Why Gramercy Tavern Endures as One of New York’s Best Restaurants

I can scarcely remember what I ate for lunch yesterday, but I can still remember that first amuse-bouche I tasted at Gramercy Tavern in the spring of 2007: a single sugar snap pea wrapped in a sliver of lardo. It was a first taste, literally and figuratively, of restaurants of a different ilk. I was someone still relatively new to New York, whose post-graduate school budget was generally not sufficient to dine at restaurants that offered amuse-bouches. It was thanks to a friend with a gift card that I got to experience Gramercy Tavern that night. More than just an exemplary dining experience, in hindsight, it’s clear it was a glimpse into my future.

My very first dinner at GT coincided almost exactly with the arrival of chef Michael Anthony, who took the reins from opening chef Tom Colicchio in 2006. Anthony’s seasonal, greenmarket style has defined Gramercy Tavern’s menu for most of its 30-year life. Well before the cauliflower industrial complex dared fashion the cruciferous vegetable as “steak,” Anthony was serving it as a main course alongside inventive pastas, housemade sausages, and perfectly executed roast chickens.

That first bite of sugar snap pea and lardo was more than just a taste and texture sensation; it somehow made me, a fine-dining neophyte, feel like I belonged. I felt like I was in the know, that I was part of the family now, even on night one.

Shortly after that first dinner, one of my roommates, Maureen, became a pastry chef at GT. So, of course, I’d visit the bar and order drinks and a dessert or two, and leave having tasted the entire dessert menu thanks to Maureen. (One of GT’s best enduring qualities, in my opinion, is that it has always offered at least eight or more desserts, making serious diners with a serious sweet tooth like me feel seen.) That was my first taste of restaurant industry insider treatment, and soon enough, after a fledgling career in arts administration, I decided I wanted to be a part of it.

So, at 35, I quit my job and started attending culinary school. Gramercy Tavern, and the restaurateur behind it — Danny Meyer — played a big part in that decision. After reading Meyer’s 2006 manual “Setting the Table,” I knew I had the right attitude and could be trained to thrive in that environment, even though I had very little restaurant experience.

At the end of culinary school, in 2011, I reported for a kitchen trail at GT. A trail is essentially an audition for a minimum-wage internship position. Usually, you’re delegated to a sous chef, or a line cook, but when I stepped inside the kitchen, it was executive chef Mike Anthony himself who greeted me and gave me a tour. And he went above and beyond, including an extensive demo at the barista station after he learned that I’d recently begun front-of-house work as support staff at a sister restaurant.

During the trail itself, I stood at the pass with the expediting sous chef and tasted nearly everything on the menu. I used to joke that a 17-course meal was available for free at GT so long as you arrived with a knife roll and knew how to put on a chef’s coat. Afterward, chef Anthony spent a solid 45 minutes speaking with me about my goals in the industry.

You don’t have to be in the industry or caught up with every episode of “The Bear” to suspect that this kind of treatment is the exception. Every other trail I had at other restaurants involved mostly hours spent standing, watching, and fetching things, occasionally being admonished for some unwittingly caused infraction, and extensive cleaning duties. That my experience in the Gramercy Tavern kitchen, even at the lowest rung of the restaurant ladder, was such a good one, mattered to the chef — and to me. When I began my internship, instead of doing tons of prep work, I was cooking in the service kitchen on day one, preparing a choux that was piped into miniature puffs to be filled with an herbed goat cheese for a single amuse-bouche.

The kitchen at GT was never an adrenaline-fueled shouting competition (see “The Bear,” above.) Excellence was rightfully demanded and expected, but Anthony achieved it through quiet, insightful instruction. And although my restaurant industry goals were already leaning more toward the front-of-house, I appreciated the experience of being inside the central nervous system at a restaurant I’d always felt so attached to, and realizing there was a real beating heart there.

Call it alchemy, but it’s rare for a restaurant to possess that kind of rarefied, reassuring atmosphere that envelops you, whether you’re a diner or staffer, but GT certainly did for me. “Business, like life, is all about how you make people feel,” Meyer wrote in “Setting the Table,” and that really rings true. From 2010 to March 2020, I worked in several of his restaurants in New York, concluding my tenure at The Modern. I’d have loved to work front-of-house at GT but it was always staffed with rightfully dedicated lifers, and was the most competitive of Meyer’s restaurants for service positions. I’ve also dined in every restaurant that Meyer owns or has owned in New York, and I honestly believe that nowhere is that ethos better exemplified than at Gramercy Tavern, a place that endures because of the care and comfort that continues to be its defining characteristic.

While I was lucky enough to get to know GT behind the scenes in the kitchen, it’s truly hard to beat the experience of simply dining there as a guest. Posting up at the stylish, curved bar, in the small corner of seats by the window, is one of my favorite ways to experience Gramercy Tavern because you get to see the entire restaurant in action. GT has never aspired to be a place to be seen, but it is one with plenty to witness: There’s the bustle of the Tavern Room with its cozy, fire-fueled open kitchen, complete with accompanying woodpile. There’s the graceful elegance of the Dining Room, all outfitted in a style that manages to feel both timeless and contemporary, with epic floral arrangements that are no less than exclamation points on the space.

Despite being two restaurants in one — three if you separately count the gravitational pull of the bar, which, in my opinion, you should — where one space is obviously more formal than the other, it never feels exclusionary. What you have are simply two great dining options for all of life’s various occasions, even if the occasion at hand is simply “Tuesday.” Where else in New York might you be able to order a classic burger, and still be presented with an amuse-bouche?

On one occasion I arrived at GT for what I thought was a date and snagged precisely those preferred seats near the window at the bar. When my date presented himself with (*gasp*) his boss in tow, immediately revealing that it was not, in fact, a date, the attentive bar staff were on it. They knew I worked at a sister restaurant, but didn’t know me personally, yet they expertly read the scene and responded: Other bar diners were quickly and gracefully shuffled, and a third spot was set with scarcely enough time for anyone — my non-date, his boss, other patrons at the bar — to understand what was going on, sparing me a world of humiliation. Let it be a testament to how much I believe this restaurant reverberates with hospitality that I’m willing to even tell the sordid tale. You get the feeling that you’re actually being looked out for, in a way that isn’t just performative. The care is real, and it’s the kind that can’t be taught. It relies on an enduring culture where those who work there are being looked after in such a way that makes them want to look after you.

In the intervening years, I have encountered Gramercy Tavern from every possible angle: I’ve dropped in for spontaneous drinks or desserts at the bar. I’ve commemorated birthday celebrations in the Tavern Room. I’ve tried the full tasting of vegetables with wine pairings in the Dining Room. I’ve dined solo, with dates, (and, to my obvious chagrin, apparently-not-dates), friends, family, colleagues, bosses, my husband (former non-date be damned), and even winemakers hosting food-and-beverage journalists like myself — a complete full-circling of that first amuse-bouche moment. There is no occasion this restaurant cannot rise to, no set of circumstances where it doesn’t inherently know how to meet you where you are.

In fact, my most recent visit to Gramercy Tavern was a couple of weeks ago, in celebration of my own marriage. It was the first and only restaurant that came to mind when my mother offered to take us “anywhere you want” following our City Hall wedding. I could have opted for something bigger, buzzier, or more “special occasion,” but I didn’t want to. Gramercy Tavern is the kind of restaurant that you trust with such a moment. It exemplifies seasonality not only in its culinary point of view, but in being relevant for every season of your life. And as it celebrates its own important anniversary this year, I am charmed in knowing it’s where I’ll always be able to celebrate mine.

Gramercy Tavern is open daily for lunch and dinner.

Pamela Vachon is a freelance writer, wine and cheese educator, and voice actor based in Astoria, Queens who also spent a decade working in restaurants in New York. Follow her on Instagram. Follow Resy, too.