41 West 42nd Street (near Avenue of the Americas)
212-257-5826
www.gknyc.com

    As I surveyed the large, bustling dining room at the beautiful new restaurant Gabriel Kreuther across from Bryant Park, I was yet again reminded that fine dining at the highest level has never been more vibrant in Manhattan.  Just as the tables are full tonight at Le Bernardin, Aureole, Daniel, Jean-Georges, The Modern, La Grenouille, Per Se, Le Cirque, Picholine, Lincoln Ristorante, Marea,  Eleven Madison Park, and The Four Seasons, so, too, are the 100 seats at this stunning new restaurant named for Chef Gabriel Kreuther, congenially occupied six nights a week by well-dressed people who expect a civilized evening to unfold without blasting music, bare tables, and t-shirted waiters who never seem to know who gets what.
    True, finding a location, designing the space, hiring the best staff, and stocking a great wine list make the idea of opening such a restaurant in a city of rents beyond exorbitant quite an iffy proposition.  But the owners and investors are willing to bet on Kreuther’s reputation, a buoyant midtown economy, and a clientele in search of the very best.
    Kreuther earned his ranking among NYC’s great French masters while at The Modern for ten years, and his return to the stoves has been eagerly awaited by his fans and the food media.  So the opening of his restaurant (I’ll call it “GK”) is easily the big restaurant news item of 2015.  All the more remarkable, the fixed-price menu at GK for four courses, plus amuses, three bread services, pre-dessert, cookies, chocolates, and a coffee cake to take home, is only $98 (tasting menu $185)--quite a bit below Le Bernardin’s $140 (four courses), Daniel’s $145 (four) and Jean-Georges’ $128 (three).
    GK’s angled, flowing dining spaces, including a chef’s table near the kitchen, are inspired by the town squares in Alsace, where Kreuther comes from,  with light fixtures in the bar that evoke street lamps, wooden beams, green tiles, an etched-glass wall adorned with stork imagery, and a stainless-steel bar top resembling pewter. Kreuther must feel right at home.
    The retro-style chairs are extremely comfortable, the tables are set with thick white linens and napkins, with a charming table lamp that gives a further glow to the room.  The elongated forks, knives and spoons seem to me more apt for a fondue set, and I was surprised the rimmed wine glasses are not of the quality of all else on the table.
    GK’s service staff has now gotten to the point of seeming effortless in their moves, and the wine list is presented on an iPad that allows you to zero in on region, grape, and price, with the help of  ever-ebullient beverage director Emilie Perrier and the very helpful Brady Gorsuch. 
    I am going to try very hard not to pile on superlatives about the cuisine, but it will be difficult.  Kreuther’s vision of food is based on the principle that, by using the finest ingredients, very little has to be done to any of them beyond pairing them up, so that their flavors remain pure and distinct, while wholly complementary.  He is also well aware of the importance of an acidic spark--a touch of lemon juice, a lime leaf, and tangy seasoning--always to brighten and bring out all the flavors.  This is immediately evident in a starter like 10 days cured beef tenderloin tartare with a briny razor clam vinaigrette and the bite of horseradish. A raw marinated scallop gets a mild kick from a jalapeño coulis, with soothing  black radish and the tingle of Meyer lemon confit. Kreuther’s use of foie gras in a terrine has always been a paragon of the form, here served with woodsy porcini preserve, duck prosciutto and sweet cantaloupe.  A langoustine tartare (left) comes with flying fish roe, cauliflower, and a lush macadamia puree.
    Also showing Alsatian roots is Kreuther’s second course of sturgeon and sauerkraut tart with a creamy American caviar mousseline, which arrives under a glass cloche (below) that adds just a hint of applewood smoke is a masterpiece.  His sweetbread and black truffle dumplings with a puree of corn and red currants is a beautiful amalgam of Northern Italian and American flavors, as is his Munster cheese and egg raviolo with spinach, the light crunch of pistachio and black truffle sauce.
    The third course is either seafood or meat, and I split the difference with my party of five. Buckwheat breaded Montauk fluke in a light barley-mushroom broth with nettle foam wholly respected the taste and texture of the fish, while a lusty dish of skirt steak with crispy black trumpet mushrooms, green leek purée and green peppercorn jus proved the versatility of this lowly cut of beef.
        I don’t know what Kreuther does with the rest of the pig, but his spice- rubbed Mangalitsa pork collar (a bit chewy that evening) and cheek with morcilla blood sausage, apricot, and fennel--pork’s perfect foil--was drizzled with the kind of careful, syrupy reduction only a veteran Frenchman like Kreuther can pass on to his brigade.
    It was all I could do to wave away a splendid cheese cart, so that I would have ample room for dessert. Patîssier Marc Aumont has crafted the kind of refined desserts you really find only at this level of cuisine, like his “Fantasy” of chocolate Kirsch Amarena with Guanaja Chantilly cream, an olive-oil flavored chocolate sponge cake and Kirsch sorbet (left); his aptly named  “Ethereal” pineapple and green apple sphere with herbs sorbet; a lovely and simple form of peach Melba as bright as August, with vanilla mousse sphere and almond cake center, raspberry sauce and caramelized almonds,  raspberry gelée and peach sorbet; and his “Comfort” dessert of apricot pistachio passion fruit with roasted apricot, pistachio mousseline and ten flavor sorbet. (And here I need note that GK’s pastry sous-chef, Priscilla Scaff Mariani, who had worked with him at The Modern, is my daughter-in-law, so accept that for what it’s worth.)
    The promise of GK was that Kreuther’s cuisine would be at least as good as when he was at The Modern.  But, by bringing to bear his Alsatian background and rigorous training,  he has added an amiable touch of his shy personality in all he does in dishes unlike what anyone else is now doing in NYC’s highly competitive food scene.  
    And to enjoy it all in such an enchanting atmosphere--at such an exemplary price--is a reminder of that rare quality of the sublime within reach of anyone receptive enough truly to appreciate all that goes into it.

Gabriel Kreuther is open Mon.-Fri. for lunch, and Mon.-Sat. for dinner.

❖❖❖

NOTES FROM THE WINE CELLAR

CATCHING UP WITH GERMAN WINES
By Brian Freedman
 

    When I was six years old, my father sat me down at the living room coffee table, opened up three bottles—a red, a white, and a Champagne—and told me that, starting that evening, I would begin to learn about wine with him. During nearly every dinner thereafter, I’d have a microscopic splash in my glass, the wine specifically chosen to pair with whatever magic my mother was whipping up in the kitchen that evening. Mine was a childhood awash in Napa Cabernet, Left Bank Bordeaux, and plenty of Loire Valley Sauvignon Blanc.
    Yet like most Americans in the 1980s, we never--not once--paired German Riesling with dinner, despite the range of my mother’s cooking and the infinite opportunities that we clearly had (in hindsight) to enjoy food alongside the great whites of Germany.  I don’t know the reasoning for sure, but my hunch is that, even in a wine-focused home like the one in which I grew up, German wine was just misunderstood. By the time I was into my teens, the entirety of my German-wine knowledge could be summed up in two concise bullet points: (a) They were sweet, the sort of thing that I heard was guzzled at the illicit high school parties I never got invited to; and (b) their labels were often indecipherable, printed out in overly ornate Gothic script like some sort of Grimms’ fairytale illustration.
    It wasn’t until years later that I tasted my first great one: A J.J. Christoffel Erben Riesling Spätlese Urziger Wurzgarten. It changed my wine life forever.
    Since then I have been on a quest to wrap my head around the astounding diversity of German bottlings, a national wine culture as vibrant, fascinating, and wide-ranging as any in the world right now. Frustratingly, among too many consumers at least, German wines are still pigeonholed in ways that they absolutely should not be. Sommeliers and beverage directors are putting their weight behind them, and having some significant success selling them tableside at their restaurants, but among too large a swath of the wine-drinking public, the whole category of German wine remains a mystery. Yet I have a strong suspicion that all of that is about to change.
    Last month, I spent nearly a week in Germany at the invitation of the German Wine Board, with the explicit purpose of exploring (and therefore increasing my understanding of) the world-class wine regions of Pfalz, Rheingau, and Rheinhessen. I came away from the experience not just with an increased respect for the wines, but, more importantly, a deep sense of excitement for their future. The German wine industry is infinitely more exciting than it is given credit for, and beyond its marquis grape variety Riesling, the breadth of expressions is nothing less than stunning.
    Much of this has to do with what might be called the inherent terroir-specificity of Riesling, a variety that has an uncanny ability to allow the land in which it grows to shimmer through with crystalline clarity. The place-name on the label of great German Riesling is more than an indication of origins; it’s also often an indication of character. (This is true of so many other grape varieties there, too, not just Riesling.)  This was made beautifully visible during a tasting of wines grown on the red slate slopes of Nierstein’s Roten Hang (right). Over the course of the evening, we spoke with, and enjoyed the wines of, three producers whose vision, energy and passion embody all of the excitement of the new German winemaking culture. Highlights of the evening--in addition to the amazing beef and pork from Metzgerei David in Worms cooked up by the remarkable Kai Schätzel--included the 2012 and 2013 Pettenthal Rieslings from both Schätzel and Weingut St. Anthony, the 2014 Pettenthal Sauvignon Blanc from Weingut Sebastian Strub, and the 2013 and 2014 Nierstein Silvaners from Schätzel, which benefited from a week’s maceration on the skins. I also loved the 2014 Hipping Riesling from Weingut Lisa Bunn.
    Silvaner, I suspect, is poised to see its stock climb to the levels it so richly deserves. Long an afterthought on the American market, the Silvaners I tasted were stunning in their clarity and beyond exciting in the range of styles in which they are being crafted, from the crisp and refreshing to the unexpectedly age-worthy.
    Weissburgunder is also on the rise. More familiarly known as Pinot Blanc, it’s a variety that I kept going back to while in Germany. The spicy, bright 2014 Weissburgunder Trocken from Weingut Heinrich Spindler was a food-pairing dream, and the Weingut Odinstal Weissburgunder “Basalt” 2014 was among the top wines I tasted all week, its spice and honeyed notes framing peach, yellow apple and a smoky minerality with grace, balance and phenomenal depth. (Their 2014 Silvaner Nature, which is partially crafted in buried amphorae, was deeply memorable, too.)
    That balance is one of the great calling cards of German wine right now, a trait that makes them excellent to sip on their own yet tremendously versatile at the table. This is true for the still wines as much as the sparkling ones, like Odinstal’s Brut Nature (only bottled in magnum) and Weingut Joachim Flick’s 2013 Wickerer Nonnberg Riesling Sekt Brut. And I was bowled over by the quality and range of bottlings on offer at Strauch Sektmanufaktur, which was more than worthy of being named Gault-Millau’s German wine discovery of the year last year, a distinction that has required them to double production and, for the first time, not to sell any of their estate-grown grapes, but instead to use them all in their own bottlings. If you see these sparklers in the market or on a wine list, buy them immediately.
    Sauvignon Blanc is also finding a voice and an audience for itself--producers are experimenting with harvest times and winemaking techniques to coax from the grape variety a unique sense of expressiveness. Weingut am Nil is doing a nice job with a more classical expression of it, whereas Weingut Mussler is working with a more tropical style in their 2013 Sauvignon Blanc Fransheim; its honeyed and floral notes are immediately appealing. Weingut von Winning is also a source for excellent Sauvignon Blanc that I’d recommend seeking out.
    Weingut Schneider won me over with two tasty ones--the 2014 Kaitui and the 2014 Kaitui Fumé, the latter based on two clones from Northern Italy and boasting more smoky aromatics than the former--but I was just as impressed with their reds. The 2012 Syrah “Holy Moly” was a dead-ringer for Northern Rhône on the nose, and the 2009 bottling of the same wine was more California in character, its 15% alcohol balanced and pulsing through a wine of serious exuberance. Their Tailor Reserve, a blend of Merlot and Cabernet Franc, also showed brilliantly in both its 2007 and 2004 vintages. (Their 2003 Riesling Saumagen, with its lanolin, nectarine, mint, and petrol notes, was both exciting and wholly unique at the same time.)
    There is, indeed, a new generation that seems to be pushing both German wine itself, and the perception of it around the world, in new directions by both respecting the past and blazing their own path to the future. Jochen Dreissigacker, for example, is, at his eponymous winery, crafting wines of notable purity and finesse. His impossibly complex, deeply pleasurable 2010 Riesling Geyserberg, for instance, embodies so much of what makes the new German wine so exciting. I got the same feeling throughout my time in Germany the other week. This sort of exuberance and energy is contagious, and I suspect that more and more consumers on this side of the ocean will continue to discover and appreciate it. I certainly have.