New York

At the Modern, the restaurant at the Museum of Modern Art, chef Gabriel Kreuther is known for taking the rustic, traditional ingredients of his Alsatian upbringing and incorporating them into lighter, contemporary dishes. A sturgeon and sauerkraut tart, for example, is less than 2 inches around and has a frothy caviar cream; the squab and foie gras croustillant looks a little like a slice of a spring roll.

A Chef's Chelsea Loft

The open kitchen and island in the apartment. Brian Park for The Wall Street Journal

That same recipe of traditional Alsace and minimalist modernism can be found in Mr. Kreuther's home. The two-bedroom, 1,536-square-foot loft condo in Chelsea he and his wife, Patricia, bought in 2006 for $1.65 million is in a prewar building called the Heywood, a former printing house that had just been remodeled by architect and designer Shamir Shah, who also lives in the building. (A similar-size condo in the building is currently on the market for $1.8 million.)

The palette is unabashed contemporary: 13-foot ceilings, 8-foot glass windows, dark-stained oak floors and sleek finishes like limestone counters and frameless glass showers. An open kitchen, with white oak cabinets and stainless-steel appliances, runs into a dining area and a living room. The large, sparsely decorated master bedroom has a view of the Empire State Building.

The couple filled the space with modern furnishings—rugs, tables and chairs from Ligne Roset and custom Ligne Roset light-coffee-colored lacquer bookshelves with rolling doors in front. They bought contemporary paintings from neighboring Chelsea galleries and painted the walls silver, cloud blue and cream.

In contrast, the plethora of brightly colored, rustic pieces of Alsatian pottery and decorations creates a country feel. In the living room is a collection of miniature replicas of Alsatian houses and buildings, with the signature dark brown wood criss-crosses against the stark white exteriors, given to the couple by Mr. Kreuther's mother. In the kitchen is almost every conceivable Alsatian specialty cookware, from a black stew pot called a Baeckeoffe ("baker's oven") to a cake pan known as a Kougelhopf from his mother's birth town of Soufflenheim, a village known for its colorful glazed pottery. Shelves, countertops and walls are saturated with ceramic terrine dishes, colorful plates in all shapes and sizes and coffee mugs—all from the homeland, many gifts from family visiting from Alsace.

"You know when you build a house, you have a foundation? Alsace is my foundation," said Mr. Kreuther, 42, on a recent Sunday afternoon. He was standing in the large kitchen, wearing a chunky green Swatch and a chain around his neck with his father's wedding ring, as he poured an Alsatian wine (Lucien Albrecht Crémant d'Alsace Brut Rosé—the house wine at the Modern) for friends from a bottle in an Alsatian ceramic wine cooler. The wine glasses? Traditional long-stemmed Alsatian glasses with truncated tulips.

Mr. Kreuther grew up on a farm in Niederschaeffolsheim—the gateway to northern Alsace—where his mother still lives. He started cooking when he was 14 in his uncle's hotel restaurant, making classic local dishes like trout with almonds and white asparagus. His mother, who grew up on a goose farm, taught him how to tell by touch which goose would make the tastiest fois gras. He worked in restaurants in France, Washington and Germany before landing the job of sous-chef at L'Ermitage Bernard Ravet in Vufflens-le-Château, Switzerland. Later, in New York, he was the executive chef at Jean-Georges.

It was in 2003, while Mr. Kreuther was executive chef of Atelier at the midtown Ritz-Carlton Hotel, that Manhattan restaurateur Danny Meyer recruited him to help open the Modern. Mr. Meyer said he chose Mr. Kreuther in part because, like the modernist movement in art, he came from the nexus of Austria, Germany and France. He described Mr. Kreuther's style as "rustic and hedonistic all at once."

The meeting point of Mr. Kreuther's work and home is the library. There, against a wine-colored wall, hang a dozen paintings, some rural European scenes and others very modern New York. One side of the room is dedicated to shelves of cookbooks that range from the mainstream (Charlie Trotter's "Vegetables") to more-obscure German and French titles (Claude Peyrot's "Vivarois, la cuisine de l'émotion"). Along one row is a series of binders that are blank except for titles like "Fish" and "Soups"—they're what Mr. Kreuther calls his "secret recipes."

When he's working on a new dish, Mr. Kreuther will pluck a handful of these books from the shelf for research. His prized possession is a three-volume 19th-century cookbook given to him by his uncle, the hotel restaurant owner. Written by Urbain Dubois, who was a private chef for Russian nobility, it has old-school recipes like filet de boeuf and intricate black-and-white drawings of exquisite cakes.

In the kitchen, the small stack of cookbooks is more prosaic: "The Joy of Cooking" and "Cooking With Shelburne Farms." These belong to Mrs. Kreuther, who ends up doing most of the cooking at their apartment—for herself. "Monday through Fridays, chefs aren't home. It's like being married to a policeman," she said. When Mr. Kreuther is in their kitchen, "he doesn't need a book."

Write to Nancy Keates at