Atera ⭐️⭐️

TLDR: Like a great rebound from a breakup, but not your next love affair. 

Recommended.

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My friend and I recently got into an argument over the concept of “good enough.” To me, those words have almost always been synonymous with “absolute failure.” To him, those were the descriptors he chose for why he decided to propose to his fiancée: she’s “good enough.” See why I started a fight? Right, well, he explained to me that as he doesn’t take pleasure in Sisyphean suffering, good enough is “perfect.” It’s what perfection looks like brought down to the real world and away from philosophical debate. It’s the closest you can reasonably get, and to ask for more makes you greedy, delusional, and doomed to fail. She wasn’t custom-made to his exact tastes, she didn’t make a mess of his emotions, but he “couldn’t ask for more.” And he loved her. 

I stopped arguing after that. 

But this foreign limbo of reasonable perfection, of not being able to ask for more, didn’t contextualize itself in my brain until my evening at Atera. 

Chef Ronny has a spirit of restrained whimsy he leashes and lets run throughout his menu. A burst of yuzu splashes up from a comte aebleskiver and a play-dough-esque bite of mint chip sneaks its way into the dessert parade. A strange passion fruit cappuccino hides sweetbreads and saffron noodles beneath a lobster broth that pushes a richness of flavor to its limits, and swirls of reconstructed seaweed dance on top of watermelon and tuna cubes. Beef cheeks and duck breasts are cooked, sauced, and presented to height of technical standards, lemon tarts and bourbon chocolates should grace cookbook covers. Everything perfectly, reasonably, delicious. 

There’s also tension in the dark, candle-lit air. A restraint and a rush not just in the dishes but in the abstention with which the servers walk their tightrope between warmth and professionalism, how towering chef hats sway in stoic silence to the bass of early 2000s club pop. In the abrupt departure of one couple leaving half their desserts untouched, and another chiding them in a language they assumed no one else spoke. Whether those pictures display feelings of unease or comfort depends on your relationship to tensity; a number of Redditors describe there being something “off,” I tend to favor a bit of contrast.

Atera checked all my boxes from whimsy to sex appeal, indisputable competence and the glorious, glorious cushy swivel chairs. I couldn’t – shouldn’t – ask for more. But I just didn’t fall in love. As a woman easily swayed towards the edges of everything, I floated back out into the city exactly in the middle of my emotions: content, full, and unmoved. 

To find worth in an experience, does it have to move you? To the distress of the men in my life, Good Enough isn’t a philosophy I subscribe to. It’s my Achilles’ heel to be presented with perfection and still demand more. Is it yours? Do we pervert reasonable perfection in the fun-house mirror of our own unreasonable minds, or do you see something in the experience, person, restaurant, that you know if they too just looked a little bit longer, they could achieve just a little bit more? 

Who are we to demand Sisyphus reach the top of the hill?

Cheers!

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What do you talk about when you talk about Atera?