Walking up to the Grand Lux Café in the Cherry Hill Mall, you are immediately impressed by its modern and aesthetically pleasing appearance, and once you’ve walked in you are assaulted not only by wonderful décor but also vibrant noise.
In an attempt to retain a casual atmosphere to combat its fancy interior, the restaurant plays pop music rather loudly. This combined with the chatter of the ever-crowded restaurant makes it very difficult to converse with the person you’re with.
However, the restaurant is beautiful. The lighting is perfect. The design offers a lot to look at without being distracting. The color scheme is pleasing to the eye and not obnoxious. The lamps and other light fixtures were very interesting as are the other decorative elements. Although I felt the tables were too small and set too close together for comfort.
The servers are incredibly friendly and are obviously very good at their jobs. All of the food we’d ordered was presented in a timely manner. Also I observed the managers taking multiple rounds through the café ready to leap into action at the first sign of trouble.
Now we have arrived at the most important part of the restaurant experience: the food. It wasn’t the best meal I’d ever received but it was definitely satisfying and tasty. I ordered the Shepherd’s pie, although I didn’t really eat the meat part of it…which for me should have had more of a flavor. However, the mashed potatoes on top were amazing. For dessert, I ordered a caramel macchiato, which was very good almost rivaling that of Starbucks. My father ordered the Buffalo bites as an appetizer, I tried one and those where really good and he was very pleased with his Skillet Green Chile Chicken.
Regardless of what you think of the food, it would be a crime to say that The Grand Lux Café does not have style. They clearly take a lot of pride in presentation. For example our bread arrived all wrapped up in a basket like a new born baby. The lime in our water was skewered with the nicest plastic stick I’ve ever seen and placed upon the glass in such a way that only the very tip of the lime was submerged in the water. Also my caramel macchiato was framed by an elegant whipped cream design.
Something that is also important to me about any restaurant or business is the bathroom. Don’t ask why but when a place is really nice but has an awful bathroom it makes me view the whole experience in a slightly negative way. But I’m happy to report that the bathrooms are extremely clean and just as modern and aesthetically pleasing as the rest of the café.
When we received our check it was perfectly reasonable for the food we purchased. Also since I did not finish my meal they packed it for me very nicely and effectively, I might add, since it survived my dropping the bag on my kitchen floor when we got home.
All in all it is a beautiful restaurant with excellent food. If you mind the noisiness then try and go on a slow day…if they ever have any, because as far as I can tell parking is always quite an adventure.
Or I’d suggest eating in the space they have available outside…although you will miss out on the wonderful decoration but, hey, great food, so who cares?