Atera Restaurant Review

Atera Restaurant Review

Headed down to Atera NYC to try its innovative 20-course menu. Atera used a lot of smoked ingredients in their dishes, so every bite had many layers of flavors to parse out. I particularly enjoyed the complexity of the ingredients. Felt that I was being teased with the striking contrast of textures such as the buttery trout liver together with the tartness of the bread, combined with the freshness of peach, and given a touch of gravity with the brown butter. One thing that seemed different in this restaurant was that I could really see teamwork between all the chefs, they all worked together to prepare each dish, and made it a point for a different chef to serve one dish to the foodie, so much so that, at the end of the dinner, the foodie would have had the joy of having the food described by every single chef in the room. I also found the open-table concept refreshing, all the foodies will sit on a long table and watch the chef preparing the food.

King Crab with Lemongrass and Wild Ginger

Fluke and Marigold

Trout Liver with Fresh Peach and Brown Butter

Smoked Trout

Amaranth Toast

Surf Clam

Sea Urchin with Carrot Lobster

* This is one of their star dishes. I wondered why they used Santa Barbara uni instead of Hokkaido uni though? Felt like the brininess of Santa Barbara uni didn't really coalesce well with the sweetness of the puree?

Lamb Tartare

* Probably one of the best lamb tartare I ever had, it was paired with spot prawn, and it was just the perfect titration.

Chicken and Shrimp Dumpling in a Citrus and Lemon Sauce

* Was very amused when I noticed dim sum trays at the back of the restaurant. Critically speaking, felt that the skin of the chicken and shrimp dumpling was too thick, although I think the chef deliberately paired it that way so that it could match with the richness of the soup. To me, it bothered on the point of cloying. My favorite dumpling would be the truffle dumpling at Benu!

Lobster Roll

* This was Atera's deconstruction and interpretation of the lobster roll. They used the standard New England lobster with sauce, however, instead of using bread, they used meringue. Therefore, this substitution produced a subliminal melt-in-the-mouth effect. I don't fancy meringue and couldn't appreciate this dish.

Oyster and Sea Bean

Geoduck

* Let's get into the etymology of geoduck! It could mean "dig deep", and it was for the people who were fishing for geoduck, as they had to dig deep in order to find these little treasures.

Cod with Chamomile

Abalone with Red Orach

Hushpuppy stuffed with Smoked Yolk and Corn

* Brief history lesson now! Hushpuppy is actually one of those food borne out of starvation, although the native Indians already used corn flour in their preparation of food. "Hushpuppy" was coined because the cooks would fry some basic cornmeal mixture and feed it to their dogs to hush the puppy. 

Roasted Duck and Sucrine

Raspberry Sorbet with Licorice Caramel

This dish was interesting, liked the combination of the thick licorice with the airy sorbet.

Almond and Borage

- Loved loved loved the almond, it was a melt-in-your-mouth kind of almond.

Golden Raspberries with Egg Yolk and Chocolate Bread

- This dish kind of ruined it for me. I had emailed and confirmed with the staff "Jennifer / Jade" that I was intolerant to chocolate. However, the restaurant went on to serve me chocolate bread. Then they had chocolate walnut, chocolate bon bons and 6 different kinds of chocolate, which created a really awkward situation, where I couldn't eat what was placed in front of me. One chef stepped up and said he was going to try to whip something up, and came back with two miserable clafoutis. The gesture was sweet, but instead of apologizing for the mix-up, the restaurant staff then proceeded to avoid eye contact. Felt like this blunder ruined what could have been an otherwise perfect dinner. Very disappointing.

60% (75% - 15% because of service) 

Go but remind them a million times of food allergies.