Glocker grew up in a small town in Austria, where he was expected to take over his family’s hotel, but, he told me, after culinary school, “I packed my bags and left,” to cook with Gordon Ramsay, in London and New York, and Charlie Trotter, in Chicago, where he discovered that he loved discipline in the kitchen. That discipline was on full display during his seven years as the chef and co-owner of Bâtard, in Tribeca, where he was showered with accolades for the restaurant’s genial fine dining at a technical epitome. When Bâtard closed during the pandemic for the second time, in 2021, and the Breslin space became available, Glocker—who’d “had a business plan in my pocket for quite a while”—took the plunge on his dream project.
Koloman Moser’s visual influence is apparent in meticulous, gorgeous details throughout the restaurant, such as brass light fixtures re-created from Moser’s designs, and the grand bar, backlit in amber and anchored by a train-station-worthy brass-and-mica clock—but the food is all Glocker. The tight menu features coyly engaging twists on classic French and Viennese cuisine. Duck-liver parfait is topped with a gelée of Kracher, Austria’s rival to France’s Sauternes. The beets in the Roasted Beets “Linzer” taste nearly candied, their sweetness from raspberry vinegar; they’re tossed with little squares of shortbread. (“Didn’t look like a Linzer torte, but it tasted like it,” a friend proclaimed.) Oversized gougères (no complaints here) incorporate Bergkäse, Pleasant Ridge Reserve, and Cheddar cheese and red-wine-braised shallots into pâte à choux dough; they’re baked in muffin tins, yielding maximum caramelized crust and a gooey center.
Glocker’s Short Rib & Tafelspitz Terrine was born from a reverie of Sunday meals after church. “My father took me to the local restaurant, and we had boiled beef”—Tafelspitz, named for the cut of meat used, essentially tri-tip. “The leftovers we took home. He had it in the fridge, it just kind of jellified, and then he took it out, sliced it, put a little bit of vinaigrette over the top, a piece of bread. That was it. It was delicious.” For Glocker’s terrine, he cooks beef shoulder, chuck, and top round, chills them in their broth, and slices the result for layers of the terrine, which gets wrapped in carrots cooked in the same broth. It’s served chilled, finished with Styrian pumpkin-seed oil, a high-end cold-pressed specialty of Styria, Austria; egg yolk and tarragon cream take the edge off the austerity of the meat.
Koloman Moser’s visual influence is apparent in meticulous, gorgeous details throughout the restaurant, including the grand bar, backlit in amber.
A perfectly crisp schnitzel starts with a veal loin—more tender than the usual top round—which gets shallow-fried in clarified butter. Its bevy of accompaniments includes lingonberry and sea-buckthorn sauces, to cut the richness with sweet-and-sour tang; and a lively potato salad—“You have to leave it out,” Glocker said, “as soon as you put potato salad in the fridge the flavor’s gone”—made the way his mom did, properly seasoned with vinegar.
There are other standouts—beef tenderloin with a bone-marrow-and-brioche crust, served with marvellous Baumkuchen, potato-pancake rings filled with potato purée; hefty cross-sections of salmon sandwiched in a cracklingly crisp tramezzini-bread croûte. For one last surprise, try the crème brûlée. You’d never guess it, but Glocker has discovered that duck egg transforms custard into a cloudlike ideal. (Dishes $15-$60.) ♦
