Grand Lake Kitchen - Lake Merritt

Can't beat the matzah ball soup. Perfect for neighborhood brunch or light supper.

Good healthy food, reasonably priced. Our server that took our order was barely alive. He had low energy but the other servers were good.

The food is excellently prepared but more than that it is different. I had the bone marrow. Excellent but different. Who serves bone marrow? My bloody mary was large, filled with pickled veggies, and had a big shot of booze. I will come back and back.

We had a delightful brunch at Grand Lake Kitchen. A group of friends were gathering to celebrate a birthday. The service was excellent. The food was spectacular. We never felt rushed to leave. It was a cozy, intimate meal. Highly recommend!

The hostess was so nice and made us feel welcome and right at home when we walked in. The waitstaff was lovely and took the time to go over things on the menu. The food came out quickly and everything tasted wonderful. Great spot to meet up with friends or family for a tasty meal.

Even though the ambiance is not fancy, chose to come to this neighborhood gem to celebrate our 30th wedding anniversary. As always, excellent food (stuffed ourselves on bone marrow, burrata, avocado shrimp toast, braised cabbage, green goddess kale), delicious boozy slushies (cranberry Manhattan, mmmmm), friendly service. We were way too stuffed to consider dessert, but when I mentioned that it was our anniversary our sweet server surprised us with a scoop of ice cream with a candle. A lovely comfort-food-filled celebratory feast!

Food was excellent. As was service. It’s a favorite place for brunch.

Wonderful neighborhood spot. Have been here for breakfast several times. Dinner did not disappoint. We were here for a business dinner with some folks in from Chicago. GLK was perfect for a relaxed, unpretentious meal that delivered. No problem conversing with the moderate noise level. The menu is filled with elevated, fresh takes on deli and diner food including lots of well-prepared, savory vegetables. My husband and I both ordered the Local Rock Cod (Cornmeal dusted rock cod, carolina gold rice, roasted okra, swiss chard, chorizo jus) - so rich with flavor and texture!

Bone marrow was absolutely delicious, apple sangria was great, gnocchi were very good, chicken was ok. The last one was supposed to be the star, as it was so much better last time we had it. Hence, 4 stars for that visit unfortunately. Will keep coming back for sure!

No B’Day treat😞

Hands down, the best brunch in Oakland. Can be noisy outside, but great people watching.

Second time I've been to GLK and the food is just amazing.
Deceptively simple but delicious.

My only peeve is the noise level but that's because I'm getting old ;-)

Arrived during happy hour which was a great way to try a few things and enjoy a couple cocktails. There were three of us and we shared so many appetizers that we ended up inky sharing one other entree. Deli salads were great. The gnocchi are perfect and the Reuben fries... agh! ❤️

I love Grand Lake Kitchen. Just wish they would turn the music down a bit, especially for brunch and lunch. Its a bit loud for me personally.

Reliably delicious food in lovely setting!

Awesome meal! We had been for brunch a few times and finally decided to try GLK for dinner and it was great!

I love the food at grand Lake kitchen, it’s fantastic! The seafood tower is one of my favorites and the chop salad with a scoop of chicken salad on top of it is absolutely delicious! The service is super friendly, and they even offer gluten-free bread. This is definitely one of my favorite restaurants in the bay area for brunch or lunch

Lovely restaurant, beautiful presentation of delicious hand-crafted food. Easy parking. Amazing place.

Birthday brunch wit GFs. Some new items on the menu were delicious and we always love the donuts.

The food was quite over-seasoned other than the fried green tomatoes. The corn was cooked poorly. The chocolate mousse cup was also grainy and strangely salty. The rhubarb strawberry pie crust was soggy. The cocktails were quite good and service was average. I’m not sure I would go again though I have had better experiences there before.

Great brunch / lunch menu, lovely to sit outside with a Lake Merritt view.

I’ve been visiting this location for numerous years and have always enjoyed yummy food!!!

We’d made a weekday lunchtime reservation and were seated very cordially and promptly. They were robustly busy and we had to wait a bit for the waitperson to take our order. After waiting for 25-30 minutes for orders which required no cooking, our waitperson approached to ask if we’d like anything else. The friend I was with immediately responded with “our lunch! We haven’t had anything yet.” The waitperson was very apologetic and our meals came shortly thereafter.
I ordered the smoked salmon sandwich which was delectable! Served on toasted bread (some type of levain as I think they were out of rye)with just the right amount of cream cheese, topped with capers, red onion and chives, I unhurriedly savored every bite (a plus - we never were rushed to finish). My friend ordered the chopped salad which she devoured with pleasure. We both had iced tea which was very good.
Grand Lake Kitchen is wildly popular for a reason - overall, they’re very, very good, and I will definitely go back. I do think it would be helpful if they were to hire at least one or two more waitpersons for their very busy times.

First time visit: great service and food. Good options for vegetarians as well. I had tried to eat there previously, on a weekend morning, but had been deterred by long lines. This time I met for lunch and made a reservation in advance. Perfect! I’ll be back and look forward to sampling more of the menu.

This is such a wonderful neighborhood spot! Love that they take reservations for lunch1

It’s definitely more a brunch and lunch menu, but the food is still great for all times of the day and the service is very attentive. Solid cocktail menu as well.

very nice, not many veggi options, everything we ordered was delicious and well prepared

It’s always a pleasure to eat at GLK for brunch.

Great service and good food... what else do you need?
Oh... maybe there roasted bone marrow and grilled bread

favourite neighborhood place, at once old-worldly and very hip. delicious everything.

Consistently good and we like this place because of their use of fresh ingredients, nice presentation and good tasting food.

I take people I care about to this place, people I on whom I wanna make an impression, without ever seeming to try. At GLK I don't have to—they always come through. Classy but comfortable. Wear anything. As ever, the food had some yummy surprises and hit the mark at every point.

Only wish: turn off the TVs at the bar. I love you, GLK and you're better than that.

I love this place. The food is always fresh and delicious and the staff is outstanding. They go out of their way to be helpful and make you feel welcome.

Will not recommend for now but It is a 50/50 need a GM to clean up few things with service, menu, wine list. Definitely some potential but not there yet will see how things evolve in short term.

We had seen this place on Check Please on KQED, so we thought we'd give it a try. We made reservations and three of us went for dinner. The staff are very nice, we were seated quickly. Mostly the food was just OK. The Sunday Chicken which takes 45 minutes to prepare was the best thing we had ($50 is perhaps a little steep? Came with salad but nothing else, like potatoes). The fried green tomatoes were cut in quarters instead of sliced and were undercooked. The grilled corn wasn't bad. The matzo ball soup had way too much dill and the ball was kinda golf ball heavy. The Reuben fries was pretty darned awful. The bone-in pork chop was also just OK. Their fresh donuts for dessert were very tasty. Don't think we'll be back for dinner, but we might try them for breakfast/brunch.

Casual diner, good prices and portions, fab matzah ball soup and bone marrow.

Ran out of what we wanted but everything else was good.

Really liked it. Interesting and very good food. Only real negative was that it was very noisy and hard to talk. Otherwise a fun spot with a very hip Oakland vibe.

Really wanted to like this place. Unfortunately, my burger was way overcooked and dryed out. The place has a nice vibe, but if you can't even get a burger right, no way would I come back. Also, I think in general, it is very overpriced for what you get.

the french fries were fabulous. the oyako sandwich wasn't as good as i hoped and the bread was way too much. i ended up eating my egg salad with some crostini we got with the burrata appetizer. the donuts were excellent.