Waldorf Astoria New York Taps Chef Michael Anthony of Gramercy Tavern Fame for New Restaurant

Guests at the Waldorf Astoria New York enjoying breakfast at Oscar’s Brasserie
When the landmark Waldorf Astoria New York reopens, it will do so with Chef Michael Anthony at the helm of the property’s as-yet unnamed American Brasserie-style restaurant, Hilton Worldwide announced.
The two level restaurant will include a bar on the ground floor and dining rooms on both floors.  It will offer farm-to-table food and “celebrate the traditions of American cuisine,” the hotel said, while “reinterpreting and elevating American classics.”
The hotel is well known for its restaurants, which include Peacock Alley, the Bull and Bear Prime Steakhouse, and Oscar’s, as well as for its elegant Art Deco design. When the property reopens, a new yet-to-be-named restaurant will replace Oscar’s.
Once the largest hotel in the world, the art deco Waldorf-Astoria has been at its present location on Park Avenue and 50th Street  since 1931. In its original incarnation, built on the site that is now home to the Empire State Building, the hotel transformed the idea of a hotel from a place merely for travelers to stay overnight to a venue that made the hotel both a destination unto itself and the center of a social scene.
The storied Waldorf Astoria closed in the spring of 2017 for what was originally to be a three-year renovation project before the coronavirus pandemic had other ideas. The project includes the conversion of many of its guest rooms to private condominium apartments.
When the property reopens later this year, it will have some 300 to 500 guest rooms. It had 1,413 rooms at the time it closed for renovations.
Michael Anthony, who was born in 1968, grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio, and graduated from Indiana University Bloomington after studying business, French, and Japanese. He then studied cooking at the École Supérieure de Cuisine Française – Ferrandi in Paris.
Anthony returned to the United States, taking a job in the kitchen of Restaurant Daniel and then was appointed chef de cuisine at March Restaurant.  He was later appointed executive chef at Blue Hill Stone Barns and to the same position at Gramercy Tavern, where he was later named Chef-Partner. Anthony is also the author of several cookbooks including The Gramercy Tavern Cookbook.
As Chef-Partner at the Waldorf Astoria, he will “usher in a new era of culinary excellence overseeing the signature restaurant dining,” the hotel said in a statement.
The property was purchased by China’s Anbang Insurance Group in 2014 for $1.95 billion. It will remain under Hilton Worldwide management when it reopens, albeit with far fewer staff.
(Photo: Accura Media Group)