Avant Garde Tasting Counter Atera Now As Pricey As Eleven Madison Park

Atera, the Tribeca restaurant that this critic awarded four-stars in an Eater review two weeks ago, has raised the price of its twenty-course dinner menu by $30 to $225, making it as expensive as a meal at the three Michelin-starred Eleven Madison Park.

"We changed our price so that everyone can experience the same menu and we will no longer charge supplement fees," Chef Matthew Lightner tells Eater. Under the old price of $195, guests opting for a caviar course would pay an additional $50 for ten grams of (stellar) golden osetra roe from Bulgaria, pushing the cost of dinner to $245. Now, all guests receive that course for no extra charge.

So dinner for two, after tax and tip, will now run $580, a sturdy $77 HIKE from the previous cost of $503. Add on wine pairings for two, at $150 each, and your dinner date is a cool $967. That's still a few dollars cheaper than Eleven Madison Park, which will end up costing $979 after pairings, which run $155. But it's also a heck of a lot more expensive than spring of 2012, when Atera opened with a $150 dinner menu, with wine pairings at $90.

Is Atera still a BUY? It certainly is for avid consumers of caviar, as now the meal will end up costing a few dollars less without the supplement. Or at this price level, will guests prefer the slightly more classical luxuries of Eleven Madison Park to the naturalistic and sometimes avant-garde creations of Atera? State your case in the comments!