Gabriel Kreuther, the Alsatian, Michelin-starred chef, opened his very first restaurant in New York City’s Grace Building on 42nd street directly across from Bryant Park. Formerly helming the kitchen at Danny Meyer’s famed MoMA outpost, The Modern, Kreuther tapped Glen & Co. Architecture to design the 14,000-square foot home for his Alsatian-American inspired dining concept. Spanning two levels, our team of Architects and Interior Designers weaved layers of rich meaning, material, and history into one of the most unique spaces in the city.

“To infuse a restaurant with a soul requires rigor, proper insight into a background, fertile materials that uncovers the story and a willingness of the chef to tell his story,” highlights Coben. His design concept for Gabriel Kreuther does just that. The interior space intertwines stories of old-world France with modern-day New York.

The Grace Building is a magnificent modern building, whose lines and materials were used for inspiration throughout the space. To determine the overall layout, we used a contemporary interpretation of Alsace’s Old Town Square, creating an active streetscape between the lounge and the main dining room. Each space, though connected by a pathway for circulating guests, has its own unique design story.

Food halls are popping up all over the country, in converted breweries, department stores or in basements of hotels.  At Rosedale Center, we have converted a two-story, 30,000 square-foot Borders Bookstore into Revolution Hall.  The difference in this food hall is we could speak with one user group to discuss the planning and operations rather than separate operators or concessions.  This f simple fact gave us the ability to hone in on the overall guest experience and choreograph the entire experience.  Our approach to designing this Food Hall was to use city planning as our guide.  Much like a small town or city, we have arraigned the food “kiosks” around open spaces as if they are buildings, simulating the buildings which surround the “town square” typically house a butcher shop, flower shop, a pizza joint and a bar. The public spaces have been created

Each food kiosk has been carefully designed in collaboration with the culinary team to ensure that it has its own unique identity and functions properly to ensure the guest receives their food quickly and seamlessly.  While each kiosk is uniquely designed, we had to make certain the connecting surfaces and spaces reflect the spirit of the Craveable Hospitality Brand while also being as locally relevant as possible.  By commissioning local area artists to create one-of-a-kind artwork, we were able to curate local stories to tie them into either folklore or subtle stories about the American revolution.

Revolution Hall allows us to take full-sized restaurants that CHG has created and squeeze them down into smaller kiosks while also testing out concepts in kiosk-form before scaling them up to be realized as fully restaurant concepts. 

Highlights of the design include a ten-foot tall portrait of Paul Bunyan eating a bowl of ramen, a twelve-foot tall hand-painted American flag, back-lit Himalayan sea-salt bricks, reclaimed barn siding, neon signs, “fish scale” painted walls, pool tables and stadium seating.  Fashioned more as “urban living rooms” rather than seating sections, there are copious amounts of seating with many varieties such as library tables, lounge seating, banquettes and conventional dining tables.