Grotto - Galveston - San Luis Resort

Fantastic service and outstanding food and very delicious dessert. You won’t leave this place disappointed.

The hostess was very acomidating... waiter was very attentive. Food was very good.

Bar level noise and loud voices were a negative for expectation of a peaceful dining experience

It was slow to get food but really such a wonderful experience. We know how difficult it is to get adequate waitstaff right now, so we didn’t mind the dining experience taking 3 hours.

Great food and superb service. A good wine list and fabulous deserts. Convenient Valet parking.

The staff were wonderful and the pizza was great.We celebrated our daughters birthday and the desserts were excellent. They brought my daughters dessert to the table and had Happy Birthday on it with a candle for her. That made her feel so special. Thank You for a Great experience.

Great as Always, from the food to cocktails & desserts, but most of all we love the Service❣️

Barton and Brandie always make our evenings
Special, as well as the manager.

The food was excellent as always. Despite the fact that it was crowded, the service remained good. The staff was very helpful and assisting.

We had an excellent server, but that is about the only good thing I can say about this restaurant. It is extremely noisy so you cannot hear the person you are with, a restaurant ploy to turn tables faster. The food is on a par with Olive Garden. The shrimp I had was old and tough. The sauce on the pasta was flavorless. Would not recommend this restaurant. There are far too many much better restaurants on the island.

Great experience. Restaurant was crowded because of summer but the service was still excellent!!

Service was good but the quality of the food was below average and below expectations. Are we were generally disappointed with the meal.

The Grotto was our first choice for our first night while at Galveston Island. We had decided to stay at the San Luis Resort Hotel & Spa so our trip to the Grotto was really close (it is located on the Lobby level just past the Steakhouse and their bistro).

We started by sharing their Italian Fried Artichokes. I must tell you that this item was our choice for the "Best Bite" of the entire weekend! I have never had this before and we were pleasantly surprise to have a very light coating and perfectly cooked artichoke. The marina was exceptional and complemented the artichoke nicely.

I decided to try the Cioppino. They used Red Snapper for the fish and locally sourced shrimp along with clams, mussels, and squid rings. But the unique item that I considered the best part was the large lump crab. Their stock was seasoned with some paprika and was good enough to have by itself.

My spouse went with the Trio Tomato Pappardelle consisting of Cherry tomatoes, sundried tomatoes, oven roasted tomatoes, Bocconcini Mozzarella, and basil pesto cream sauce. She had the option of adding either chicken or shrimp but she decided not to include the protein. The pappardelle made the dish and it was prepared to a perfect al dente. The basic pesto cream sauce could have used a bit more of a basil flavor but matched well with the mozzarella and tomatoes. Although all of the tomato options were nice, the by-far favorite was the sundried tomatoes - rich tomato flavor and when matched with a bit of the cheese, heaven.

My spouse did mention that she could have used a bit more mozzarella to keep up with the huge amount of pasta.

Overall, I wish we had decided to return to the Grotto for our next evening meal as there were other choices I would really like to try - such as the Shrimp Penne al Limone, the Shrimp & Crab Capellini, and the Tuscan Sausage Gnocchi!

We tried fried artichokes, Grotto salad, spaghetti bolognese, and pappardelle. Everything was delightful. Large portions! Couldn't finish! Service is polite and professional.

Always enjoy the healthy portions for fried chicken and spaghetti night

Casual, upscale, wonderful view, great service and ambiance, consistently delicious food with a varied menu and good wine list. Best Italian food, but then everything is BEST!

Service stared off slow but this is was because they were fully booked and slammed with people. More support staff like bus-boys would help the servers. It's not a big place and they had little space between tables. They could use a new space. Our food was very good. We would visit again on a less busy night.

The food was amazing! Our server was excellent. And that dessert cart…

We celebrated our Anniversary at the Grotto. Food was delicious- Chicken San Luis is my fav and service was great.
Always a treat to have dinner there.

Food was great, service and ambiance was top notch. Will definitely be back again!

So good. The food, the service, the view. It was amazing!

One of our favorite places

Barton our server was amazing. Service and professionalism. Food delicious. Barton made the bread pudding request happen. Thank u.

The food (linguine pescatore and braised pork ragu de pappardelle) was fantastic and the atmosphere was really great, too! It was a little chilly so bring a coat if you tend to get cold.

This was the worst dining experience I have ever had. We had reservations for 8:00. When we checked in with the host we were told that there was a slight wait. This was understandable since it was a Sat on a holiday weekend. At 8:30 the next round of reservations arrived. A party of 4 checked in at 8:35 and was told there was a wait. The head of the party said that this was not acceptable. In front of all the waiting parties he reached in his pocket and pulled out a wad of cash. He greased the host and they were sat immediately. At 9:10 we were finally sat. We waited for 10 minutes without waters before a waiter arrived and took our drink and salad orders. 10 minutes later he brought our waters, drinks, and salads. The kitchen forgot to dress my Grotto salad. At this point we were so mad that we asked for the check. We spent $60 on 2 drinks and 2 salads. By the time we left the only dining still open was pizza. Awful experience

It was Memorial Wkend and very very busy. The staff was very pleasant and professional but under staffed. Our pizza was great. The shrimp scampi was weird. The bolognese was lacking. Desserts were the big show!!!! So good. The best cheesecake you will ever have anywhere other than the Steakhouse in the resort!

The host was awful. We probably won’t go back because he was such a jerk

Too loud
Last time we were there it was a very pleasant experience this time it was like a Rowdy bar !
Waiter and wait staff were exceptional.

Staff is always friendly and the food and drink are outstanding. The view is exquisite!

Excellent food
Excellent service
Authentic Italian food
Highly recommend

Great Time
Barton was a great server!

Food was very good, and the service was excellent. Will definitely be dining here again.

What is best about this place versus some of the other nicer restaurants is that there's a pretty good variety on the menu and separate and apart from the steakhouses, Tex-Mex and whatnot. The pizzas are good, I've only eaten the pasta once or twice, the charcuterie board is great. This is definitely a good place to try while in Galveston if you are lucky Carlos will be your waiter.

Our waitress, Brandy, saved an otherwise unimpressive meal. Our Caprese Salad was constructed with 3 huge blocks of mozzarella and 3 tomato slices, accented by 3 basil leaves. Each slice was 3/4 inch thick, making it awkward for sharing. The fried artichokes were plain and minimally seasoned, served with a bowl of marinara sauce.

My wife had the Signature Crab Cake which was dense and overcooked. She substituted the capellini for risotto and three mushy asparagus spears. My Snapper Romano was a large but very thin filet with a heavy Parmesan crust served on a bed of penne pasta. The fish was too heavily breaded and lacked moisture, and the sauce had an annoying amount of lemon juice in it. Portions were generous, but the quality of the finished product left much to be desired.

Brandy was wonderful, stopping to make conversation, snap a picture and even bringing us a complimentary coconut cream pie for dessert.

I doubt that I would dine here again.
I believe that Grotto should take a lesson from some of the other popular dining establishments in town and focus more on taste and texture and less on quantity.

Always great food, desserts and cocktails, but the reason that we keep coming back
if the Amazing Service!! Thanks to all at the Grotto!!

Love sitting at the bar...

We love grotto and go every chance we get. I’ve been there twice this week!

The Sunday/Monday family dinner shouldn't be missed. Great value for wonderful tasting food. Always tasty leftovers too. Our server Brandi was exceptional!

Consistently great quality food and service! Corrie is doing a great job as manager and our waiter Kamel did great. My wife had the ravioli topped with shrimp. I ate the Vic & Anthony’s Crab Cakes. Both dishes were excellent.My wife enjoyed a Margarita while I had Red Sangria. Didn’t catch the bartenders name but the drinks were awesome! We both had a cup of tomato basil soup. Unfortunately we had no room for desert, we’ll come back for that. We’ll be back!

Reservations for 9:00pm was not seated til 9:25. Was a special occasion.

Glad to have open table app as there was 2 hour wait when I arrived but I was given option to sit at bar or at a 2 top.
Not the greatest of wine menu though.