URBAN JURGENSEN / Time Well Spent May Chapter Flynn Mcgarry

Key Highlights

• Urban Jürgensen’s May chapter of Time Well Spent profiles 27-year-old chef and restaurateur Flynn McGarry
• McGarry taught himself to cook at ten using Thomas Keller’s The French Laundry Cookbook and was running tasting menus by twelve
• He staged at Eleven Madison Park, Alinea, Geranium, and other world-renowned kitchens before turning sixteen
• In fall 2025 he opened Cove, his third New York venue, blending California sensibility with East Coast precision
• Urban Jürgensen, founded in 1773, enters a new generation in 2025 under CEO Alex Rosenfield with a collection designed by Kari Voutilainen

A Life Lived at Full Speed

There are people who find their calling gradually, and there are people like Flynn McGarry. Born in Southern California and raised in an environment that encouraged creative pursuit, McGarry first encountered cooking not as ambition but as solace. During his parents’ divorce, the meals around him grew monotonous and uninspiring. His response, at just ten years old, was to pull Thomas Keller’s The French Laundry Cookbook from a bookstore shelf and cook through every recipe within a single year — supplementing his education with molecular gastronomy and knife technique tutorials on YouTube.

By twelve, he was pulling fifteen-hour days in professional kitchens and hosting tasting menus from his family home. By sixteen, he had staged at some of the world’s most exacting restaurants: Alma, Eleven Madison Park, Alinea, Maaemo, and Geranium. It was Geranium that left the deepest mark, instilling a Scandinavian minimalism that now runs through everything McGarry creates — his plating, his interiors, his aesthetic sensibility. That same year, he was hired by Dries Van Noten to cook at his summer home in Antwerp, where he discovered antiquing and woodworking, pursuits that now rival cooking itself.

Building Something That Lasts

At nineteen, McGarry opened Gem in New York’s East Village — a restaurant named for his mother and designed to recreate the warmth of those early dinner parties at home. He later expanded with Gem Home, a hybrid space combining café, bakery, grocery, and antique shop under one roof. In fall 2025, he opened Cove: a blonde wood space with an open kitchen and a menu that interrogates what New York dining looks like when filtered through a Californian eye. Each project carries the same hallmark — deep intention, material honesty, and a refusal to separate craft from lived experience.

Why Urban Jürgensen Chose Flynn McGarry

Urban Jürgensen’s Time Well Spent series was conceived around a single belief: that the people who represent their era understand, better than anyone, that time lavished on what moves you is the world’s greatest luxury. McGarry — who has never waited for permission, never deferred passion to a more convenient season — is its ideal subject. The series captures creative people across industry, artistry, sport, craft, and culture, some already legends, others emerging voices poised to reshape their fields, spending their time on the things they love. A painter in his garden. A chemist sailing on her racing boat. A chef who built a restaurant empire before most people find their first job.

For a house founded in 1773 and rooted in the idea that time is both kept and spent beautifully, McGarry’s story resonates at every level. His training across Michelin-calibre kitchens in Europe, his lateral thinking across disciplines — cooking, woodworking, antiquing, design — and his instinct to build spaces that endure all echo the watchmaker’s creed: that excellence achieved with care outlasts anything made in a hurry. Discover more about the philosophy of haute horlogerie and the traditions Urban Jürgensen works to preserve.

Urban Jürgensen in 2025

Founded in 1773, Urban Jürgensen is among the oldest and most revered names in horology, bringing together Danish elegance, Swiss precision, and an American mindset. In 2025, the house entered a new chapter under CEO Alex Rosenfield. A new collection — designed by celebrated watchmaker Kari Voutilainen, who serves as Board Member and Senior Strategic Advisor — fuses more than 250 years of legacy with a renewed focus on the intrinsic joy of watchmaking. Every Urban Jürgensen piece is conceived as a soulful, meticulously hand-built companion for a life well lived: precise, enduring, and made to be worn rather than merely collected.

Why It Matters

In choosing Flynn McGarry as its May subject, Urban Jürgensen reaffirms what Time Well Spent has always argued: that a watch is not merely a device for measuring hours, but a symbol of how intentionally those hours are used. For a GCC audience that values both the mastery of craft and the courage to pursue it without compromise, McGarry’s story — and the watchmaker who chose to tell it — speak the same language.

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Frequently Asked Questions

What is Urban Jürgensen's 'Time Well Spent' series?

'Time Well Spent' is a monthly photographic editorial series by Urban Jürgensen that profiles passionate, creative individuals — from artists to athletes — capturing how they spend their time on the things they love, reflecting UJ's belief that time well spent is the world's greatest luxury.

Who is Flynn McGarry and why is he featured by Urban Jürgensen?

Flynn McGarry is a 27-year-old chef who taught himself to cook from Thomas Keller's French Laundry Cookbook at age ten, staged at some of the world's top restaurants as a teenager, and opened his own New York restaurant, Gem, at nineteen. Urban Jürgensen selected him as an exemplar of singular dedication and time seized with intention.

Who is leading Urban Jürgensen's new generation?

Urban Jürgensen entered a new chapter in 2025 under CEO Alex Rosenfield, with a new collection designed by legendary watchmaker Kari Voutilainen, who serves as a Board Member and Senior Strategic Advisor to the maison.

When was Urban Jürgensen founded?

Urban Jürgensen was founded in 1773, making it one of the oldest and most revered names in horology, with over 250 years of watchmaking heritage combining Danish elegance, Swiss precision, and an American mindset.