Elsewhere      12/01/2008  

Grayz is Finally Done, and It Wasn’t Handled Gneissly

The current chapter of the Gray Kunz saga has come to an end, and not the one that the great chef, or his talents, deserved. Having first been pushed out of Cafe Gray, and subsequently the preposterous small-plates restaurant that bore his name (albeit in hip-hop fashion), Gray Kunz no longer has any presence at all in New York City. Yes, it’s come to that. Crain’s reports that Grayz will be shuttering, and opening in the new year as Gneiss, owned by the same Princeton banker who owned Grayz, and with the same chef, Martin Brock. One point in the story I would take issue with, though: the part where it says that this is “Chef Kunz’s second failed restaurant in five years.” While technically true, neither Cafe Gray nor Grayz was really Kunz’s restaurant. The first was a gilded deathtrap, that not even Fernand Point himself could have broken out of, and Grayz, with its strange corporate concept, was a similarly Sisyphean struggle. The chef is said by Crain’s to be contemplating a Cafe Gray in Asia, as well as unnamed New York projects.

Crain’s: Gray Kunz’s restaurant Grayz fades to black

Comments

One Response to “Grayz is Finally Done, and It Wasn’t Handled Gneissly”

  1. Wilfrid on December 1st, 2008 9:50 am

    But the chef at Grayz since it opened (unless he left very recently) has been Martin Brock, who was sending out excellent Asian-accented German cuisine throughout the restaurant’s checkered history.

    After Bruni’s confusing review, it flew under the radar as one of the most underrated spots in the city. I’ll be looking out for Martin Brock’s next move.

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