When Fifth Avenue favorite Lurcat revamped its menu last year, dedicating two-thirds at any given time to rotating specials (including the Voyage-themed dishes designed to take diners on an epicurean journey) the decade-old restaurant’s chef, Mike Mueller, enjoyed a collective round of applause for a move that was akin to pulling a rabbit out of his chef's hat. He’s continuing to turn heads for his Voyage selections, which now don’t stray far from home with American barbecue—and for which he was caught riding a gigantic smoker down Fifth: “My father was a pilot and my mother was a flight attendant, and my travels with them taught me the U.S. is a big, beautiful place with outstanding cuisine coast to coast.” True to his cooking style, though, he’s not serving just any old Midwestern brat. His infuses Minnesota’s Northland Beer and comes with pickled mustard seed, tomato jam and aged cheddar (pictured above). Same goes for Texas brisket, served with a potato-broccoli gratin and cornbread with cayenne-maple jam. We can expect similar surprises for the next turn, a “definitive German perspective,” Mueller says, in honor of Oktoberfest—and we’re not-so-secretly hoping it also means we’ll catch him wearing lederhosen.
