Chef Brandon McGlamery, whose stints at Luma on Park, Prato and Luke’s Kitchen + Bar helped shape Orlando’s culinary scene, will open a new restaurant in Winter Park in 2026.
The Reverie, a “sophisticated yet approachable American brasserie,” is McGlamery’s first new concept in six years, having parted ways with Park Lights Hospitality in early June.
The Reverie will similarly open in the traditional location that Chez Vincent and eponymous chef Vincent Gagliano have called home for the past 28 years.
While Galliano, whose last day at Chez Vincent will be Dec. 21, prepares to enjoy his first Christmas Eve holiday in 35 years, both chefs seem happy with their new paths.
Meanwhile, McGlamery, along with his partners at Columbia, South Carolina-based Foundry Hospitality Group, is planning an exciting new space in the city he has called home for 20 years.
“It’s energizing,” McGlamery told the Orlando Sentinel. “As a chef and as a business person, I think you’re always thinking about how everything is going to turn out.
Rich Pope/Orlando Sentinel
Chef Brandon McGlamery, formerly of Luma’s The Vault. (file photo)
“I come from a restaurant group that was responsible for three concepts, and downsizing to one and being poised to grow again is where I wanted to be.”
Foundry founder Brandon Manley was McGlamery’s friend for the better part of a decade and held a similarly pivotal position.
“When[McGlamery]and I started talking, it just clicked,” Manley said. “He’s one of the best chefs in Florida and someone I really respect…and the opportunity to do something with Vincent here is really great.”
The region that Galliano pioneered, growing up in France’s Auvergne region, is a wonderful place, he says.
“I was the first one here,” Gagliano says. That was in 1997.
“Two years later Dexter’s came along and all the restaurants and businesses came out of that. It’s been a good challenge and a great journey…(McRamery) is the best chef in town and he’s going to carry on my legacy, so he’s the perfect person for me to carry the torch.”
The admiration is mutual.
The Reverie will also be a love letter to Chez Vincent, McGlamery says. “But it’s going to be a brand new restaurant, a neighborhood place, a convivial place…not a bistro or a tavern, but an amalgamation of all those sensibilities that plays into what an American restaurant is.”
And some have new looks brought to life by architect Michael Wenrich and designer David Thompson. Manley said renderings should be released within a month.
Foundry, a young restaurant development and management company, has popular repeatable brands in its portfolio such as Chicken Salad Chick and Nothing Bundt Cake, but The Reverie is a one-and-done project.
“This platform with this location and characteristics and team members like (McGlamery) is the perfect platform to launch what we have planned here in Florida, but it cannot be duplicated,” Manley says. “It’s going to be a really special place.”
For McGlamery, whose resume includes culinary icons such as The French Laundry, Chez Panisse, Bacchanalia, and multiple Michelin-starred restaurants, the new Winter Park venue marks a new chapter in a town that is very different from when Luma opened and took the scene to a new level.
“Winter Park has come a long way. It’s grown. People have become more worldly. We have to meet their wants and needs and meet their expectations,” he says.
He’s looking forward to doing so and bringing Luma and all the other parts of his journey back to his new home just two blocks away.
“We are limited in many ways, but we don’t lose everything we had as we move forward,” McGlamery says.
amthompson@orlandosentinel.com
