Atla is gone. I liked Atla. It worked for a Tuesday lunch and a Saturday night in equal measure. It held the corner of Lafayette and Great Jones for nearly nine years. Enrique Olvera closed it in May. He did not give up the room. On November 10, he opened Bar Cosme in its place, and the idea is a sharp one. This is not a restaurant with a good bar. It is a bar that happens to serve serious food. I have not been yet. I have not sat at the counter or ordered a drink. This is a first look, not a review. Still, the details on paper are strong enough that I want to be in that room soon.
Atla Is Gone. The Room Is Not.
Atla opened in 2017 and earned two stars from The New York Times during its run. It was Olvera’s all-day Mexican restaurant, the casual counterpoint to Cosme, his acclaimed Flatiron restaurant. When it closed in May 2026, the obvious question was what would happen to the space. The answer is that the same team kept it. Olvera and his hospitality group, Casamata, rebuilt the room as Bar Cosme, a nightlife-focused sibling to Cosme. The address is 372 Lafayette Street, at the corner of Great Jones Street in NoHo. The Great Jones entrance carries the number 11. Same corner. Different idea.
Olvera is the chef behind Pujol in Mexico City, one of the most celebrated restaurants in the world. Cosme has been one of New York’s hardest tables to book for more than a decade. Olvera modeled Bar Cosme on the bar at Cosme. Regulars have always known you can eat well there without a reservation. Olvera took that energy and gave it its own room, its own hours, and its own menu. Meanwhile, the result is Cosme after dark, not Cosme all over again.
A Bar That Happens to Serve Food
The drinks come first here, and the people behind them tell you how seriously Olvera takes that. Sebastián Tollius leads the cocktail program. He spent seven years at Eleven Madison Park and helped open its Clemente Bar in 2024. He works alongside Jorsand Diaz, who started out as a bartender at Cosme. Agave spirits lead the list, mezcal and tequila up front, bourbon behind them. The wine list runs to 50 bottles of Mexican and natural wines. The bar describes the program simply: classic cocktails, older vintage wines, and a hand-picked selection of spirits.
Lestat mixes mezcal with corn liqueur, passion fruit, and elote salt. Genevieve is a savory martini of Mexican gin, blanco tequila, and mole blanco. There is also a plantain and shiso highball. The kitchen builds them on the same ingredients it cooks with, and that is the point of the whole room. Want to know what good agave tastes like before you order a cocktail built on it? Patrón 100 is a good place to start. Fósforo is another, a highland blanco that shows how much origin matters in a bottle of tequila. If the Genevieve has you thinking about martinis, the classic Manhattan is still the drink that teaches you what a great cocktail is supposed to do.
Tortillas, a Comal, and a $135 Prix Fixe
The food is not an afterthought. It serves the bar, not the other way around. Chef de cuisine Milton Revilla runs the kitchen. The menu covers raw and lightly cooked dishes across seafood, meats, vegetables, and desserts. Every plate arrives with freshly pressed tortillas and salsas, so diners build their own tacos at the counter. That is the whole mechanic of the room. The kitchen cooks. You assemble. The kitchen presses the tortillas on a central comal, the traditional Mexican griddle, right in front of you.
The dishes I want to try first could only come from this kitchen. Prawn tartare with prawn head mayonnaise. Dover sole al ajillo. Lamb belly with a Oaxacan chile paste. A guava tart. For dessert, a corn husk meringue and soft serve. The kitchen also cooks dishes over an asador, a traditional live-fire grill. Still, none of this is a side show to the drinks. It is a full menu, with prices to match. Dinner at the counter is a $135 prix fixe only, covering seafood, meat, a side, and dessert. The window seats run à la carte. In fact, that split is the most honest thing about the concept. The counter is a commitment. The windows are a way in.
The Room Itself
Forty seats wrap around an open kitchen built around that central comal. Mexico City studio Taller ADG redesigned the room. Stainless steel, walnut, and black granite wrap around a sculptural bar, with floor-to-ceiling windows looking out on the corner. The bar’s own website calls it a cozy corner bar made for eating at the counter, with good music and well-made drinks. That is a fair description of what the room is trying to be. It is secluded and intimate, built for late nights, open until midnight every day.
The counter is the whole idea. Forty seats is small enough that the room feels full with a modest crowd. Every seat faces the kitchen. You watch the tortillas get pressed. You watch the drinks come together. Then you eat what comes off the line in front of you. That is a different kind of night out than a table in a dining room. It is the reason this place works as a bar first. The food is there to keep you at the counter, not to pull you away from it.
How to Get In
Bar Cosme is open nightly from 5 p.m. to midnight. Reservations run through Resy, with seatings between 5 and 9 p.m. The bar holds a limited number of seats for walk-ins and welcomes them as space allows. The address is 372 Lafayette Street, New York, NY 10012, and the listed phone is +1 315 512 4131. Book the counter if you want the full prix fixe. Book a window seat if you want to order à la carte and keep the night looser.
At $135 for the counter, this is a date-night splurge, not a casual stop for a margarita. I know that, and I still want to go. Atla was a neighborhood restaurant I was sorry to lose. Bar Cosme bets that a great bar with a great kitchen behind it is worth more than another dining room. I have not sat at that counter yet. When I do, I will tell you whether the room lives up to the idea. For now, the idea alone is worth a reservation.
