The New Museum Debuts a Cozy, Design-Forward Dining Destination

From Westmoreland Café at the Frick Collection to the Roman and Williams–designed Marcel at the newly opened Sotheby’s headquarters, museum restaurants have recently become some of New York’s most coveted tables. The appeal seems to come naturally. After hours spent immersed in world-class exhibitions, visitors relish a thoughtfully appointed place to relax and refuel, while artists, curators, and collectors gain another gathering place. The latest addition to this prestigious roster is Oberon, the New Museum’s first full-service restaurant, which on Tuesday, July 7, officially debuts on the ground floor of the institution’s OMA-designed expansion that opened this spring.

Oberon, operated by restaurateur Henry Rich and the Oberon Group, also marks OMA’s debut full-service restaurant. Conceived as a freestanding volume placed within the museum lobby, it presents two distinct identities: A silvery exterior echoes the surrounding atrium’s industrial atmosphere while the 90-seat dining room offers up softer, more intimate environs thanks to an earthy palette of cork and wood bathed in amber light. “We imagined the restaurant both as part of and independent from the museum,” says OMA partner Shohei Shigematsu, the Galerie Creative Mind architect who spearheaded the commission with associate Jake Forster. True to that vision, visitors enter through the lobby during museum hours; after the galleries close, a speakeasy-style entrance on Freeman Alley allows Oberon to operate independently.

Taking cues from classic New York diners, Oberon centers on a pill-shaped room framed by a continuous frosted glass ribbon window. Expanded cork cloaks the exterior walls, ceiling, and banquettes, while silver leaf lends a metallic sheen to sculptural ceiling domes. Handmade dark wood furnishings, lush plantings that encircle the perimeter, and amber cove lighting deliberately contrast the otherwise industrial shell. As Shigematsu puts it, “organic, tactile material finishes complementing the museum’s polished lightness introduce a warm and comforting environment that eases people in and invites them to stay.”

The material palette also speaks to the Oberon Group’s environmental commitments. Much like the natural wine bars Rhodora, June, and Anäis that it operates in Brooklyn, Oberon strictly adheres to zero-waste principles by eschewing single-use plastics and relying on products that can be recycled, upcycled, or composted. “Composed from black expanded cork, the restaurant uses a novel sustainable material that gives a rich softness counter to the white-box galleries,” Forster says. Produced by heating cork offcuts until their natural resins bind the material together, the blocks can then be cut and sculpted into the restaurant’s enveloping interior.

The kitchen, meanwhile, is led by chef and artist Julia Sherman, who makes her full-service restaurant debut alongside co-executive chef Ali Ghriskey. Best known for creating artist-made salad gardens at MoMA PS1 and authoring cookbooks Salad for President and Arty Parties, Sherman has conceived a seasonal plant-focused American menu that draws heavily from produce cultivated at Hudson Valley farms. Composed salads remain a signature, from little gems with radishes, snap peas, and yuzu vinaigrette to canary melon with sage. Heartier offerings include a dry-aged beef burger with Gruyère, roasted half chicken scented with fig leaves and mandarinquat chutney, and skirt steak with salsa verde.

Oberon also showcases several site-specific artist works. Minjae Kim created many of the custom furnishings, including a suite of hand-finished ash tables, the sculptural bar top, and resin-dipped fiberglass pendants hanging above banquettes. The installation marks the Korean designer’s first permanent public commission in New York as well as his largest collection of custom furniture to date. “OMA had carved out an amazing space, and I focused on bringing in the right tones and textures,” Kim says. “The booths and the bar table have my signature lacquer finish with a lot of varying texture; it’s intentionally imperfect and avoids being pristine. The challenge was really to quiet my contribution and avoid overpowering the full experience.”

Behind the bar, artist Ian Cheng’s digital installation Shrine Oberon serves as the room’s primary light source, bathing the back bar in an ambient glow while casting undulating reflections across Kim’s handcrafted wood surfaces. Guests depart with a fitting artistic souvenir: Raaka dark mint chocolates wrapped in sleeves adorned with quotes by avant-garde musician Laurie Anderson. It’s a fitting farewell from an artist who, much like the New Museum since it was established in 1977, has always charted her own course.