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Park Avenue Spring Arrives
— English Garden Décor Complemented by New Menu —

Park Avenue Spring has sprung at 100 East 63rd Street in Manhattan.  Over a forty-eight hour timeframe, the restaurant was completely transformed from Park Avenue Winter to a completely new décor for Spring, inspired by a classic English garden with wild, raw vegetation and materials. To convert the cuisine to the new season, executive chef Kevin Lasko created the refined, spring-inspired menu, offering dishes that highlight the best of spring’s produce.  Richard Leach, James Beard award winner and executive pastry chef, developed a selection of stunning dessert presentations, highlighting spring fruits, like rhubarb and berries.

Esteemed chef Kevin Lasko created the Park Avenue Spring menu with satisfying seasonal dishes, such as Goat Cheese & Egg Yolk Raviolo with Bacon, Spring Peas and Morels; Barley & Asparagus Risotto with Morels and Organic Triple Crème; and Honey Miso-Glazed Pork with Easter Egg Radishes.

For the dessert program, Richard Leach has created a stable of spring confections that delight for their concentrated flavors and stunning presentations. Leach’s dessert selections for Park Avenue Spring include Fresh Blackberries with Rice Pudding Fritters, Blackberry Sorbet and Lemon Foam; and Caramel Roasted Golden Pineapple, Angel Food Cake and Basil Ice Cream.

The Park Avenue Spring beverage program, created by Sommelier Justin Randolph, has many unique features to toast the season in style.  The wine list consists of over 400 selections, drawn from wine regions around the world with a special offering of spring-inspired wines with distinct sections devoted to dry and crisp white wines. Each season will be toasted with custom blends of wine, made for the Park Avenue project by esteemed winemakers.  Park Avenue Spring will be toasted with a Sancerre vinted and bottled by Pascal Jolivet in the Loire Valley of France. 

The seasonal transformation of the beverage program is not limited to wines: at the vodka/Champagne bar, the seasonal mixers developed by Richard Leach are Strawberry and Jasmine Flower, Raspberry and Lemon Thyme, and Spring Mango and Lemon. In addition, spring-inspired cocktails have been created, featuring libations like, The Chamomile Sour: Michter’s Sour Mash Whiskey, Chamomile, Honey and Sumac. The beverage menu also boasts a variety of seasonally appropriate beers and ciders.

Restaurateur Michael Stillman joined forces with award-winning design firm AvroKO (Public, Stanton Social) on the concept and all aspects of architecture, design, and graphics of the new restaurant. The physical design of Park Avenue reflects a space with a sense of discovery, rather than stereotypical physical manifestations of a "season." This led the design team in part to Captain James Cook’s explorative travels as a loose design reference.  They looked at the regions he had visited in each of his major expeditions as a way of framing each season.

Conceptually, the designers looked abroad for inspiration, imagining the space as a classic English garden with wild and raw vegetation and materials. Deep green and brass wall panels frame the room.  The exposed niches are clad in brass and house antique pots filled with oversized, exotic purple floral. Banquettes will be upholstered in dark green and chair backs will have an elegant green and brass thin-striped vertical pattern.  The ceiling becomes barrel-vaulted in a smoked laurel burl wood. In the center of the dining room is a modern interpretation of a classic garden’s centerpiece with vintage cast wild dog heads and a series of exotic greenery and floral.  

In order to facilitate the complete transformation of the restaurant four times a year with a minimum of downtime for the restaurant, AvroKO spent months offsite, creating an elaborate architecture, which can be installed and easily converted with intricate panels to form the basis for each seasonal design. All physical components for the four Park Avenue projects are born from one key necessity: transformability.  To effectively change both the mood and the architectural details of the space, several systems of receptacles are devised throughout the restaurant.  

Custom steel wall frames surround the space and are built to accept differing seasonal panels. These panels not only have unique materials for each season, ranging from wood, to porcelain, to mirror, but also have unique architectural details that will affect the style of the space overall.

The restaurant’s phone number is 212-644-1900 and is open for lunch and dinner weekdays and brunch on weekends. The space is designed for 130 guests and has private dining rooms to accommodate 20 to 75. The Kitchen Table, located in a temperature-controlled room in the center of the kitchen, is available for private dining with a Chef’s menu that highlights ingredients that are the essence of the season.