attention across enough publications that ordering it is not a tourist move; it is simply the right call. Chef Alex Clark leads the kitchen, and the wine program under directors John Slover and Amy Thurmond is serious: 3,515 selections, an inventory of 22,800 bottles, and particular depth in California, Burgundy, Bordeaux, Champagne, and Italy. Wine pricing sits at $$$, meaning you should expect many bottles above $100; corkage, if you bring your own, is $95.

New York Magazine named The Grill to its list of the 43 Best Restaurants in New York in 2025. The Michelin guide awarded it three stars, the highest rating in the guide, describing the prime rib as "plush as a sofa" and the lemon chiffon cake as "sculptural." Google reviews average 4.5 across 766 ratings. For a room of this profile and price tier, that is a consistent track record across both professional critics and general diners.

The Grill sits in the $$$$ price bracket for food (cuisine pricing notes $66+ for a typical two-course meal, not including beverages or tip), which puts it in the same conversation as Midtown's most expensive addresses. For that spend, you are getting three distinct things: the room, the service, and the food, and all three hold up. The room is a listed landmark interior. The service is genuinely skilled, not just polished. The food is not decorative; the kitchen has a point of view. Whether that combination justifies the spend depends on what you are optimizing for, but if a grand, full-throttle New York dinner is the goal, The Grill delivers it more completely than most alternatives at this price point.

For a late-night visit specifically, the bar program and the room's energy make it one of the more compelling options in Midtown after standard dinner hours wind down elsewhere. The scene at the bar sustains itself later than many comparable addresses, and the cocktail list is treated with the same seriousness as the food menu. If you are coming from a show or a late meeting and want something that feels genuinely New York rather than hotel-adjacent, this is worth knowing about.

The Grill is owned by Jeff Zalaznick, Rich Torrisi, Mario Carbone, and Aby Rosen under Major Food Group, the same team behind Carbone and ZZ's. General Manager Carly Flynn oversees the floor. The address is 99 East 52nd Street in the Seagram Building, Midtown East.

How It Compares

See the comparison table below for a direct look at how The Grill stacks up against the other $$$$ options in New York. For more on what else the city offers at every price point, see our full New York City restaurants guide.

Explore More in New York City

If The Grill is where you land for a landmark Midtown dinner, here are other addresses worth knowing for the rest of your trip. For a lower-key American option downtown, Cafe Commerce offers a sharp contrast in scale and price. Carlyle Restaurant on the Upper East Side fills a similar grand-institution brief for a different neighbourhood. For something more casual before or after, Archie's Tap & Table and Community Food & Juice are both worth bookmarking. Family Meal at Blue Hill is the right call if you want serious sourcing at a friendlier price point. Beyond New York, the American chophouse and grand-room format shows up in different forms at Emeril's in New Orleans, Lazy Bear in San Francisco, Alinea in Chicago, Single Thread Farm in Healdsburg, The French Laundry in Napa, Providence in Los Angeles, Hilda and Jesse in San Francisco, and Selby's in Atherton. For everything else the city offers, browse our New York City hotels guide, bars guide, wineries guide, and experiences guide.