After Compose lost its chef last year, the tiny Tribeca restaurant shuttered, just a few months into operation. But, the owners vowed, it would soon re-open with a new name and a kitchen helmed by Portland, Oregon, import Matt Lightner, most recently of Castagna. Last month Atera, the intimate reincarnation, finally debuted, and except for the space’s original walnut walls, it has a completely new look to match thanks to local firm Parts and Labor Design.

Atera’s design, says Parts and Labor principal Andrew Cohen, is a subtle yet meticulous “interpretation of Matt’s approach to cooking.” Just as the chef’s tasting menus embrace unexpected, freshly foraged ingredients, the restaurant itself begs to be discovered through the handcrafted pieces on display and each modern industrial detail.

“We wanted a natural materiality [to reflect this seasonality] but not something that suggested a traditional farm-to- table experience,” says Cohen, who oversaw the project with partner Jeremy Levitt.

To successfully re-imagine the space and mesh with Lightner’s vision, Cohen and Levitt redesigned the entire restaurant-save for those rich walnut walls. “We liked how clean they were so we added more,” Cohen points out.

There are only 18 seats at Atera, yet the duo amplified the restaurant’s challenging volume through contrast. “Objects are composed in a way that doesn’t take away from the food but only enhances it,” says Çohen.

For example, an all-brass chandelier greets guests in the vestibule entry while a barn wood ceiling provides a backdrop of nuanced rusticity to the white porcelain pendant lights with gold-leaf interiors hanging from tree-like armatures inside. At the bar blue leather stools play off slate roof tiles in the open kitchen, and the bar top, made of “super sanded, hand-poured concrete is just as soft as wood.” Says Cohen, “We wanted all these pieces to play together. The glass plays with the porcelain and the porcelain plays with the wood and they all have symbiotic relationships.”

If there is one element that best underscores the interplay between Lightner’s visually striking food and Parts and Labor’s design it is the sensory plant wall, a transporting mélange of herbs and spices such as rosemary, sage, mint, nutmeg, and lemongrass suspended above a nine-foot communal table. Concealed by frosted windows and forest-like tree planters, this sanctuary might as well be private dining.

Photography by Michael Weber

Photography by Daniel Krieger