About Claus Meyer
Meyer is a world-renowned restaurateur and culinary entrepreneur. He is the mind behind the New Nordic Cuisine Movement and the co-founder of noma, rated the world’s best restaurant four times on the World’s 50 Best Restaurant list. He has hosted several Danish and international TV cooking shows and written numerous cookbooks. Meyer co-owns several restaurants, including Studio in Copenhagen, which received a Michelin star just four months after opening, as well as several bakeries, delis, a catering business, an orchard, a vinegar factory, a coffee roastery as well as a cooking school for kids and adults.
Believing in food as a driver for social change, Meyer established the Melting Pot Foundation in 2010. The organization runs a cooking school project in Danish prisons, motivating incarcerated people to live a life without crime. In 2013, Melting Pot established a cooking school in La Paz, Bolivia, providing culinary education to impoverished Bolivians, also serving as a gourmet restaurant, Gustu, voted 17th best in Latin America on the Latin America’s 50 Best Restaurants list.
This summer, Melting Pot will initiate a social project in Brownsville, East New York, establishing a culinary school, cafeteria, bakery and community center, serving the local community and with the goal of engaging at-risk youth and impacting peoples lives beyond the walls of the kitchen.
Meyer is an associate professor in the Department of Food Science at the University of Copenhagen as well as an adjunct professor at the Institute for Corporate Social Responsibility at the Copenhagen Business School. In 2015 he was appointed “Social Impact Fellow” at the Hass School of Business, University of California, Berkeley.
About MeyersUSA
Claus Meyer and his team are opening a fine dining restaurant and food hall in Grand Central Terminal’s Vanderbilt Hall in spring 2016. The Food Hall will feature a variety of New Nordic cuisine specialties, including savory porridges, soups, coffees, breads and rolls baked on premise, and smørrebrød, a traditional open-face sandwich served on a unique varietal of rye bread, the hall will rotate its offerings seasonally and will focus on utilizing the best ingredients the region has to offer. Comprised of five food pavilions, and a bar, which will sit beneath soaring 48-foot high ceilings, the Food Hall will incorporate Nordic design accents, drawing on the cultural heritage of Scandinavia but presented in an American context.
Leaders of the restaurant and food hall teams include Icelandic chef Gunnar Gíslason, who is best known for his restaurant, Dill, in Reykjavík; Chef de Cuisine Joseph Yardley, most recently chef de cuisine for Mads Refslund at Acme restaurant; General Manager Katie Bell, formerly of Blue Hill and Per Se; Beverage Manager, Jonas Andersen, former restaurant manager at Meyer’s social restaurant initiative, Gustu in Bolivia; Head Baker Rhonda Crosson, who has worked as a baker for Thomas Keller and held leading positions with Marcus Samuelsson and Daniel Boulud; Baker and Head of Education Thomas Steinmann, formerly of Meyers Bageri and Meyers Madhus in Denmark; and Head Coffee Roaster and Barista Omar Maagaard, most recently of the Coffee Collective.
