The Modern Restaurant, New York - A Lesson In Perspective

On a trip to NYC earlier this month we were lucky enough to have dinner at The Modern, one of the restaurants at the Museum of Modern Art. Everything about it basks in glorious modern design, jst as the museum does, without being overdone. The chef, Gabriel Kreuther, is 'Alsatian-born' (I didn't realise one could be), and the food is 'French-American', which makes sense of the carbonara with escargots... I loved everything about it, we ate the Bar Room, the informal side of the restaurant with square leather seating and precariously small tables on which to balance crisp Sauvignon Blanc.

Inspired by the Bauhaus movement, the building design is elegant enough to raise an eyebrow, yet understated as not to overpower. It took a good half an hour for me to notice that the ceiling in each side of the restaurant was a different height. Not only that, but the furnishings were perfectly in scale to the height of the ceiling in each room - higher chair backs, tables and tablewear in the taller restaurant side. The Bauhaus was a serious influence, a lesson in perspective over wine and escargot was a welcome break from the frenzied, freezing streets outside.