GRAND CENTRAL OYSTER BAR & RESTAURANT (AP)
DINING CONCOURSE (Michael Rudin)
Before Grand Central Terminal’s masterful 1990s restoration, nobody could have predicted that it would emerge from its dark age as an anchor link in the city’s high-end food chain.
But New York City works its wonders in mysterious ways. Today, the landmark terminal’s pricey restaurants, casual snack spots and retail shops feed everyone — big-spending eaters with time to spare, tourists and commuters on the run, and locals who sweep through the terminal’s magnificent retail market for all of their at-home dinner party needs.
Grand Central’s food establishments share a heart-wrenching link: They all evoke the 100-year American epoch when trains were the principal means of transport from Sea to Shining Sea.
It doesn’t matter that only one of the sit-down restaurants, the Grand Central Oyster Bar & Restaurant, was there (although in quite a different form) during the age of the 20th Century Limited.
Nor does it count for much that long-distance trains abandoned Grand Central in the early 1990s, when Amtrak shunted them to Penn Station, which was even more depressing then than it is today.
What matters is that, unlike ordinary restaurants, which are designed to provide refuge from the outside world, Grand Central’s connect you with the passage of humanity through its terminal’s halls and corridors.
Marble walls and ceilings carry the murmur of thousands of commingled voices and footsteps all heading somewhere else — a ceaseless buzz that channels the call of long-departed streamliners streaking across distant plains. It’s a noble sound unlike any other in town. The energy permeates the vast expanse under the Oyster Bar’s Guastavino tile ceiling from the front tables and counters all the way into the secluded saloon that’s said to be an afternoon cheater’s paradise.
The throb is palpable as well to customers of Michael Jordan’s The Steak House N.Y.C. and Cipriani Dolce on the West Balcony of the Concourse.
They’re good places to eat, too. The Oyster Bar’s menu is so sprawling, you could hit the jackpot and strike out with different dishes at the same meal; the best ticket to consistency is at the famous long counter where bivalves are served in pristine condition, the daily catch proudly announced on a blackboard.
At Michael Jordan, the seafood can be as fine as the beef. The view of the great hall and its constellation-filled ceiling is intoxicating enough to let you save money on wine.
At Cipriani Dolce, avoid entrees up to $39.95 in favor of relatively more-affordable starters, pasta and the sweets of the title, and you’ll do fine.
The subterranean Dining Concourse affords a different kind pleasure: “fast” food made palatable. The cornucopia of quality American, Italian, Thai, Chinese, Mexican and Middle Eastern options shames the dreadful franchise joints at Penn Station (and Grand Central’s own greasy spoons before the restoration).
There’s nothing tacky about the scene despite the constant ebb and flow of passengers and sightseers. And the long noshing corridor that runs through its heart can feel remarkably private once you find seats beneath the roof reminiscent of an old-time dining car.
But gourmands’ hearts are truly in the Grand Central Market with an entrance on Lexington Ave. In a stroll through the other day, I encountered California blackberries the size of small plums, fresh Florida stone crab claws, and open barrels of spices and teas redolent of a distant wharf.
“Marinate these babies in olive oil,” Wild Edibles advises us about Portuguese baby octopus. Chilean bass is “nearly impossible to overcook due to its high oil content.” Murray’s was touting Vendéen Bichonné as, “our latest cheesological obsession, so plump and mushroomy you will want to rest your head on it.”
The Oyster Bar, Michael Jordan and Cipriani Dolce all have lively bars. But the drinker’s heaven is surely the Campbell Apartment on the mezzanine of the terminal’s Vanderbilt Ave. side.
Framed in tall leaded windows, steeped in mahogany and plush red trim, and the former salon of 1920s financier John W. Campbell, it’s truly the place to channel a lost age. Just plunk down your dough, let the spell take over and hear the whistle blow.