Atera

Atera is a two Michelin Star restaurant in New York City. We’ve been wanting to go to this restaurant pre-pandemic, and each time we make a reservation, it was always cancelled due to shifts in NYC rules around the pandemic. Fortunately, the city is coming alive, and the reservation stuck this time around. We celebrated our very special anniversary at 5 PM. The cool thing about this restaurant that attracted me was that it had a temperament pairing of non-alcoholic juices. Although I would have liked to order the wine pairing, I always get full and drunk too fast with alcohol such that it doesn’t make the experience enjoyable. The restaurant is located on Worth Street, and it’s inside a building that looked very discreet on the outside. When you enter the building, the restaurant doors are directly on the left next to the elevators.

Ambiance

When you walk into the dining room, it’s a large U-shaped counter facing the kitchen. For this night’s services at this counter, there were 12 diners including ourselves. To the left as you enter, there’s a little loft for a separate high table which sat 2 diners for our service. In the background, they played a lot of modern music ranging from rock (Rush) to rap (2pac).

We never felt rushed, but the courses do come out pretty timely. It seems they will adjust the pace a little if patrons use the restrooms, but most of the courses were uniformly served to all the diners in the room around the same cadence.

The wait staff did a fantastic job throughout the entire night. They made sure our water glasses were consistently full and our dining area was clean of mess. They also made sure to not interfere with our interactions with each other. The restaurant as a whole were very welcoming of us taking pictures of the food and ourselves. They did mention to a couple to our right to not use flash, but we don’t use flash in general.

As far as the menu is concerned, they do not have cocktails as the sommelier does the mixes and pours right in front of you. They do sell spirits on rocks and have a very limited selection of wines.

Regarding the uncertainty of tipping, note that when you make the reservation on Tock, gratuity is not included. The wait staff will also mentioned that to you towards the end when your bill arrives.

Food

On the left, my partner got a glass of a 2018 Alfred Merkelbach, Ürziger Würzgarten, Riseling Auslese, Mosel, Germany. This was a sweet dessert wine that was pretty good.

On the right was my first temperament pairing out of 6, the champine pine. This was basically a bubbly starter that had aromas of pine needles and was a little sour to the tip of the tongue. The sommelier said the taste of this is akin to sucking on pine needles which I’ve never done.

The oyster came with passion fruit, some jelly, and caviar. It tasted sour and tart but was complimentary to the sweet and salty of the oyster.

The chicken skin came salted with some ham and rye. The chicken skin was very nicely crusted, and the aftertastes of it reminded me of pork chicharron.

The kaluga caviar came with custard and bonito. You can see they were definitely not shy on the caviar portion. Underneath the caviar was a custard that reminded me of steamed egg. It was definitely a nice balance between the saltiness of the caviar and the savory sweetness of the custard. This was a good example where the individual components were pretty one dimensional, but when combined was delightful.

The yellowfin tuna came with king crab and rice. This thin sheet of yellowfin tuna basically sat on top of a wad of king crab which sat on a mound of toasted sushi rice. This definitely tasted pretty good and fresh.

The dumpling came with potato and parmesan foam. It was surrounded with lemon oil and lightly seasoned. The dumpling’s texture was very delicate but also deliciously chewy to the right extent.

The second temperament pairing out of 6 was the grapefruit “martini” which came with elderflower and lavender. Along with the grapefruit juice, there was also some cucumber juice. The taste as it hits the tongue reminded me a lot of lychee, so it has a very fresh openness to it.

The scallop came with tomato and basil. This was a confit diver scallop and had some white wine and basil drops. The scallop was cooked perfectly, and the texture of it was very soft. There were some rice chips to the side to give it a crunchy texture.

The third temperament pairing out of 6 was the cucumber which was similar to the grapefruit martini but also had some nori juice in it. This also had a lot of pronounced cucumber notes to it, though I did not taste any notable nori flavors.

The halibut came with cucumber, parsley, and roe. The little balls were cucumber scoops. The white fish orange roe was abundant and salty. As you can probably imagine, there was a wide spectrum of salty flavors going from salty to sweet. In some ways, the salty notes of the roe overpowers the entire dish, so it’s important to not taste each component separately.

The fourth temperament pairing out of 6 was the smoked ginger which came with chicory and lemon. The cool part of this was the sommelier put a big block of ice into the cup and stamped it with an Atera logo. Around it was a black tea with the ginger, chicory, and lemon flavors. You can imagine the flavors of this to act like a palette cleanser in some ways before we get to the meats.

The wagyu came with shrimp and snap pea. The broth was a shrimp bouillon, and the wagyu was initially served raw along with a raw quail egg. There were little bits of snap pea at the bottom. Before they served it, they poured the broth into the bowl which cooked the wagyu slightly. By the time we were able to taste it (literally in seconds), it was no longer even lukewarm. Even though this was super delicious, I wish the broth was hotter knowing it might have cooked the meat a bit more. My partner’s bowl, even after the broth was poured, was still pretty much bloody pink.

The fifth temperament pairing out of 6 was the cote de beet which came with huckleberry and thyme. This was basically beet juice. It kind of looked like red wine except it definitely tasted like a sweetened and sugary beet juice combination.

The pork came with onion, shiitake, and truffle. The berkshire pork belly came with a soy onion pureé and cut like butter. On top of the belly sat a long fried pork chicharron like garnish. The sauce was salty, bold, but definitely worked well with the fattiness of the pork.

The pork came with a side of shiitake and truffle foam. As you know, I’m not a huge fan of mushrooms, so I ate a few nibbles and was done. My partner though enjoyed it very much. They said the intensity of the truffle foam was very light.

The beef came with foie gras, beet, and black currant. If I listened carefully, this was a beef tenderloin. The outside was a thin decorative sheet of beet, and underneath it was a piece of foie gras that sat on top of the beef. This was one of my most recent memories where a restaurant actually used a torched foie gras liver as a whole piece instead of making it into a pate. The fatness of this combined with the beef was sublime. The beef itself was very tender and delicious with the black currant and red wine sauce.

The last temperament pairing was the pineapple which was pineapple juice with pineapple cream and nutmeg. This was definitely not tart nor overly sweet. It reminded me of a virgin piña colada.

The lemon came with buttermilk and lemongrass. This was a buttermilk sorbet and was mildly sweet.

Not pictured was the mandarin which came with ginger and dulce. The ginger ice cream came with mandarin chunks, yuzu, and was surrounded by a white chocolate foam. The server took a compression bottle and sprayed the foam into the cup. If we had remembered to take the picture, this would have been just a cup of white foam.

The last course was a medly of bite-sized desserts (starting at the bottom going counter clockwise) which was mango almond chocolates, chocolate coffee waffle, a heart shaped coffee and chocolate (for our anniversary), and popcorn peanut sorghum ganache.

My partner also ordered a small 2 oz port of 1990 D’Oliveiras, Malvazia, Madeira, Portugal. My partner was expecting it to be super sweet but was surprised by how it was much more grounded and was smooth.

And here is the actual pour in a glass. The color was subtly translucent and not as thick.

Final Verdict

This was definitely not the best food or experience we’ve ever had, but it was a very memorable one for us for our anniversary. Much of the food steers toward notes of salty and savory which my partner simply found divine. I particulary enjoyed the temperament pairings and how it complimented with the food. The staff was very friendly and courteous, and I felt there was not much pretentiousness at all. We highly recommend this restaurant if you’re looking for an alternative to the typical French fine dining cuisines. For New American based fine dinings, this definitely ranks near the top of my lists in NYC.

On a side note and embarrasingly, we didn’t know anything about the chef (Ronny Emborg) about this restaurant, and we asked him to take a picture of us whereas all the other diners were asking to take pictures with him. We realized this a bit late, so we asked if we could take a picture with him. He was definitely very humble, and we greatly appreciate how he dealt with our clumsy misbehavior!

Yelp Jabs

Coming from a person who’s been to over 40 3 stars restaurants around the globe, this is an absolute disappointment. I had been wanting to go for years and now I know why I never went coz or the mixed reviews. We all felt rushed the whole time and look we are Asian, we eat fast. I had never experienced that before anywhere around the World. Even I purposely said that at the last main course, they never wanted to slow down and we started at 5PM!!!!! I don’t know what else they want as customers. We spend $500 per person, save your money and go elsewhere. TRUST my words.

The pace of this experience was pretty much 2.5 hours at its limit and seemed pretty typical of a counter type experience. We never really sat more than a few minutes between courses which was fine with us. We wanted to eat! Because this is a kitchen counter experience, understand that the dining experience is centered around the entire group. They can flex the timing a little of the delivery due to bathroom breaks, but generally each course will be closely in line with the other diners. I’ve been to other Michelin star restaurants as a solo diner where they literally served a 2.5 hour dinner in under 1 hour to me which I was welcoming of. If they were indeed serving your food too fast, e.g. 3 courses ahead of other diners, then that would definitely warrant a request to the wait staff.

My issue is after spending $600 per person with wine pairing we expected to be full, but instead we went for a pizza afterwards.

I can see how some might look for food quantity, but the food here is pretty rich and bold in certain accents. We find that your stomach might be craving for more, but if you let the food sit for a bit, the hunger will settle.

The only reason I wouldn’t give 5 stars is due to the portion sizing or the balance of protein, fat, and carbs. You will definitely feel that you’ve eaten a very rich meal when you finish the 3 hour tasting, but it’s due to how protein heavy everything is. Once you walk outside for a bit you’ll realize you didn’t actually eat that much and we had to buy a pizza after. I get it that chefs are trying to serve unique and extravagant dishes, but after paying $600 a person after wine pairing, tax, and tip I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect you should want for nothing afterwards.

This is a bit of an oxymoron. High protein and rich meals should satiate hunger. However, this Yelper mentioned they had to eat afterwards which directly contradicts how much protein they said the meal had. My takeaway here is that this Yelper probaby had enough alcohol in them to give them the munchies. Caloric wise, they probably went way over their limit.