With a name is inspired by the French word for sparrow, piaf, the restaurant serves upscale Mediterranean food with a European flair across a floor-level lounge, an upstairs patio called "The Perch" and a private wine room.
The multi-level restaurant is an interesting space. It's upscale without being overly formal, and the decor is eclectic: there's a surprise around every corner. Patrons seem to wear something a little dressier than the usual.
The menu has is loosely Mediterranean. There are two kinds of Caesar salads (traditional and grilled), surf and turf dishes, flatbreads, burgers, and more mixes of upscale and casual dishes like fries (make 'em truffle for $4) and a 16-hour braised lamb shank. It's the best of many worlds here.
Grazing on the complimentary chips and tzatziki, we landed on the warm goat cheese, mushroom ravioli and grilled octopus with sujuk, then finished with the tiramisu.
Either nothing was particularly memorable or we just ordered the wrong thing. Reservations were booked out the night we decided to go, and tables were filling quickly to catch the live jazz upstairs. The place has clearly earned its spot near the heart of Historic Downtown Grapevine.
Even the restaurant's Google reviews are overwhelmingly positive, with 5 stars across the board. We had to do a little self-reflection.
But Brian Moman's 4-star Google review said it best: "The food we had was very tasty, but the pricing seemed a bit high for what we got to be honest". Yeah. What Brian said.
Starting at the bottom of the ladder, we had the octopus with sujuk (fermented sausage). The octopus was cooked nicely, but our plate didn't have any sujuk on it and the base was mainly onions and potatoes with minimal seasoning. We could have let the lack of sausage slide if the potatoes were crispy, but alas.
Things looked up from there, though. The mushroom ravioli was tasty and a large portion for the price.
Warm goat cheese in a pool of a savory sundried tomatoes, kalamata olives, thyme, artichokes and olive oil.
Aaren Prody
Our favorite of the night was the tiramisu. You can tell it's homemade, the ladyfingers are soaked and infused with Bailey's. We've had worse from an Italian-only spot before, so this was a saving grace at the end of dinner.
Nothing we had was worth a reorder or a recommendation. Perhaps the silver lining is in things we skipped this time like the Brussels sprouts, herb-crusted sea bass or paella. Although, the coconut and pineapple margarita was good and they also had a Moroccan lemonade they let us sample that was also really good.
The Perch upstairs has live jazz music on the weekends from 7 p.m. to close. If you want to tune in just make sure you make a reservation in advance.
Piaf Kitchen + Wine Bar, 129 S. Main St., Grapevine. Tuesday – Thursday, 4–9 p.m.; Friday – Saturday, 4–10 p.m.; closed Sunday and Monday.
