We address the problem of multidimensional modal estimation using sparse estimation techniques coupled with an efficient multigrid approach, which can be also interpreted as a multiresolution scheme. Modal dictionaries are obtained by discretizing modal functions (damped complex exponentials). To get a good resolution, it is necessary to choose a fine discretization grid resulting in intractable computational problems due to the huge size of the dictionaries. The idea behind the multigrid approach amounts to refine the dictionary over several levels of resolution. The algorithm starts from a coarse grid and adaptively improves the resolution in dependence of the active set provided by sparse approximation methods. The proposed method is quite general in the sense that it allows one to process in the same way mono- and multidimensional signals. We show through simulations that, as compared to high-resolution modal estimation methods, the proposed sparse modal method can greatly enhance the estimation accuracy for noisy signals and shows good robustness with respect to the choice of the number of components.