So much more than just a restaurant

A summer lunch with old friends and colleagues. We were invited to dine at Agern, New York’s newest three star (NY Times review) restaurant and the first new place to open in Grand Central Terminal for quite a while.

The name translates from Danish to 'Acorn' in English. 'From an acorn a great oak will grow' was the reasoning from the server I questioned. Claus Meyer, who co-founded Noma, has created a farm-to-table restaurant of the highest order.

Mark Goldberg our contractor at Monkey Bar when we opened in 2009 and host for this lunch - has created a beautiful restaurant in a challenging space, at the western end of Vanderbilt Hall. The build was so complicated as there were so many competing agencies to work with; MTA, NYPD, Homeland Security as well as the landlord, CBRE. The restaurant interior space matched a blond wood floor and tables with gold lighting and dark banquettes and chairs, a central kitchen bar, nooks and crannies and a stunning private table housed in a former elevator shaft.

Within five minutes, I commented on the quality of the acoustics. Exquisite sound and guess what? Pure luck!

When you design and build a restaurant the acoustics are the least understood element. Until you fill a room to its capacity and ask everyone to talk, run all the machinery, shake up cocktails and drop a tray of glasses; there really is no telling what the sound will be like. At Monkey Bar we had to add carpeting to the upper level, at Hixter Bankside we got it wrong, ear bleeding is a common issue!

Well, here the high ceilings and the mix of hard and soft surfaces and the different angles just work.

Laura, Mark and I were joined by Basil Walter, our dear friend, not to mention designer and architect of Monkey Bar. We enjoyed a fantastic meal that lasted 3 hours, not because they were slow, more because our two bottles of Domaine Leseurre ‘Barrel Select’ 2012 from the Finger Lakes, allowed us the chance to enjoy deeper conversation than a 'normal' lunch allows.

The baked beet is one of the centrepieces of their menu and it is served tableside.

The salt crust gently cracked in half then the beet lifted out, peeled and sliced. Each slice is then placed on the plate of beet tartare that has been silently slipped in front of you, unnoticed as you were enjoying the theatre.

Desserts were incredible, namely because they were essentially savoury dishes masquerading as sweet. Rebecca Eichenbaum, has a fascinating background and an incredible palate. So refreshing to try something so very different.

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Mark then took us on a tour, we went into the gigantic kitchens and met Icelandic Head Chef, Gunnar Gislason. An incredibly polite and humble man, he showed us the kitchens and how they work. He then explained that the size was due to the other side of the business, the food hall.

Walking back through the restaurant, to be given loaves of the home-made bread and butter- which lasted well as 5 days later they were toasted and enjoyed with figs and feta for breakfast; all from the North Fork of Long Island. Mark showed us the Danish hot dog stand and deli counter.

Both offer variations on American staples that the New York public are enjoying sampling. We then walked around to Vanderbilt Hall and found ourselves in the most amazing 10,000 square feet in the city. A huge food hall only offering Danish food and drink.

Open sandwiches, baked breads, a stand only selling GROD, Danish savoury porridge, that looked incredible. Now we understood the need for that gigantic kitchen.

In London we have seen the food halls of Harrods and Selfridges spawn, Street Feast and now Mercato Metropolitano. In New York, the Italian founded concept, Eataly opened its second location this week, so successful was the first. To open this space in a grand Terminus is brilliant architecturally, not to mention savvy, as 750,000 people a day pass through the statio.

The grand scale of Meyer’s idea matches the scale of the station. I don’t know what the cost of the project was, and wouldn’t share confidential information regardless, but my guestimate was there wasn’t much change from $8million. I wish Claus and his team every success, and next trip to the city I’ll be going Danish!