When I went for Sunday brunch recently at The Grand Tier Restaurant, set atop a grand staircase at the Metropolitan Opera, and I looked around at the gleaming, beautifully restored Lincoln Center campus, I sighed for the thousandth time at just how wondrous New York City truly is.
Below us our panorama on the plaza widened to include the Henry Moore sculpture set in a pool of water, the dramatic wedge of glass that houses Lincoln Ristorante, the Juilliard School of Music and the array of theaters within the Center. Beyond that is brash Broadway, always streaming and teeming with people and cars, taxis and buses in both directions. No matter how many times I experience such a New York moment, I am always reminded of Little Orphan Annie singing, “To think that I've lived here all of my life and never seen these things!”
The vast space of The Grand Tier, beneath gleaming chandeliers, is in itself an astonishment, flanked on either side by Marc Chagall murals—“The Triumph of Music” and “The Sources of Music.” (One of the Met’s secrets is that the paintings were mistakenly installed opposite of the way Chagall intended them, but the artist eventually decided the mistake was a good one, because the trumpet players in each painting now face each other, as if welcoming visitors with a fanfare.)
The restaurant’s tables are widely spaced, the linens glow in the noontime sunshine, the flowers flourish, and on Sundays a singer from the Met ‘s Lindemann Young Artists Development Program comes to serenade diners. On the Sunday I went it was an extraordinary basso named David Leigh, whose un-amplified renditions of Verdi, Mussorgsky and Cole Porter boomed through the huge dining room to a chorus of bravos.
The Grand Tier is unique beyond its décor. Pre-opera, it serves dinner ($74 prix fixe or à la carte), though you need not be attending a performance to dine there. To save time, you can even pre-order cocktails and food before the performance. Two hours before the curtain goes up, guests sit down to a two-course meal, then, during the opera’s half-hour intermission, they return to their table, where dessert is waiting for them. After 8 p.m., the restaurant functions as does any other, depending on the tables available.
There is also a Saturday matinee menu, at $48. At Sunday brunch ($45 prix fixe or à la carte) guests also have free access to Gallery Met, which presents contemporary art exhibitions on operatic themes. The Revlon Bar at The Grand Tier offers a full beverage selection, including a Champagne and Prosecco Bar, and signature sandwiches and desserts.
Executive Chef Richard Diamonte, who previously was with Jean-Georges, offers an extensive brunch—not a pre-made buffet—and you get “Endless Grand Tier Bellinis.” The menu mimics the one at dinner to some degree, so by all means have the crab cake with a rich lobster beurre blanc, celery root rémoulade avocado mousse and citrus ($22). The wild mushroom risotto ($28) is excellent (above), tender and melded with truffle butter, while Benedict Royale ($25) is one of the most sumptuous versions in the city, layered with Niman Ranch jamon royal and Gruyère atop cornbread, all of it lavished with an impeccable Hollandaise sauce and accompanied by roasted potatoes.
The dinner menu has some unusual items, like a velouté of sweet cardoons with toasted almonds, persimmons, celery root and chervil ($22) and veal tenderloin with roasted squash, caramelized gnocchi, Parmesan, pancetta and sage ($48). There are also five cheeses available. And to finish, there’s a fine rendering of an often mis-rendered dessert, baked Alaska ($16), and a Valrhona chocolate soufflé with crème anglaise ($18), perfect for two people. A dense chocolate mousse cake ($16) comes with a praline glaze and hazelnut cream, while a delightful torrone maringue parfait ($16) is a lovely dessert atop a pistachio cake lavished with a rich zabaglione foam, sour cherries and poached figs.
The wine list is formidable and well-balanced, not least for the number of Champagnes carried, and it is not unusual to see an icy bucket of bubbly on most tables every night.
Dining at The Grand Tier has become such a ritual for so many guests that they return as regularly as churchgoers each week, and now, with Sunday brunch, that is even more the case.
Lincoln Center, like the Metropolitan Museum of Art Grand Central Terminal and Rockefeller Center, is a quintessential part of NYC’s cultural landscape, and The Grand Tier is a very special place right in the midst of all in which to savor its delicious glory.
THE GRAND TIER 30 Lincoln Center Plaza 212-799-3400