Grosvenor casino blackpool

Grosvenor Casino have recently revamped their restaurant offering, we took a weekend visit to the rebranded ‘Upper Deck’ restaurant to try out some of their new dishes and of course, share with you a few thoughts and photo of our experience.

The Venue.

Address: The Sandcastle, Promenade, Blackpool FY4 1BB

Web: G Casinos

Casinos were once only considered a place to go and lose (or win of course….. just not in our experience 😉 lots of money but nowadays many of them have had an image make over and offer a range of entertainment where you could make a full night of it without changing venue.

This Grosvenor Casino, which is located in the Sandcastle water park building (used to house the Coronation street experience and before that the Crystal maze for a little reminisce), offers a fantastic sports lounge, live music on regularly, slot machines, a bar serving a wide range of drinks, card games and roulette and naturally, what we are focusing on, a restaurant.

The Upper Deck.

The Upper Deck Restaurant, named we assume because its situated above the gaming floor, is a very well presented restaurant and certainly makes you feel as if you are in for a high class cuisine experience.

The restaurant is entered via a sweeping staircase to the upper floor. The venue has glass windows over looking the gaming floor which for us anyway, was brilliant, our seat allowed us our favourite hobby of people watching and share in some of the excitement of the gaming experience whilst not spending a penny on it ourselves 🙂

The bar in the restaurant was well stocked and looked clean and shiny, reminded us of being on a cruise ship….. not sure if that’s the intention come to think given the name 😉 and the restaurant seating area itself was set out to accommodate if you wanted a high table for a couple of drinks before / after the meal without heading to the Casino bar, and an assortment of tables catering for small and intimate to some pretty large parties.

We attended on a Friday night, around 7:30 so hitting a busy period but we could see they could easily accommodate us and had plenty of space to accommodate more. The staff were very busy cleaning and setting up tables when we arrived so not sure if we’d just missed a large party leaving but were very friendly and welcoming…… how they’ll be after a long shift when they get customers in the early hours of the morning is anyone’s guess 🙂

The Food!

Ok so it’s fair to say the venue is pretty nice, comfortable and classy and brilliant for people watching …. but what good is that if what the serve up is over priced gruel? Well, luckily from what we tried, that wasn’t the case on either front.

The menu is diverse yet not so expansive you take hours to choose, that in turn allows the chef to turn out quality dishes, the food is priced very reasonably and is excellent quality! (if you wanna go cheap as you can, we’d suggest try Wetherspoons across the road instead or for some inspiration… try reading our best restaurants BLOG)

Starters

The starter menu has a range of dishes to tempt, from pork and black pudding scotch egg to dishes including amongst others scallops, pork, beef and soup (see image below for more detail).

We decided to plump for the soup of the day (£6.50), which turned out to be sweetcorn and lemon grass and the Braised baby leeks (also £6.50), both of which wouldn’t be our ‘normal’ first choice but we often try to experience a dish which isn’t our ‘usual’ as a starter to try and broaden our culinary horizons!

We both tried a bit of each others dish, the baby leeks were tender and surprisingly tasty (for Leeks) and the sweetcorn and lemon grass soup, excellent flavour and a definite change from your bog standard ‘soup of the day’. Both dishes added to the feel of having just a little special.

The Main Event.

There’s a good variety on the mains menu also, so there’s bound to be something for even the fussiest of eater. Fish dishes like pan fried sea bass is one we’ll have to go back and try, pork, ragout, chicken along with some lovely vegan dishes such as cauliflower steak (when did that become a thing??), water melon salad and garden pea risotto. Though it has to be said, the grill offers the carnivores amongst us some quality fillet, ribeye and T bone steak along their speciality, (if your feeling flush or have had a big win downstairs), a whooping 36 oz Tomahawk steak!! …. or if you’ve done you money in, perhaps go for a burger.

On this occasion….. we hadn’t won big nor were feeling flush (there’s a cost of living crisis going on you know? 🙂 …. so went for the more reasonably priced beef ragout (at £15) and Cider braised belly of pork (at £17.50).

Starting with the cider braised belly of pork, it was cooked perfectly, slightly crispy on the outside and tender inside. The dish came with caramelised apple puree, cavolo nero (no, I don’t know what that is either!!), glazed carrots, creamed potatoes and perl onion jus. The dish was a decent size, not over facing and the glazed carrots were firm to the bite, not like in some restaurants where they’ve been sat in water too long and become soft… or under lights for too long and become too hard, just right. Creamed potatoes are what they are in my view, nice enough to accompany the pork.

We also tried the Beef Ragu which tasted really nice, had a home made taste to with a nice balance between the herbs and the tomato. The dish wasn’t skimping on the meat either which we normally take as a good sign having been to restaurant where they sometimes drown the meat in sauce. The linguine… al dente and was well drained.

The dish was accompanied by garlic bread, which was slightly toasted but not to the extent it was hard to bite, still soft and a little wild rocket on the side, all in all, a decent feed for the price!

Dessert.

After the starter and main (plus a few wines and beers truth be told) we decided to skip dessert and listen to some of the live entertainment for a little while before we made our way home.

To be fair, the menu doesn’t offer a particularly extensive selection but does include the seaside classic of doughnuts (wonder if the pop down the prom to buy them on order? 😉 the English classic of apple & rhubarb crumble along with chocolate orange brownie, lemon posset and a classic favourite main stay of any decent dessert menu, a selection of English cheeses.

So in summary……..

A really good venue, decent quality food, all at a reasonable price… this may be partly to try and entice you on to the tables but hey, if you take advantage why not? The venue is much more than just about gambling, live music, sports with a decent bar and large seating area makes for a decent night when perhaps you want to avoid the crowds of town yet want something a bit more lively than the local.

We do hope hope you’ve enjoyed this BLOG and our thoughts of this particular venue, if so please give it a share on your social media and give us a follow live whilst you’re at it 🙂

Perhaps you’d like to read one of our other blogs? How about reading about our favourite family restaurants or maybe some of the best couples bars in town.