Cool spot. Â Yeah, it's an airport restaurant, but it is a nice change from the usual airport restaurants. Â They have MANY wines available, by different-size pours, by the full glass, and by bottle. Â We had sandwiches with homemade potato chips. Â The food was good and reasonably priced ($12 and $13). Â The wine was also reasonably priced. Â The bottle we bought was $54 on the menu; I looked for the wine at my local Publix and it sells for $31. Â Not a bad markup for airport beverage.
If I ever fly through Houston United terminal again, I will definitely return to this restaurant.
I was excited to try this place based on the rave reviews of the tuna tartare and wines. Â However, they sell the wines by the ml which is misleading and don't seem to use anything to ensure you get the right pour. Â They just eyeball it. Â I ordered the 2nd largest volume thinking that would give me a normal glass (for $35) but it was barely enough to wet my whistle. Â When the glass arrived I questioned the waiter since the people right next to me ordered the same amount and got bigger pours. Â He responded that I could always get more. Â
The tuna took forever to arrive and when it did it had the appearance of being treated with food coloring to keep it a vibrant reddish/pink color after long exposure to air. Â It didn't taste fishy but it just didn't look natural or appetizing. Â It also was poorly seasoned. Â Â
Finally the bartender was speaking to a patron just to my left at the bar about a woman streaking through the airport a few days earlier. Â I laughed and asked her about what happened , she looked at me, and ignored me as if I was rudely interrupting a personal conversation. Â Hmmm... Â don't bartenders get paid to talk to customers. Â Just weird.
I won't be returning here.
As others have noted, the food is better than expected here and really not out of line price-wise, given you can spend double-digits even at the fast-food shops in the various food courts in Terminals C and E. Wine selection is astounding for an airport lounge, and really makes one wonder why you'd rather go to the United lounge and pay for "premium"wine even though you're a "valued frequent flyer".
Extra star for the service; although sometimes overwhelmed by the crowd, our server was smart enough not to put in our second-course order until our first-course was almost done. This was good for me, as the chicken salad was much bigger than expected, so there was no way I could have eaten the flatbread / pizza if it had come. Saved me money and saved us wasting food. Dining companion enjoyed the tuna tartar and the prime rib sliders, although beware that if ordering the sliders only, you won't see even a shred of anything green - meat, white bread, and fries only. (Which is fine for some but even I need a vegetable now and then).
I ordered the panchetta flatbread, which was ok, but it's really a pizza. It's not a true flatbread like 29 wine bar in San Antonio, TX. I find this to be a continual pet peeve of mine - call food like it is! The pizza was nothing special or memorable. The 1L of Fiji water was $5. Add tax and a 15% tip, and my meal was $18. I was hoping, given the ambience, this would be like Beaudevin in CLT (one of my favorite airport restaurants), but I was sorely disappointed. Thank goodness the company was paying!
Review Source:Back again. Second time in a month. Quite a coincidence, really. This time for breakfast, and we had the New York bagel & salmon plate and the regular Eggs Benedict. Both were delicious.
This is a very nice airport joint where you can relax between flights in an upscale atmosphere & get a decent meal.
I resolve to find my way here whenever I'm in IAH. Â This is a veritable tasting room, with oenomatic machines measuring pours of wines from all over the world. Â I opted for a Spanish red from Bastide. ($9) Â A two inch high square of puff pastry,filled like a Croque with ham, turkey and cheese, arrived with a chop of clear garlic mixed with rosemary. Â The side of asparagus spears were smokey and just tender enough to require a knife. Â Which, sadly is still silver plastic in our post 9/11 times. Â
There is not one dessert item on the menu. Â Interesting, but I imagine it keeps the table turning faster here in this great location at the X-intersection of C-Concourse.
A place to dine in an airport just does not make sense. That is unless it is Le Grand Comptoir at Houston International (IAH).
The food is very good and the wine list is even better. Service has never been a problem.
My fiancée and I have never past up the opportunity to dine at this restaurant. And I mean dine.
We have scheduled flights with a long lay over just to be able to enjoy this establishment. I know it does not make sense but it is the truth.
And the music that is played is always relaxing. The only problem if you are in Houston and not flying is that it is located after the security checks. So you have to be flying to enjoy the food and wine. I have requested the manager to ask the owners to try to open a place at Moisant (MSY). That would be a nice change of pace for our choices at our own airport. But changes are coming I am told.
My first visit to Terminal C and what do I pass by? A place of dining that meets the needs of travelers who don't want burgers and fries during a long layover.
I had a two-hour layover around lunchtime and was starving. Thankfully, I walked past the Le Grand Comptoir, did a double take to make sure it was advertising real food instead of fast food, and sat myself down, with carry on luggage and all. Upon picking up the menu, my attention was brought to their vast selection of wines, and decided to order a glass of Malbec with my sirloin steak Caesar salad. My lunch ws quite good (especially having been ordered in an airport), and the wine was just the relaxation I needed to get through the rest of my travel day.
My waitress was pretty friendly, too - as soon as I sat down, she came over with silverware (a real fork and a fake knife - kind of weird) and took my drink order. It was a typical wait for food - maybe about 10-15 minutes. I was glad to have the extra time too so that I didn't have to rush to my departure gate after I finished dining.
Next time I'm in IAH, I will definitely be back to try the steak and tuna tartare.
An oasis in the wasteland of nutritionless fast food, lackluster chain restaurant outposts and desperately joyless bars.
This place would fold in a month if it were downtown stacked up against everyone's favorite lunch/HH/dinner haunts, no matter what town you are actually talking about. But in the land of the blind, the man with decent food and a great wine selection is king. Or something.
The wines are offered in a couple different pours, so you can do a sort of tasting flight or you an just drown your travel-related woes in a tankard of malbec. The servers are always friendly to me, even when harried with a full house and trying to manage too many people with too few staff, which seems to often be the case; I don't know how rushes work at airport restaurants, but here it seems to run from when they open until a bit before dinnertime when the flights slack off. The prices are a bit high versus what I expect to pay when I have any kind of choice, but they are in line with a plate of fried whateverthehell and a couple watery margaritas from an airport Chili's, and so much higher quality.
So take heart as you wander through the soulless airport in this reddest of states. Heed not your inner turmoil at finding Bass Pro Shop after Fox News Outlet instead of decent food. Do not despair, just make your pilgrimage out into the wilds of the C terminal and rest in the gardens of Le Grand Comptoir. And then get enough of a buzz that you don't mind spending the next few hours in a chunk of metal weighing tons that avoids falling out the sky because it goes so fast.
I was just here having lunch before my flight. Â The place is really cool, a wine bar at the airport! Â The food selection is pretty good and you could select any item from the menu at any time ( it was around 1pm and my partner had breakfast). Â The wine selection is also pretty good, I had a Malbec and was really good. Â I am not giving them the 5 stars because I found something that did not belong in my salad in there and was not pleasant. Â However, this is something that could happen in any place and they took care of it by taking it off my check. Â I will absolutely stop by the next time I'm in IAH, this is heaven compared to the rest of the options for a decent meal at this airport.
Review Source:This was a welcome change to food-court style airport food. Â I wouldn't say it was OMG fabulous, but it was different and interesting.
We both ordered steak, and it was pretty darn good. Â All the food was excellent, which it should have been for semi-pretentious restaurant + airport.
The service was a little odd, but other than that it was a nice, relaxing experience. Â Make sure you have enough time on your layover, because super quick it isn't.
I've resigned myself to chain restaurants and fast food in airports, so Le Grand Comptoir was a most welcome change from the usual. With an extensive wine list (mostly by the bottle, but with some 5 and 8 ounce pours) and upscale, tasty food, Le Grand Comptoir offers a higher quality dining experience than, say, Chili's Too.
As other reviewers have mentioned, Le Grand Comptoir can get expensive fast. However, there are a few sandwich options priced at $12 or below; these come with potato chips, although the bartender allowed me to substitute butternut squash soup for a small upcharge. The smoked turkey sandwich was tasty and filling, and for $11, comparably priced with a non-airport restaurant.
The wine list was similarly skewed toward expensive but several more affordable options were available. I enjoyed a 5 ounce pour of tempranillo for $9. By the way, the 5 ounce pour is a pretty hefty glass of wine; the juxtaposition of an 8 ounce option shouldn't fool you into thinking otherwise.
Despite the slightly swanky atmosphere, there are two TVs above the bar showing sports, making Le Grand Comptoir an acceptable option for your football-loving companions.
The drawbacks of Le Grand Comptoir are pretty similar to most airport restaurants: Crowded seating, limited menu options, and a need to re-enter the terminal and hike down a long corridor for restroom access. Overall, I'd recommend Le Grand Comptoir if you find yourself in IAH either needing a meal or wanting to unwind with good wine.
I ate here last week during a layover on my way to a wedding. I thought, hey you could be in the South End of Boston or Dupont Circle in DC, etc. Definitely chose this place based on looks and ambiance and not feeling like eating in an airport.
The food tasted great. I got a beet salad with goat cheese and the cheese pizza with caramelized onions and prosciutto. Both were quite yummy. I also got a glass of red wine, a Malbec. Very nice.
A half an hour later, as I was boarding my plane, I started to feel really sick, like I'd eaten something bad. (I hadn't eaten anything else except for some toast several hours earlier before departing my original city). I held it in until after take off and then puked it all up.
Not an experience I'd wish to repeat.
California Cuisine from the Houston airport...not really great, in my opinion. While the menu looked enticing, the quality of the produce was a little lackluster, the wine list was uninspired, and the prices weren't great. My salad was half wilted and my wine tasted like it had been decanted or open for entirely too long. However, considering there weren't many healthy options in the airport, this was fair.
Review Source:I purchased a smoked turkey melt here to go and didn't actually sit down. Still I must admit the ambiance in this place takes you out of the airport and into another world in which you're blissfully enjoying slightly overpriced wines via a small decanter. The setting is warm and posh and the waiter dudes were nice to me while I waited. A little too chatty.
The turkey melt came with a side of homemade chips. I found the meal to be so so. The melt had bacon which I requested to be taken off. Still the bechamel sauce was great with the turkey and the sourdough was good. Homemade chips were like cardboard and so hard I thought I was going to chip my porcelain/metal crowns!
Overall I'd probably rather dine in than take out but the food they offer here outside of the appetizers are messy and don't fit the wine bar scene from what I can tell. Have a glass of wine and forgo eating here unless you're getting a cheese plate which looks totally worth it.
Stressed out by Houston's Airport nonsense? Â Spending 6 extra harried hours like I did being redirected? Â Try Le Grand Comptoir restaurant in terminal C. Â It's like no restaurant outside of a private club room in any airport I've been to. Â Ease away the stress with a glass of Champagne, Riesling or Syrah. Â Enjoy a leisurely lunch while you watch your flight departure time change several times. Â I recommend the Baked Chicken Comptoir in puff pastry and house made blue cheese chips!
Review Source:Great  California cuisine - it's fresh, minimally processed food with a great selection of wine too.
The beet and goat cheese salad is delicious - I recommend adding the sliced grilled chicken breast to make it a meal. (Also depending on your salad dressing, this is easily a gluten and wheat free item)
Ok - rating is based on AIRPORT resturants.
A couple of things
- Staff is smart and attentive
- Food is reasonablely prices
- Food is pretty damn good
- They can get the food to you quickly
- Good selection of wines by the glass (if you're into that at the airport)
The not so good
- only two beers on tap (hey it is a wine bar :-) )
Had the crostini with 3 different spreads. Â Pretty frigging good! - and less that 10 bucks!
I pass through this airport a lot and I think this is going to be my regular stop!
Who'da thunk it? Â A wine bar at my favorite airport. Â It's not the typical Humble-area "suburbanite night out" type of place, the airport is a safe microcosm. Â Travelers passing through from point A to point C need not know that point B (IAH) is slightly off center in the middle of Nightmare Suburbia Hell. Â This is a tiny little microcosm within a microcosm. Â Wine and healthy food. Â Expensive, yes, but it's not overpriced by airport food standards. Â Pretty tasty salads, sandwiches, entrees...and wine (to take the edge off).
I recently enjoyed a nice lunch of turkey and veggies on french bread, side salad with micro-greens, and a Kir Royale. Â If I squinted my eyes, I could have imagined I was an Ex-Pat sitting in a cafe in the Latin Quarter (and I was nowhere near Terminal E--that was an IAH in-joke.)
I'll level with you, the wine by the glass is a tad pricey by outside the airport standards. Â Golly, it is. Â Just keep this in mind, airlines are now charging $9 for airplane-sized bottles of wine. Â So, unless you manage to sneak a bottle in your carry-on, you should just stop here. Â The wine is going to be insurmountably better than the tiny bottles of Vendome or Sutter Home or whatever they serve on Continental these days.
Pretty good for the airport. Great wine selection and it's a nice move away from sandwiches and salad and fast-food.
It wasn't great, but it wasn't bad. Â Maybe i just ordered the wrong thing. Â My food had too much of the "it was frozen" taste. Â And everyone there was really nice, but behind the bar I could hear them make remarks that I'd just rather not hear- you know, comments about other people or of them talking about whether they should or should not put that piece of celery in my bloody mary.
I'm torn between 2 and 3 stars, but i'll give them the benefit of the doubt and visit again.
I needed a bite to eat and to watch the game, so I stopped in for a glass o vino and something light. $16 for a 9oz glass of wine. Wow. I ordered a side salad that was basic: $9. That's $25 for a glass of wine and a side salad. I realize that the airport has a captive audience and they're going to gouge you a bit, but this seems a bit much even for them.
The waitstaff was trying to be high class but clearly had no idea what they were doing. They gave you the typical, "I don't really give a shit" service that you get in every other airport bar. It was almost embarrassing.
I would go somewhere else.
It's funny to see a posh wine bar among the hustle and bustle of IAH, yet there it is. Le Grand Comptoir is a nice departure (no pun intended) from the usual spate of loud tacky sports bars.
Sure, the wine isn't cheap, and the bartender knows it, but he's more than willing to suggest a good-tasting wine with a reasonable price. Which is what he did for us. We ordered a bottle of this Argentinean red that set us back about $40. Normally, this bottle might be $10 less elsewhere but we kinda knew we would overpay anyway since this place is located in the airport. Â
They also have a full bar, and after the wine, I indulged in some Hendrick's gin, on the rocks (I hate to fly. Does it show??).
Le Grand Comptoir has a bunch of cute cozy tables to sit at, or if you'd rather commiserate the miseries of your layover, sit at the bar. There's also a really cool wine room.
We didn't order any food, but remarkably, the food seems reasonably priced compared to the wine. A filet mignon with blue cheese topping went for about $22, about the same or less than what you would pay at a nice restaurant.
Another one of the new-ish dining options at Terminal C in IAH, it's owned by the same company that just opened The Real Food Company. It's a wine bar, with a few bites like sandwiches and salads. Nothing amazingly unusual on the food menu, but they have a surprising number of wines, both by the glass and the bottle. I'm not sure how many of those $100+ bottles they move, but they do have them. A couple of beers on tap, more in bottles, and some limited liquor selections make this a nice place to kill a bit of time if you're in the terminal.
Seating is fairly limited - it's in an awkward little area of the terminal. The menu is mostly some salads and sandwiches - I had an interesting take on the Vietnamese banh mi. It was in no way authentic, but it was delicious nonetheless. I got quite a generous pour of wine - they offer both 5 oz. and 8.5 oz. glasses, and though I ordered the smaller, I'm pretty sure it was more than 5 oz.
There's an honest to goodness waitstaff, which is nice. Service (read: the kitchen) is a bit slow, so if you're in a hurry to make your flight, you'll probably want to pass on by to one of the quicker food options in the terminal. This is definitely not the cheapest option in the airport - I had a sandwich (which came with a side salad) and a glass of wine, and after tax and tip left $30 lighter. In general, I recommend coming here if you have a longish layover, or have gotten to the terminal early for your flight and feel the need to slow it down and relax a minute.
This place just blew me away. I've been to more than my fair share of airports and visited way more airport restaurants than condoned by the Geneva Convention, and as such I've been desensitized to the food that they usually serve in airports. This place is completely different.
First, it's got an awesome atmosphere. The place is wide open, high ceilings, and a great bar area and cute tables throughout (but yet not crowded into the space).
Second is the wine selection. They have about 10 reds and 10 whites available by the glass, and an amazingly extensive bottle selection. They also have a very good booze selection, although their beer list leaves something to be desired (but I'm not going to ding them for that as that's not what they're going for).
Third is their food - real food. I went with a roast beef sandwich which came on a baguette that tasted very fresh with cheddar cheese and horseradish mayo. it was served with a nice little weed salad and a very nice vinaigrette dressing. If I could pick one nit is that it would have been nice to have had a side of horseradish to go with it, but I'm not going to ding them a star for that.
I love this place and it deserves everyone one of those five stars that I gave it. The one thing I do question is their viability. The number of wines they have available by the glass pales in comparison to their bottle list, and I don't see that many travelers coming through and ordering a bottle of wine (maybe I'm wrong, but I just don't see it). They also have a huge walk-in wine cooler that takes up quite a bit of real estate in a very expensive location (an airport). Don't get me wrong - I hope they succeed and I'm looking forward to stopping there every chance I can. I'm just not sure that they have a winning model.
This is a REAL bistro like restaurant. Oh, yeah, you say, a REAL restaurant in a Texas Airport, gettoutahere. The Terminal C section"s
Shopping /food area has recently been redesigned . Why it is almost
like SF's Union Square. Well sorta.
Le Grand Comtoir is across from a Clothing store were a very ordinary "faded" denim jacket, with a sprinkling of sequins cost $218 !
So one expects a restaurant nearby to reflect such tastelessness.
Happily, not so, mes amis. One.... There are REALwaiters. Real salads, really good baguettes, wine list, The seats are comfy, the tables clean. I ordered, as a challenge , that great ethnic crossover,
a Vietnamese sandwich , which the menu correctly described as influenced by a Vietnamese sandwich. Good description! I admire
the frankness. The original Le Grand Comtoir is in Montreal.
So, if you HAVE to fly, ( a terrible experience) to or thru Houston, stop by, and tell them Madame Elle sent you
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