Estela

Estela is a small-plates restaurant of chef Ignacio Mattos, up a flight of stairs on East Houston Street in Nolita, Manhattan.

Mattos was born in Uruguay and cooked the homely Italian food of Il Buco in New York before a short and much-discussed spell at Isa in Williamsburg, where he served dishes such as a deep-fried sardine skeleton. Mark Connell, the owner of the bar Botanica downstairs, came up with the idea of a wine bar and restaurant above it and brought in Mattos together with Thomas Carter, formerly beverage director at Blue Hill at Stone Barns. Estela opened in 2013, and Carter runs the wines and cocktails as co-owner. The address once housed the first Knitting Factory music club.

The menu changes often and is mostly small plates, with a few larger ones, and it borrows from Spain, Italy and Uruguay while staying personal. Mussels escabeche on toast and ricotta dumplings under shaved raw mushrooms and Pecorino Sardo became the dishes most tied to the restaurant. Beef tartare arrives looking like a bowl of granola, with pickled elderberries, fish sauce and sunchoke chips. A rib eye has come under a pile of charred leeks with eggplant and anchovy, and a honey panna cotta is scattered with crystallized bee pollen.

The room is long and narrow, like a railroad apartment, with a white marble bar at the front, an exposed brick wall and small tables of marble and wood. Lights are kept low and the noise level high. The Michelin Guide awarded Estela a star, and Time Out singled out the steak with charred leeks among its best plates.