Daniel Garwood’s Acru tells the story of its nomadic chef

Chef Garwood, most recently of Atomix, will open his debut restaurant in NYC this October. He tells us all about it and why New York could be Tasmania.

Launceston in Tasmania and New York City occupy similar latitude lines, close to 41 degrees south and north of the equator respectively. It’s a fact that isn’t lost on chef Daniel Garwood, born in Launceston and now plying his trade in NYC, when I bring it up.

“It’s funny you should say that… you can find very similar sea herbs,” says the committed forager. “But the foraging here is quite unique. There are still things that we’re learning There’s a native tree, called a spicebush [Lindera benzoin]. This is this like bright and beautiful herb. We’ve been foraging for shagbark hickory [Carya ovata]—just this beautiful, big shaggy bark that you can make a nice tea from. The whole philosophy of the restaurant is to only use local, sustainable produce. Everything has to be from at least the tri-state area, basically the northern east coast.”

I’m talking to Garwood as he puts the finishing touches to that restaurant, Acru, his first, due to open on 16 October in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village. Diners can expect a tasting menu that belies Garwood’s global travels and impressive CV. He arrived in New York in 2022 after stints at the likes of Kadeau in Copenhagen, Fäviken in northern Sweden, and Evett in Seoul. (His most formative restaurant, he says, however, was Garagistes in Hobart—“the most inspiring restaurant that I ever worked at.”).

Garwood will also be drawing on his Australian roots at the 47-seat Acru, with dishes like lamb served with his own ‘Seamite’ an “oceanic twist on Vegemite using seaweed”, a dessert that riffs on the Australian Golden Gaytime ice cream bars of his youth, and fig leaf lamingtons. I’m wondering then if there’s an element of homesickness creeping into the menu at Acru? Not really, he says, he’s just trying to stand out.

“We're trying to offer a more personalized story [of] myself and my career in travels. Otherwise, I can't think of any other way I could really compete in a city that has, you know, so much to offer,” he says.

Garwood is familiar with what it takes to rise to the top in one of the world’s most competitive food cities: his most recent role has been as Sous Chef at two-Michelin-starred new-Korean restaurant Atomix, helping the restaurant to crack the top 10 of The World’s 50 Best Restaurants. Acru opens in partnership with NA:EUN Hospitality Group, founded by chef Junghyun ‘JP’ Park and Ellia Park of Atomix, Atoboy, Naro, and Seoul Salon.

On the plate, Garwood’s multiple Korean influences can be seen in dishes like a savory course that mimics the shaved ice dessert bingsu, but uses tuna, smoked trout roe, cabbage, and anise hyssop granita, or a carrot dish that is a “love letter to Americans’ fondness for hot sauce” with a fermented carrot and kimchi hot sauce, XO, and monkfish liver custard.

On a human level, the Parks are there to provide the kind of advice any budding first-time restaurateur looking to hit the ground running in New York needs.

“I’m very fortunate to have them as the mentors on hand, pretty much guiding me. They're not there for every decision that I make, but [more] when it comes to the important ones. If you look at most of the design of the space, it's definitely mostly Elia and JP. But as far as the food, they've just been, like, ‘Create whatever you want to tell the story.’ I've done a couple of tastings with them. They've been in New York for about 10 years now, so a bit of the New York palette… they're probably a bit more adjusted to it than I am.”

I ask to know more about the look and feel of the restaurant.

“It’s gonna [have] more or less a kind of almost Parisian feel to it. You walk in, there's a lot of dark American walnut wood. You look at all the marble tops, beautiful white marble that we got from over in Brooklyn, the big, beautiful banquette, big, nice green feel to it. I would hate to give too much reference to it, but something like, you know, Clamato, Septime, where it's just a bit old, like nice vintage tables, just a bit more of an older and more warm feel to it.”

It's fitting that when this interview takes place in late July, we're just a couple of months away from the S.Pellegrino Young Chef Academy Competition 2024-25 USA Regional Final. Garwood was a Global Finalist at the world’s premier culinary talent search in 2023, winning the USA Regional Final in 2022 and travelling to the Grand Finale in Milan, which was eventually won by young Portuguese chef, Nelson Freitas.

How were his nerves around this time two years ago?

“For the regional I felt a bit more, not necessarily confident, but I was very excited, energetic. All I had was one goal, which was just getting to the presentation. I didn't actually even feel nervous before, just really high energy. I just wanted to go in there and win. The global one I was a bit more nervous; it was a bit more of a stage. You've got a crowd of people watching, people coming up trying to ask you questions, so the nerves start to hit. You can start to see all the other people go before you. That's when the nerves start to kick in.”

But for a worldly chef like Garwood it was the perfect environment to get inspired, even if he didn’t walk away with the big prize.

“One of the biggest things I took away from the competition, especially with the Grand Final, [was] seeing all these other different ideas of people from around the world, everyone on the same level. It was just like, here's your 15-minute window, what can we all do?”

“You’ve just got to practice as many times as humanly possible,” he concludes, when I ask if he has any tips for the competing young chefs. “Don’t overcomplicate it.”