THIS RESTAURANT IS CLOSED Agern

THIS RESTAURANT IS CLOSED Agern Restaurant Review:

Agern is owned by Danish restaurateur and Noma co-founder Claus Meyer. Gunnar Gislason, the chef of Dill in Reykjavik, Iceland, runs the kitchen in the New Nordic ethos and style. They’ve transformed a nook of Grand Central Terminal into a peaceful, muted and pretty space --- lots of shades of grey and curved blonde wood. Guests might never know they were in dizzily busy Grand Central. A meal starts with a bowl of warm barley sourdough bread, hearty yet light, and a puff of whipped butter from Sweet Grass Dairy, served atop a dramatic-looking rock. The beet course comes with bread, too --- a mini loaf of seeded rye --- and this is when it becomes exceedingly clear that the folks here really know what they’re doing with bread. The end-of-the-meal gift is that first bread and butter course in a little bag, and it’s just as wonderful the next day. Prices, $120 for a Field & Forest tasting menu and $145 for the vegetarian Land & Sea, include service, and dishes are also available à la carte. Bitter salad is crunchy with almonds and sweet with preserved blackberry, and grass-fed dry-aged beef with pear and hazelnuts arrives on a bed of smoked celery root so smoky it tastes like it comes straight from a campfire. For dessert, eggplant pairs with milk chocolate and smoked buttermilk (smoke is definitely a theme at Agern) and is presented beside crabapple, cranberries and hopped mead. Wines, beers, spirits, cider, mead and coffee hail mostly from the U.S., in true local spirit.