AteraPhoto: Danny Kim
In the course of the olden days of what was once referred to as “haute delicacies,” the trail to fame and fortune for formidable younger cooks led by the grand kitchens of Paris, and from there to giant, spangled eating rooms in San Francisco or New York. Within the age of what this journal just lately (and hilariously) described as the good “artisanal delirium,” nonetheless, all of that has modified. As an alternative of grandiose eating rooms, high-minded cooks now open small, out-of-the-way “tasting rooms.” Tablecloths, menus, and even cutlery are out; discreet, mini-size eating counters are in. Precociously proficient cooks nonetheless take inspiration from the superstars of Europe (within the age of artisanal delirium, that celebrity is the grasp forager René Redzepi, of Restaurant Noma in Copenhagen), however as of late, the comforting rhythm of the à la carte menu has been changed by a blizzard of seasonally attuned tasting “bites,” which take a whole night to eat.
Or so it occurred to me as I sipped my fastidiously crafted (and undeniably scrumptious) rhubarb-tinged Shandy Shrubb cocktail at Atera, the polished, formidable new tasting atelier that opened with little fanfare (however a lot hysterical Web buzz) a number of weeks in the past in Tribeca. Like the town’s different tiny, hyperfashionable tasting rooms (Momofuku Ko, Brooklyn Fare), this one is anonymously situated on the bottom flooring of a nondescript business constructing. The frosted home windows defend the dimly lit room from the surface world, and within the evenings, the doorway of the eye-and-ear clinic subsequent door is hidden behind thick inexperienced curtains. One complete wall is roofed with an association of potted crops designed to seem like foliage in a wild forest, and diners nibble at their omakase dinners at a slate-colored bar, which is comprised of polished concrete and constructed across the gleaming open kitchen, just like the bridge of a ship.
Atera’s government chef, Matthew Lightner, involves New York from the foraging capital of the USA, Portland, Oregon, the place he received accolades as a greatest new chef at a restaurant referred to as Castagna. Like different cooks of his technology, he apprenticed at Noma, and labored underneath Andoni Aduriz, a grasp of spare, haute-locavore cooking, on the well-known Spanish restaurant Mugaritz. In preparation for Atera’s grand opening, Lightner and his cooks took foraging journeys as much as the piney forests of Maine. The dishes on his entertaining, deceptively refined, 22-course menu ($150) have elemental names like “Crunchy,” “Rock,” and “Beet Ember.” A number of of them are designed (within the custom of Ferran Adrià’s well-known tasting menu at El Bulli) to be eaten with none implements in any respect, and lots of are served, like discovered objects, on slabs of wooden, piles of stone, or fastidiously manicured beds of hay.
“I really feel like I’m within the forest, consuming tree bark,” mentioned the chatty gastronome subsequent to me as we examined the primary “Snack” portion of our dinner, which included a curiously invigorating, wood-chip-like substance made out of dehydrated sunchoke pores and skin (the barklike Crunchy), and a finger-size lobster roll squeezed between two russet-colored meringues touched with yeast (Sticky). There was a pickled quail egg after that, which turned out to not be a quail egg in any respect (it’s a whipped-egg aïoli certain with xanthan gum and brined in vinegar), and a frozen “peanut” made with foie gras and served on a flat, grey rock. (“The chef picked the rock out of a riverbed in Maine,” our server whispered.) None of those treasured haute-forager creations had been fairly as ingenious, nonetheless, as Lightner’s uncannily practical fake razor clam, though it might have labored higher if the shell (made from dry bread painted with squid ink) hadn’t tasted a bit of an excessive amount of like dusty clay.
Like a number of artsy, cutting-edge cooks, nonetheless, Lightner isn’t essentially involved with making his meals scrumptious in the usual, accessible methods. He needs to stimulate, to coach, and to entertain, and by way of vary, approach, and quirky inventiveness, he does pretty much as good a job of this as any chef in New York because the glory days of the good molecular gastronomist Wylie Dufresne. After the Snack portion of our meal was cleared away, the waiters introduced frizzled bits of soft-shell crab floating in a wealthy, smoky substance referred to as “brown-butter bouillon” (“This appears prefer it’s simply washed up on the seashore,” mentioned the chatty gastronome), and a serving of gin-cured diver scallops set between dissolving little slats of juniper-flavored meringue. These had been adopted by Beet Ember (it’s blackened with hay ash and garnished with smoked trout roe), and a pigeon breast that the kitchen ages for 21 days, to the outermost fringe of gaminess, and attire with a single, vividly contemporary wild onion.
I additionally loved slivers of slippery, weirdly tender pastrami duck coronary heart throughout my visits to Atera, rosy strips of lamb drizzled with cedar oil, and a marshmallow-soft sweetbread, which Lightner covers with a savory, unusually addictive hazelnut-toffee sauce. In contrast to at different snooty, neo-omakase joints round city, these dishes are impeccably served by a forged of educated haute-cuisine veterans (ask the French Laundry alum Alex LaPratt to decide on your wines). The desserts embody a moss-tinged Rock full of bergamot sorbet, and melting chunks of smoky chocolate Charcoal frozen in liquid nitrogen. You’ll be able to pattern a Parsley Root Break up (wherein chewy chunks of sugar-cured parsley root are substituted for bananas), though save room for the petits fours, the most effective of which is a single “walnut,” made out of darkish chocolate and caramel and served, in excessive forager fashion, on a mattress of contemporary moss.
Atera
77 Price St., nr. Church St.; 212-226-1444
Hours: Dinner Tuesday by Saturday, 6 to 9:30 p.m.
Costs: 22-course tasting menu, $150; wine pairings, $90.
Supreme Meal: Snacks, Beet Ember, pigeon or lamb, chocolate Charcoal, Parsley
Root Break up.
Notice: Take note of the fabulous house-baked bread, particularly the salty sourdough pork roll fried in pork fats.
Scratchpad: One star for the polished little room, and three extra for the service, the impressed artisanal cooking, and the spirits and wines.