Inside Dan Kluger’s New Restaurant Greywind
Dan Kluger is the latest chef to put his mark on New York’s Hudson Yards.
The James Beard Award-winning chef has opened Greywind, a multiconcept project, on the ground floor of a residential building on 10th Avenue. The multiconcept culinary project includes a restaurant, chef’s counter, all-day bakery and downstairs cocktail lounge, Spygold, opening in various stages starting in mid-April.
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The opportunity to integrate multiple concepts under one roof drew Kluger to Hudson Yards, he says.
“The restaurant I knew I’d be able to do; the other things were more flexing muscles that I wasn’t sure if I had,” he says.
Similar to Kluger’s popular downtown restaurant Loring Place, the menu at Greywind is vegetable-forward and ingredient-focused. “It’s not tweezer food, it’s not super fussy, but there’s an incredible amount of flavor and a lot of attention going into it,” says Kluger, offering the sugar snap salad, which features multiple preparations of sugar snap peas, as an example. “It’s really an exploration of those ingredients and letting them not just shine, but really be the star.” Main courses include Long Island duck ragu with Swiss chard and sea bream with mushrooms and snow peas. Desserts are inspired by nostalgic treats like strawberry shortcake, and the Greywood ice cream sundae served in a waffle bowl with toppings including candied kumquats.
The cocktail menu reflects a similar ingredient-forward approach (the snap pea reappears in a mezcal drink), and Kluger anticipates seasonal flavors rendered multiple ways.
During the day, the bakery will offer bread, muffins, Danishes, later adding prepared items like salad and sandwiches, including a breakfast “bao.” At night, that area will turn into a chef’s counter, where Kluger and executive chef Caitlin Giamario will be cooking three nights a week, offering a tasting-style menu for an intimate group. He hopes the experience will mimic entertaining for groups at his own home.
“It’s casual enough and fun enough, that the idea is you’re kind of sitting at my kitchen table and we’re talking as you’re eating and I’m making things,” he says, adding that the menu will change frequently and be conceptualized around different themes like an homage to Kluger’s 50th birthday and the summer harvest.
The name, “Greywind,” was chosen to evoke the feeling of a Hudson Valley country home on a windy day, and the different areas of the restaurant were imagined as different rooms in a home. “Each area has its own personality,” says Kluger. The airy dining room, encased by floor-to-ceiling windows, was designed by Parts and Labor Design, who outfitted the space with wood tables and bronze accents. Todd Snyder designed the staff aprons.
Kluger joins a roster of prominent culinary names to open near Hudson Yards in recent months, with more to come (Andrew Carmellini, another downtown mainstay, will soon be Greywind’s neighbor).
“It feels like we’re now coming into an area that’s a little bit more established,” says Kluger of the neighborhood; Greywind is located just several blocks from the flagship Hudson Yards mall. ”There have been some [restaurants] who have come and gone already, and so it gives us a little more comfort level of what’s the right thing for here. In terms of the food and the environment, we feel like we’re creating something that is needed. Ultimately there’s a built-in population right here. There’s a lot of people here, and so — knock on wood — it keeps us consistently busy,” he adds, nodding also to the cluster of office buildings in the area — not to mention all of the apartments located just upstairs.
“The hardest thing today is not being consistently busy and the ups and downs,” he says. “We’re in this amazing residential building with tons of tenants that hopefully will want to come and eat here.”
Launch Gallery: Inside Dan Kluger's New Restaurant Greywind
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