In a city full of icons, the Waldorf Astoria New York has long held a place among the most recognizable. But even New York institutions need a little attention now and then, and in 2017, the hotel closed its doors for what would become a nearly eight-year restoration. The idea was to bring the landmark into the present without losing the old New York glamour that made it famous in the first place.
When the Waldorf finally reopened in July 2025, it came with more than refreshed rooms and restored interiors. There were new restaurants, too, including Lex Yard, a two-story American brasserie. And who better to helm its menu than another established name in New York dining?
Enter Michael Anthony
The multiple James Beard Award winner spent nearly two decades at Gramercy Tavern, where dishes such as his hot-smoked trout with pickled onions and beef tartare with pine nuts, mushrooms and capers helped establish his reputation for seasonal American cooking. Before that, he worked at Blue Hill at Stone Barns, developing relationships with farmers and an appreciation for seasonal ingredients that have remained central to his approach.
His arrival at Lex Yard comes at a time when familiar, comforting food is getting renewed attention. In its 2026 restaurant trends forecast, the James Beard Foundation highlighted a growing interest in hearty, recognizable dishes and menus that follow the seasons. For Anthony, of course, cooking with the seasons is hardly a new idea.
After 20 years at Gramercy Tavern, Anthony says the opportunity to create an American brasserie at the Waldorf Astoria was “a dream come true.”
The challenge was to live up to the hotel’s reputation for elegance while creating something more approachable. As Anthony explains, Lex Yard offers the opportunity to create a neighborhood restaurant within one of New York’s most storied hotels, with a menu built around seasonal and local ingredients.
That means fully loaded lobster rolls, crispy chicken and juicy burgers have just as much of a place on the menu as pasta and steaks. It’s a balance Anthony considers important: a restaurant where guests can enjoy a casual meal or make an occasion of dinner.
The restaurant serves breakfast, weekday lunch, weekend brunch and dinner, with menus that change throughout the year. Dinner, the focus of this visit, offers a chance to see what Anthony is doing with familiar dishes, including beef tartare, roast chicken and, naturally, the Waldorf salad.
Some things aren’t going anywhere. They’re simply getting another interpretation.
A New Look for an Old New York Institution
Walking into the Waldorf Astoria, it’s hard not to have a New York soundtrack playing in your head. Depending on your mood, you might find yourself channeling the fashion-world glamour of The Devil Wears Prada, with Madonna’s “Vogue” playing in your imagination, or humming Frank Sinatra’s “New York, New York.” Either seems fitting for a hotel that’s been part of the city’s story for generations.
Lex Yard occupies two floors and seats 220 guests. Designed by AvroKO’s New York studio, the restaurant takes inspiration from the Waldorf’s Art Deco past, with a few nods to old New York worked into the interiors. Even the city’s subway system influenced some of the details downstairs.
The experience begins on the ground floor, where the bar offers a livelier setting. After checking your coat, you’re escorted upstairs to a dining room where globe-shaped lights cast a warm glow over marble tables, upholstered chairs and neatly folded white napkins. A single flower sits in a small vase on each table, while larger plants and softly lit corners make the room feel more intimate than its size might suggest.
The crowd is a mix of people who look like they’ve come straight from the office, couples making a night of it and hotel guests who only had to take the elevator downstairs. Some are dressed for a grand evening at the Waldorf; others seem perfectly happy treating it like their neighborhood restaurant. Nobody appears to be in much of a hurry, which, in New York, is something of a luxury.
Once seated, the server arrives with the first question: still or sparkling? Then, with a smile, comes an offer to give you a few minutes to look over the drinks menu.
If a crisp Sauvignon Blanc is your usual order, regardless of the restaurant or what’s for dinner, Lex Yard has a couple of excellent options, including Sancerre. The 2024 Delaporte Sancerre from France’s Loire Valley is a particularly good choice. Crisp and refreshing, it’s the sort of wine that works just as well with the starters as it does with the main course.
Of course, there’s plenty for those who prefer something else, whether it’s Chardonnay, Malbec or a cocktail. Among the latter are the Nebula, made with lavender gin, Italicus and lemon, and Astor’s Folly, a combination of mezcal, tequila, pineapple, tamarind and Cholula. There’s also the Paris Ball, which brings together aperitivo, citrus, strawberry and Champagne.
Familiar Dishes, Different Interpretations
Familiar Dishes, Different Interpretations
When dining at the Waldorf Astoria, ordering the hotel’s namesake salad seems only right. After all, how often do you get to eat a dish at the very place that made it famous?
The Waldorf salad dates back to the 1890s, when the original recipe was a simple combination of apples, celery and mayonnaise. Grapes and walnuts became familiar additions over time, and today, chef Michael Anthony has his own take on the classic.
His fall version brings together celery root, chopped greens, caramelized walnuts, pumpkin seeds, shaved cheese, apples and grapes. A lemon-saffron vinaigrette replaces the traditional mayonnaise-based dressing, giving the salad a lighter finish. Guests toss everything together themselves, combining the sweet, savory and crunchy elements in each bite. There’s plenty happening on the plate, but somehow it all works.
And it isn’t a one-season affair. “Instead of simply making one contemporary version of the Waldorf Salad, we settled on four distinct combinations of seasonal ingredients,” Anthony says. Each version gives guests something different to look forward to throughout the year.
As our waiter kept reminding us throughout the evening, “When in Rome.” At the Waldorf, that apparently means making room for a few dishes with ties to the hotel’s past. The Lex Burger is another example wit h a tie. Topped with cheddar, caramelized onion and Thousand Island dressing, it comes with beef fat fries on the side. That dressing features the connection, thanks to the hotel’s legendary maître d’, Oscar Tschirky, better known as Oscar of the Waldorf, who is credited with helping popularize it.
Not every dish needs a century-old backstory, though. The Wagyu Beef Tartare has a more recent connection to Anthony’s career, having appeared in another form during his years at Gramercy Tavern. At Lex Yard, it arrives with a glossy orange egg yolk dusted with paprika, surrounded by diced beef, scallions and slender mushrooms. Breaking the yolk and mixing everything together adds richness to each bite, while potato chips provide a satisfying crunch. It’s full of flavor without being so heavy that you regret ordering an appetizer.
The Roasted Golden Chicken offers another example of Anthony’s seasonal cooking. During this fall visit, it arrived in a generous pool of jus, accompanied by parsnips and crowned with a nest of golden shoestring potatoes. The chicken is tender and juicy, the parsnips add sweetness, and the crispy potatoes are particularly good dipped into that savory sauce.
It’s familiar comfort food with plenty of oomph. And if there’s no such thing as too many potatoes in your book, order a side of beef fat fries with charred onion sour cream sauce.
For Anthony, changing the menu with the seasons is about more than variety.
“It’s true that in New York you can find almost any ingredient your heart desires, but we find that using local ingredients helps anchor memories to a particular time and place,” he explains.
The menu changes four times a year, guided by what’s available at regional farmers markets. Nearly every dish evolves with the seasons, meaning the chicken you order in October might look a little different from the one you return for in April.
Dessert
The Waldorf Astoria’s culinary history extends beyond its famous salad. The hotel is also closely associated with red velvet cake, a dessert that became one of its signatures in the 20th century. While the cake’s exact origins are debated, the Waldorf helped popularize the rich, red-hued dessert, traditionally paired with a creamy frosting.
At Lex Yard, Executive Pastry Chef Jennie Chiu has given it a new interpretation in the form of a Red Velvet Tart.
Rather than the usual thick slice of cake, it arrives as a small tart with a deep red filling, topped with berries and a scoop of cream cheese raspberry swirl ice cream. A little edible flower completes the presentation. The berries and raspberry add a welcome tartness against the richness of the dessert, making it a lovely alternative to the traditional cake.
Chiu says she wanted to give the hotel’s classic dessert a fresher feel, using seasonal berries and cream cheese ice cream to put a different spin on the familiar combination.
But if you want an actual cake, try the Carrot Cake. A monstrous beauty, it arrives as a towering slice with four substantial layers separated by generous amounts of cream cheese frosting, with a pool of caramel sauce on the plate for good measure.
There’s a seasonal story behind this dessert, too. Chiu says the cake was inspired by spring and features fresh, market-sourced carrots. The finishing touch is an orange-carrot caramel, which gives the familiar dessert an extra layer of flavor.
Take your spoon and dig in for a generous bite. Pause. Then go back for another. Before you know it, you’re staring at an empty plate, having scraped up even the last bit of caramel.
There’s a certain weight to dining at the Waldorf Astoria, a hotel with more than a century of history and no shortage of stories to tell. Its grand return raises an interesting question: How do you embrace change without losing sight of where you came from?
Lex Yard doesn’t try to recreate the Waldorf Astoria of another era. The Art Deco details are still there, but the restaurant feels very much like a place for today’s New Yorkers. Anthony takes a similar approach with the menu. His Waldorf salad still has the apples, grapes, walnuts and celery that guests have come to associate with it, but the rest has been given room to evolve.
Perhaps that’s the trick to keeping an institution relevant: knowing what to preserve, what to play with and when to leave well enough alone. New York has never been particularly good at standing still. Why should the Waldorf be any different?
Lex Yard
550 Lexington Avenue, New York, NY 10022
