The Oyster Bar

Legends, institutions and icons are frequently marketed to death and become tourist traps. It is a real pleasure to find a place that goes back nearly a century and has maintained integrity and standards for that which it became known. This is the Grand Central Oyster Bar and Restaurant, renowned for its oysters (and its doorway and Whispering Gallery - click here). It opened when Grand Central itself did in 1913. All the reviews I have read advise against eating in the main dining room and sticking with the oysters at the oyster bar/counter itself. I am not an aficionado of fish but given all the warnings and my negative predispositions towards the place, I enjoyed my first visit to the Oyster Bar much more than I expected. Their menu of seafood is huge. The main dining room seen in the photo with its vaulted Guastavino-tiled ceilings is enormous, roomy and very comfortable. Although the service was not the warmest, I write off much of this as brusk New York Style - after all this place is IN Grand Central Station, a place synonymous with congestion and crowds. Finding such a place in Grand Central really brought back feelings of old, classic, quintessential NYC and that some good things endure - and this is one of them ...