Atla. Image courtesy of Daniela Soto-Innes' Instagram

Enrique Olvera does healthy local dining

After Cosme comes Atla, where the dishes are just as inventive - and, get this, more affordable!

When the Mexican chef Enrique Olvera opened his first New York retaurant Cosme in October 2014, he found a way to fit the culinary traditions of his homeland into the upper-end of Manhattan’s restaurant scene. The place has since proved to be hugely successful, with high praise from the press, and the inevitable high demand for tables, as New Yorkers discovered a new way to enjoy some dishes, such as carnitas and tostadas, that they may have previously regarded as street food.

 

Atla's Coconut chia oatmeal. Photorgraphy by Signe Birck, courtesy of Daniela Soto-Innes' Instagram
Atla's Coconut chia oatmeal. Photorgraphy by Signe Birck, courtesy of Daniela Soto-Innes' Instagram

Yet Olvera doesn’t want just one, celebratory, destination big-event restaurant in the city where he now spends ten months of the year. He is also launching a simpler, more affordable everyday restaurant, just around the corner from his apartment, at 372 Lafayette St. in Noho. Called Atla, the 90-seat restuarant will, offer a breakfast, lunch and dinner, with dishes such as poached huevos rancheros and a deeply wholesome looking take on chia oatmeal topped with pumpkin seeds, nuts and dried fruit.

The kitchen will be headed up by Olvera’s colleague Daniela Soto-Innes, though diners can expect to see Enrique himself in the place quite a bit, if not cooking then certainly enjoying the food.

“We wanted to create a space where people could go and just call it home,” he tells Eater.com. “A regular place, kind of like a living room of your apartment.”

 

The image you'll currently find at the restaurant's website, Atlanyc.com
The image you'll currently find at the restaurant's website, Atlanyc.com

New Yorkers will have to wait a little while longer to find out just how like their apartment Atla really is. The restaurant is set to open for business within the next few weeks. Meanwhile, for more on Olvera’s cookery get his book Mexico from the Inside Out.