The upscale Scranton restaurant will formally introduce new executive chef Alexander Diaz later this week…
Editor’s note: A previous version of this article featured an incorrect picture of Chef Diaz.
A’tera 519 is introducing its new executive chef the sensible way: by letting people eat his food.
On Thursday, September 3rd, the Scranton restaurant will officially welcome Executive Chef Alexander Diaz with a “Meet the Chef” tasting from 5 to 7 p.m at its downtown location. Diaz will prepare a selection of small plates paired with wines from F. Magnotta, giving diners an early taste of what A’tera is calling the next chapter of its kitchen.
Reservations are encouraged, though walk-ins will be welcome.
For A’tera, this is more than a personnel announcement. The restaurant has spent the two years since it opened establishing its identity as one of the 570’s most elite eateries, while making some course corrections along the way. Chef Diaz’s arrival seems to signal another such adjustment.
When A’tera opened in December 2024, the kitchen was rooted in classic continental cooking, particularly the flavors and techniques of France and Italy. Management later described the original concept more specifically as a combination of Southern French and Northern Italian cuisine. It was polished, ambitious cooking, but the restaurant eventually concluded that the identity was not connecting as clearly with diners as intended.
By October 2025, A’tera had shifted toward New American food, with management emphasizing familiar dishes executed at a higher level rather than requiring diners to decode a narrowly European point of view. Its current website describes the restaurant as serving “New American elevated cuisine.”
Now comes another turn: Contemporary Coastal American, with Diaz running the kitchen.
According to A’tera, Diaz, who is a United States Army veteran, is a graduate of the French Culinary Institute in New York City and has more than 30 years of experience in fine dining and hospitality. The restaurant says he trained under chefs including Jacques Pépin, André Soltner, Alain Sailhac, Gray Kunz and Luc Dendievel, and that his career has included experience at Jean-Georges, Brasserie, Palma Restaurant and Il Mulino New York, along with professional culinary training in Barcelona.
Diaz inherits a restaurant where the expectations are already fairly high. A’tera occupies one of downtown Scranton’s more recognizable addresses, a Linden Street building that older generations of local nightlifers knew through incarnations including Tink’s, Levels, The Hardware Bar and Boom Boom Beach Club. Basalyga Hospitality rebuilt it into something considerably more polished: a large central bar, glass-wrapped dining space, mezzanine seating and, downstairs, Sergei’s Live.
There is no ambiguity about the ambition. Business-casual attire is required (though I’ve seen people having no trouble getting a table while wearing jeans and a T-shirt). Anyone paying attention to the Scranton dining scene knows it’s substantially elevated from where it was just a few years ago. A’tera 519 has been front and center for that transformation. And it has collected some hardware along the way.
The restaurant was named Newcomer of the Year by the Pennsylvania Restaurant & Lodging Association in 2025, then earned AAA Four Diamond status in early 2026. At the time, it was the only restaurant in Lackawanna County with that designation.
This makes the arrival of a new executive chef particularly interesting. Diaz is not being asked to rescue a restaurant in trouble. He is taking control of a kitchen attached to a dining room that has already established expectations for service, presentation, and price, and one that has already changed culinary direction once.
The current menu shows some of that transition still in motion. There is yellowfin tuna crudo with yuzu kosho and cilantro oil, grilled octopus with romesco vinaigrette, mussels in coconut curry and lemongrass, whole branzino with fennel and crispy capers, salmon with lemon beurre blanc and flat iron steak finished with bone-marrow butter. French and Italian DNA remain, but the menu no longer appears especially interested in respecting borders.
That makes the phrase “Contemporary Coastal American” interesting mostly because Diaz now gets to define what it means. No detailed menu for the September 3rd tasting has been announced, and that may be just as well. A chef introduction should not require a manifesto. Put something on a plate. Let people taste it.
Scranton diners have already watched A’tera change from a European-minded newcomer into a broader “New American” restaurant. Now Diaz gets the keys to the kitchen and the opportunity to push it somewhere else. The tasting on Sept. 3 is the first chance to find out where.
