Walk into Coral on the West End of downtown Greenville and you get a choice of two rooms: a big, open bar up front where the cocktails and the conversation run loud, and a quieter dining room set back from it for a calmer meal. Guests who want to actually hear each other across the table tend to ask to be seated away from the bar.
The kitchen works around fresh seafood brought in daily, and reviewers keep circling back to the same handful of plates: the scallops over risotto and the bang bang shrimp lead, with grouper, halibut, swordfish, and the rotating dinner specials close behind. The bar has its own following for martinis and signature cocktails, and the pastry side draws as much praise as the entrees, with the sticky toffee pudding and creme brulee named again and again.
Three friends with a passion for fine dining and hospitality started Coral, and the attentive, well-drilled service guests describe, servers remembered by name and owners stopping by tables, reflects that. Complimentary valet runs nightly, an easy convenience on a busy stretch of Main.