Allentown: Grille 3501 (February 2016)


My spouse and I dined at Grille 3501 on a Saturday night in mid-February 2016. (We have dined at 3501 many times previously since its opening in 2001, sometimes as a couple and sometimes in a group.) Grille 3501 is open for lunch on weekdays and dinner on Mondays through Saturdays (closed Sundays). Sometimes on special occasion Sundays (such as Mother’s Day), the restaurant is also open. You can reserve a table via telephone or by using the Open Table reservation system (reservations are highly recommended for dinner, because the restaurant is a crowd favorite). Parking is available in a dedicated lot, although now that the restaurant has expanded, the lot might be a bit undersized when larger parties are present.

Grille 3501 is located in Allentown (Cetronia) near the back entrance to Dorney Park, in a somewhat residential area on Broadway between Cedar Crest Boulevard and Cetronia Road. (Until 2001, this location housed Trinkles Cetronia restaurant.) The main part of that old restaurant houses the original part of Grille 3501 (nicely renovated since Trinkles days), but in 2014, the owners of 3501 added another dining area onto the main restaurant called “The Loft”. The original part of the restaurant has a few dining sections: a main dining room (the back of which can be closed off for small private events), a side dining room, and the bar area. The Loft offers several dining areas as well: an outdoor porch (which has heaters and roll-down sides so that it can be used in colder weather), the large rectangular bar (with seating on three sides), an L-shaped dining area adjacent to the bar, and the namesake loft on a sort of mezzanine level overlooking the main room (this dining area has stair access only as far as we could tell, so the loft is probably not suitable for the mobility impaired). Both the main restaurant and the Loft are very attractive. The décor is contemporary and classy in the original dining area, and gorgeously modern (stone and wood) in the new loft area. Our only comment was that in the ladies room, the sinks only offered cold water, which is a bit unsettling to think that the staff washes their hands in only cold water after using the facilities and then emerging to serve and/or cook food.

Grille 3501 serves Asian/French/Mediterranean cuisine. We ordered several items from their appetizer/starter menu: the baked scallops (which arrived atop actual scallop shells, combined with crab and bacon and drenched in a delicious beurre blanc sauce), the wild boar agnolotti (topped with delicious garnishes like bacon and kale atop a nice brown butter sauce), and the calamari (served with the usual red dipping sauce [although the menu proclaims it to be grape tomato jam], along with an unusual jalapeno relish [which was tasty but seemed more like green tomatoes because it had no heat]). For an entrée, we shared the duck, which was accompanied by sweet potato hash, shredded cabbage, maitake mushrooms, and baby carrots (the two dollops of apricot jam on the plate seemed unnecessary to us because the dish was delicious without it). For dessert, we shared the banana almond bread pudding, which was served warm atop a butterscotch-rum sauce, and crowned with a small scoop of vanilla ice cream and then sprinkled with slivered almonds.

Grille 3501 is a dependable favorite of ours, and we find ourselves returning again and again. We just wish that they were open for Saturday lunch, because we would visit more often.








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