Acru, which opens on Oct. 16, has a cozy, rustic feel. Photo by Lucia Bell Epstein, courtesy of Acru

The RundownNew York

All About Acru, New From the Atomix Team 

By

In this edition of the Resy Rundown, we’re taking a look at Acru, opening on Oct. 16 on MacDougal Street in Greenwich Village. Here’s everything you need to know before you go.

The Resy Rundown
Acru

  • Why We Like It
    It’s a New York neobistro with a decidedly Australian accent, helmed by a chef with some serious fine-dining credentials, that still manages to be approachable and inviting. Whether you opt for the tasting menu or go à la carte, you can’t go wrong. 
  • Essential Dishes
    The tasting menu changes all the time based on the seasons, but do keep an eye out for the damper bread, and if you’re ordering à la carte, don’t sleep on the lardo-draped shrimp and the lamb with “seamite.”
  • Must-Order Drinks
    Grilled Lemon Bee’s Knees and anything from the vintage spirits collection. If you love wine, do opt for a pairing with your tasting menu.
  • Who and What It’s For
    Ato fans, of course, but it’s really anyone who loves and appreciates creative, technique-driven food, minus the pretense.  
  • How to Get In
    Reservations drop 14 days in advance at 10 a.m. Reservations are only taken for the dining room, where they serve a $95 tasting menu. The bar, which serves an à la carte menu, is walk-ins only.
  • Fun Fact
    The six rings in the restaurant’s logo refer to the six principles Garwood holds himself to when it comes to his cooking: clean, refined, delicious, technique-driven, fired, and innovative. 
[blank]The main dining room.
Chef Daniel Garwood Photo by Lucia Bell Epstein, courtesy of Acru
Chef Daniel Garwood Photo by Lucia Bell Epstein, courtesy of Acru

1. If you know and love New York’s Ato family of restaurants, you’re sure to see some familiar faces here.

They include head chef and partner Daniel Garwood, who was previously the sous chef at two Michelin-starred Atomix; sous chef Scott McKay, formerly of Atomix; and partners Junghyun “JP” and Ellia Park, the dynamic chef-and-restaurateur duo behind some of the city’s most critically acclaimed and beloved Korean restaurants: Atoboy, Atomix, Seoul Salon, and Naro.

The bar is walk-ins only and serves an à la carte menu. Photo by Lucia Bell Epstein, courtesy of Acru
The bar is walk-ins only and serves an à la carte menu. Photo by Lucia Bell Epstein, courtesy of Acru

2. But Acru won’t be quite like those restaurants, and that’s by design.

Whereas the Parks’ group of restaurants is known for their creative, contemporary approaches to Korean cuisine, Acru won’t be overtly Korean in its cuisine. “The original idea,” Garwood says, “was not to be Korean at all.”

Instead, it’ll offer two seasonal menus — a tasting menu ($95) and an à la carte bar menu ($10 to $45 per dish) — that draw on Garwood’s Australian roots (he grew up in Tasmania) and a fine dining training carefully cultivated in Denmark (Kadeau), Sweden (Fäviken), South Korea (Evett), Belgium (In De Wulf) and beyond.

And whereas the Ato family of restaurants adopts a very sleek, modern look and feel, Acru is quite the opposite, with a design that feels like more like a time-honored French bistro or a rustic tavern, than a sleek concrete compound à la Atoboy.

Joseph Calabrese led the design for Acru’s cozy but relatively spacious (by New York standards) 47-seat space. The front bar area seats 11, and there are a total of 36 seats in the main dining room spread across a long, plush, dark green banquette. The cream-colored walls — limewashed and plastered — have a carefully worn patina that contrasts with the warm, dark custom wooden tables and carefully sourced, mismatched vintage chairs from North Carolina. A smaller back dining room features a long table ideal for bigger groups.

Lamb. Photo by Lucia Bell Epstein, courtesy of Acru
Lamb. Photo by Lucia Bell Epstein, courtesy of Acru

3. Here’s how it all came to be.

Last year, the Parks approached Garwood, who had then been their sous chef at Atomix since 2022, and asked him: Would you like to lead a restaurant of your own? It was an offer Garwood couldn’t refuse.

“They’ve supported me the whole time since I’ve been here,” Garwood notes, “and they gave me this opportunity. I’ve always been quite straightforward to JP about wanting to open my own place, and I think they just thought, ‘OK, we’ve had success so far — we’ll keep supporting you.’”

That support included giving Garwood the time and space he needed to compete in the 2023 San Pellegrino Young Chef Academy competition. “I’d finish service at Atomix at about 11 p.m. and then I’d start training for the competition until four or five in the morning, then I’d go home, sleep, and come back for work,” Garwood recalls. “When JP and Ellia found out about that, they started giving me an extra day off on Mondays so I could be by myself in the restaurant to train.” Eventually, Garwood was named the U.S. regional champion.

Much like they have with Garwood’s time at Atomix — which officially ended in April of this year — the Parks have taken on more of a supportive role when it comes to this project, letting Garwood and his team (much of it pulled from the Parks’ other restaurants) have the creative freedom to build the restaurant they want.

A spread of desserts from Acru. Photo by Lucia Bell Epstein, courtesy of Acru
A spread of desserts from Acru. Photo by Lucia Bell Epstein, courtesy of Acru

4. So, what’s the concept exactly?

Acru might be best described as a New York neobistro with an Australian accent. “I’m very big into the ideals of bistronomie that started in 1995 with these three-star Michelin chefs in France doing approachable and affordable food,” Garwood says. “I want to do food with a lot of technique and just have a bit of flair in a comfortable setting.”

It was extremely important to Garwood that Acru’s tasting menu sit under $100. “As my first kind of opening, I want people to just be able to come in and try the food and have a nice time,” he says.

The name of the restaurant, Acru, references dual meanings in French: “raw” and “a high-quality wine or vineyard.” Says Garwood: “I wanted something to have a more raw and vintage kind of feel.”

With Acru, he’s also trying to show New Yorkers that Australian food isn’t just “throwing something on the barbie” although, to be fair, there is a lot of live-fire cooking that’ll be done at Acru (and which involved quite an extensive overhaul of the kitchen to accommodate). Garwood says that, if anything, Australia shares many similarities with the U.S. in that it’s a true melting pot when it comes to its culinary influences, ranging from Greek and Italian to Thai, Vietnamese, and Chinese.

Damper bread. Photo by Lucia Bell Epstein, courtesy of Acru
Tomatoes get a Korean bingsu treatment. Photo by Lucia Bell Epstein, courtesy of Acru

5. Let’s talk about the food.

Similarly, Garwood’s menus for Acru are also global in their inspirations and will always change based on what’s in season.

The $95 tasting menu, he says, will start and finish Australian, and everything in between will draw from his travels. Garwood, a former pastry chef, is also making a Golden Hay Time dessert inspired by Australia’s Golden Gaytime ice cream bars made with toasted hay and a grilled pretzel ice cream, as well as fig leaf lamingtons with fig leaf sponge cake and grilled berry jam. Korean bingsu (shaved ice) gets reimagined in a savory tomato course made with layers of trout with smoked trout roe, cabbage, and anise hyssop granita, topped with warm grilled tomatoes. A carrot-based hot sauce utilizes kimchi and XO sauce, and the optional cheese course ($20) consists of a baked goat cheese tart with makgeolli-cooked leeks.

At the bar, you’ve got red shrimp with warm grilled tomatoes draped in a sheet of lardo; and monkfish agnolotti drizzled with a fermented carrot sauce. There’s also a whole grilled Montauk sea robin; lamb served with “seamite,” Garwood’s take on Vegemite; and an aged ribeye laced in a sauce made from smoked, rendered blue cheese, seaweed powder, and lovage oil.

One thing Garwood hopes diners will appreciate is the bread. Inspired by Australian aboriginal damper, or bush bread, that’s made by crushing different grains and seeds together and cooking it over charcoal or hot rocks, he’s made a version of his own using heirloom Abruzzi rye that’s been around in the U.S. since the colonial days. The result is an earthy flatbread that you can have with both menus, served with a seasonal condiment like fennel pollen.

General manager and beverage director Ambrose Chiang with chef Daniel Garwood Photo by Lucia Bell Epstein, courtesy of Acru
General manager and beverage director Ambrose Chiang with chef Daniel Garwood Photo by Lucia Bell Epstein, courtesy of Acru

6. And to drink?

General manager and wine director Ambrose Chiang, a fellow Australian from Sydney who started his career at Momofuku Seiōbo and moved to New York to become the wine director of Momofuku Ko, has curated a list that’s heavy on French wines from Champagne, Bordeaux, and Burgundy, as well as lesser-known labels from Switzerland, Corsica, Jura, Savoie, and Languedoc-Roussillon. Wine pairings are available for $75 (standard) and $195 (premium).

Cocktails, like the food, embrace grilling techniques, as with the Grilled Lemon Bee’s Knees made with grilled lemon. And fans of vintage liquors will be elated to find a variety of cognac, Armagnac, calvados, and digestifs in a tableside trolley.

Whether you stop by for a quick drink or settle in for the tasting menu, Garwood hopes New Yorkers will be sure to visit now that the restaurant is finally opening on Oct. 16. “If you’re walking past, I want you to be able to say hello to me and talk to the kitchen guys,” he says. “I want us to be known for being fun and approachable — just like the food — and have a bit of energy to it. I think it’s been a while since restaurants have been like that, and I’d love to try to change the culture of restaurants in that way.”


Acru is open Wednesday through Mondays starting at 5 p.m.


Deanna Ting is Resy’s New York & Philadelphia Editor. Follow her on Instagram and X. Follow Resy, too.