Oberon at the New Museum Is Manhattan's Most Exciting Restaurant Opening

The museum restaurant is having a moment, with many in New York City becoming destinations of their own rather than a mere complement to the art experience—if not an art experience all its own. After all, Apicius once wrote: “We eat with our eyes first.” Recent, exciting openings like Zoli at the Amant, Marcel at the Breuer, and Westmoreland café at the Frick Collection bolster the ranks of longtime fixtures like The Modern at the Museum of Modern Art and Café Sabarsky at the Neue Galerie (both Café Sabarsky and Neue Galerie are closed for the summer as the building undergoes a construction project). No longer do these establishments remain tethered to the museum's opening hours, falling quiet when the galleries close. And now, as the final piece of its long-percolating revamp, the New Museum is betting on the museum restaurant model with Oberon. Developed by and named for The Oberon Group (which has previously opened Brooklyn mainstays like Rhodora Wine Bar in Fort Greene and Boerum Hill's Rucola) with the aim of creating a nexus for the downtown New York art world and its satellite communities, Oberon is part of the museum's ambitious two-year, $82 million expansion, which was designed by Shohei Shigematsu, partner and director of Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) and Rem Koolhaas. The museum itself reopened in March with nearly double its original footprint, adding 60,000 square feet for exhibitions, artist residencies, and public spaces. The overall project aims to improve how visitors navigate and spend time in the building. “When conceiving the new wing, we investigated the different types of relationships that could exist between it and the iconic existing building, which was designed by Japanese firm Sejima and Nishizawa and Associates. Rather than merely dominate or be subservient to the latter, the new wing was designed to simultaneously support and assert itself against the original structure,” says Shigematsu. “We sought to create a similar dynamic between Oberon and the greater museum, believing that a museum restaurant best serves the institution by offering its own unique, self-contained experience.” While Oberon is very much part of the revamped New Museum’s identity, it operates independently and with a distinct vibe. During the museum’s opening hours, the restaurant is accessible from the museum lobby, where visitors can walk in spontaneously on their way to and from the galleries. At night, when the museum is closed, it will be accessible from the adjacent Freeman Alley, where visitors will enter through an industrial walkway made from galvanized metal. The restaurant offers a late-night service until 1 a.m. Oberon is housed in a free-standing box on the museum’s ground-floor that, from the outside, appears brutalist and monolithic. The interior, however, is earthy and cave-like. The structure is clad inside and out with offcuts of cork sourced from Portugal, which were heated and bound into blocks before being cut and sculpted. On the exterior, the cork is coated with silver leaf, and textured laminated glass wraps around the walls to create a subtle two-way mirror effect that reflects the bustle of the museum while hinting at the dining room within. Inside, the ceiling is made entirely from CNC-milled cork, with fixtures like lighting and vents embedded inconspicuously onto the structure. A series of booths evoke the familiarity of a classic American diner and, above each, three-dimensional domes carved from cork create intimate alcoves. The regenerative material reflects the restaurant’s emphasis on sustainability and farm-to-table cooking. The result is a space that feels simultaneously tactile and futuristic. The Oberon’s chef, Julia Sherman, has long been interested in highlighting the common ground between food, dining, and art through her own cooking. Her acclaimed 2017 book Salad for President: A Cookbook Inspired by Artists combined her own recipes with interviews with and photographs of artists like Tauba Auerbach, Laurie Anderson, and William Wegman doing their own meal-making. Sherman grew up in downtown New York and, as the daughter of an artist, museums were a staple of her childhood. Her husband, Adam Katz, has also worked with the New Museum for a decade as an advisor for NEW INC, the museum’s art and technology incubator. Sherman says the Oberon was an opportunity to work with an interdisciplinary community of creative collaborators. The fashion designer Mary Ping of Slow and Steady Wins the Race designed the eclectic staff uniforms; designer April Johnson of the studio Flowerpsycho created the opening floral installations; The Noble Studio and Powerhouse Arts Ceramics Studio produced the tableware; and artist Laurie Anderson designed the wrappers of the parting dark mint chocolates served with the check. “Food is only one element of a dining experience,” Sherman says. “We’re always looking for meaningful ways to layer in other creative voices and forms of expression.” The menu is rooted in familiar, unpretentious dishes that are vegetable-forward but not strictly vegetarian. It was important for Sherman to craft dishes that would feel approachable and welcoming—especially for daytime visitors in need of a moment of pause. “A museum offers so much visual and intellectual stimulation—so much to think about and process,” she says. “We imagined the restaurant as a kind of exhale: an intuitive, grounding experience that complements the whirlwind of ideas encountered throughout the museum.” There are some staples like crudo, shrimp, and the Oberon Burger on the menu. One dish that Sherman says best captures Oberon’s philosophy pairs prawns with yellow lentils prepared in dal and served with a salsa negra that is rich and silky, but not overtly spicy despite its toasted chiles. “It’s a great example of a dish that feels comforting and approachable while having a lot happening beneath the surface,” she says. Though food is the centerpiece here, there is indeed art, and each piece at Oberon plays into the general ethos of the space. The Los Angeles-based artist Ian Cheng created Shrine Oberon, a panoramic LED screen that illuminates the backdrop of the bar. The interactive work uses AI to feed off the ever-changing population of diners and features a character Cheng calls the “shrinekeeper,” a “curious alien who enjoys people watching.” The shrinekeeper greets bar patrons, gives them nicknames, will learn to recognize regulars, plays games of chess alone and with guests, and accepts tips that manifest into permanent flora or small totems within the microcosm of the work. Over time, the work will become an evolving portrait of Oberon visitors. “I was struck by the enclosed architecture of the Oberon, with no outside lighting, but womb-like, and convivial, like the bar in Star Wars,” Cheng says. “It inspired wanting to make a creature, an alien, who would greet and recognize regulars, and hold a memory of them.” The New York-based artist and designer Minjae Kim, whose furniture and interiors blend sculptural forms with traditional Korean woodworking techniques, created the bar tabletops, dining booths, and two-top tables in tones that complement the cork interior. He also designed a series of amorphous quilted fiberglass pendant lights that add a touch of warmth throughout the space. “The focus of this project was to integrate with the architecture. I wanted to deliver something quiet that would serve the overall experience,” Kim says. “The negative space was the main component I responded to. I wanted the architecture to transfer to the tables and fixtures into something they can touch.” This isn't the first arts institution-adjacent restaurant for the Oberon Group, which has also helmed other cultural projects in New York City like the café at BRIC House, Clara at the New-York Historical Society, and the Metrograph Commissary. Building on that experience, managing partner Henry Rich says, “The idea was to create a restaurant for the downtown New York art world and that includes many communities—artists, galleries, collectors, and visitors. The process is really about understanding the community and creating a restaurant that serves its social, aesthetic, and civic needs.”