At Cove, Flynn McGarry Brings California Light to New York Dining
The wunderkind chef’s new Hudson Square restaurant stirs West Coast charm, farm-driven menus, and Scandi-inspired interiors into his most expansive undertaking yet
Flynn McGarry has always been in motion. He was a teenage wunderkind who captivated New York with Gem, his erstwhile Lower East Side restaurant launched after stints at Eleven Madison Park, Maaemo, and Geranium. He remains ahead of his years, having amassed a fervent following around offshoots Gem Wine, Gem Home, and now Cove, his new restaurant opening in Manhattan’s Hudson Square neighborhood on October 7. It marks his most ambitious undertaking yet, channeling his adventurous eye into a California-driven dining room where the cuisine, interiors, and service culture orbit around care and connection.
At Cove, McGarry has overhauled both the menu and the service model. Where Gem focused on a fixed tasting sequence for small groups, Cove accommodates up to 90 diners and offers multiple paths through the experience. Guests can choose between an eight-course kitchen menu (McGarry bristles at the term “tasting menu”), a generous family-style dinner, or à la carte plates designed for spontaneous drop-ins and celebratory evenings. Menus evolve constantly, shaped by conversations with local farmers and harvests of vegetables, herbs, and flowers from his personal garden at Isabella Rossellini’s farm in Brookhaven, New York. “Everything starts with conversations with the farmers,” he explains. “Based on that, I just get in the kitchen with the ingredients and see what fits.”
This fall, dishes will include tomato consommé with pickled ginger and summer kosho; lobster with chanterelles, new potatoes, and chamomile; and grilled eggplant with truffle, wild rice, and dashi. Each plate shares a clarity of flavor anchored in the integrity of its ingredients. “Even though some of the dishes may seem familiar to Gem, the larger model feels completely unique to Cove,” McGarry says. The wine program, shaped with his sister, Paris, underscores this sensibility. A list of approximately 400 bottles highlights French and American producers, with an emphasis on low-intervention winemaking and nods to the list at Gem. Guests can opt for a pairing with the tasting menu, offered either as a full progression or by the glass.
Design plays as vital a role as the food. McGarry taught himself AutoCAD to conceive the airy, craft-forward interiors, tempering the building’s glass, steel, and concrete palette with warm materials informed by West Coast modernism and Scandi simplicity. Floors are clad in Douglas fir, which McGarry describes as “the most Californian tree,” though sourced from Denmark. “My guiding principle was balance,” he tells Galerie. “I wanted to balance it with lots of wood and warmth, but needed it at the right ratio to have a relationship to each other instead of trying to hide the building’s roots. There’s a California glow that we tried to bring into Cove—yellows, blues, and light. In reality, the space has more Danish pieces than Californian, but that midcentury aesthetic ties both places together.”
Complementing the pared-down palette are custom cherry and ash wood tables by Grainwood Studio perched underneath hand-forged pendant lighting by ceramicist Shane Gabier. “Nothing is necessarily the most luxurious material,” McGarry reflects, “but craftsmanship transforms it into a luxurious object.” In Manhattan, space itself is a luxury. Yet Cove’s cabin-like interior never feels sparse, owing to Hay chairs, Maharam sheer curtains, and light-soaked floral paintings by Frederik Nystrup-Larsen that continually tease the eye between courses. McGarry also collaborated with Gabier and fellow ceramicists Rio Hito, Janaki Larsen, Matt Hallyburton, Jane Herold, and Phillip Kim to develop a custom line of dinnerware inspired by the shapes, colors, and sizes of vintage objects discovered during travels in Japan. “That trip made me realize you could serve the most simple food on a beautiful ceramic and it instantly elevates it,” he says. A selection of these objects will be available for purchase at Gem Home.
If Gem got McGarry’s feet off the ground, perhaps Cove indicates growth without compromise. Visible from every seat, the open kitchen reinforces his desire to collapse barriers between diners and chefs, who will personally serve the dishes they cook. That touch, he explains, aims to deliver an elevated dining experience free of traditional formality. And he’s bringing heat. When asked what he’s most excited about ahead of the opening, he quipped “our Ansul system.”