It depends on what kind of learner you are. The reason I(and other people with anti-social tendencies) do not like learning phrases is because it is boring. I don't know about you, but I hate remembering long lists of random foreign syllables I have no hope of pronouncing correctly or understanding(and then being told this means "I want to exchange money"). In general, I would imagine that if you are the type of person who can easily remember long lists of random words, you might as well go for it. There are some awful grammar-intensive courses that do not cover basic phrases until much later(or sometimes do not cover them at all).

However, if you are like me, and you want to start from the very basics, see and understand how they work with each other, and build your own little sentences from these building blocks, then you will want to start with grammar. Trust me, although the following example is taken from a book which is admittedly one of the "awful courses" I mentioned above, it is almost magical to be taught two letters: a and b, then be shown how to say "water"(ab), "with"(ba), and "with water"(ba ab).

The ideal course, in my opinion, would start out with grammar but also give you phrases to work with(and make some attempt of teaching you how they work).