Why is it that shrinking a martini down to half its size makes it twice as fun to drink? The beverage list at Atoma includes the usual circa-2024 suspects: intriguing regular-size cocktails, smart zero-proof concoctions, and wines served in delicate stemware you fear might break if you grip too hard. Tucked at the bottom, though, is a section titled Cocktails for Ants. With a little sketch of Derek Zoolander in case you didn’t get the movie reference.

My dirty martini weighed in at two ounces, just the right size for an American Girl doll gone bad. Or for adults who want one more round, but also to be productive in the morning. Technically these drinks exist to occupy diners waiting in the solarium for a table. And because chef Johnny Courtney, his wife and business partner, Sarah, and bar director Dillon Raaz came up with the idea late one night after a few bottles of wine. There’s an unexpected joy to pinching a wee martini glass between your thumb and forefinger.

Atoma keeps the lighting set to noir house party, but flashes of unexpected joy show up all over the place. As restaurants go, it had a lot to live up to. Courtney’s a former executive sous at Canlis. He took over the Wallingford craftsman where Maria Hines pioneered organic dining (and won a James Beard Award) back when it was Tilth. Thank goodness, this place delivers.

Every last pork collar with black trumpet mushroom jam, every tangle of kohlrabi and dungeness in curried crab oil is a work of finesse and cohesion. This is food that holds its own against any destination restaurant in town. Usually you see plates like these in dining rooms with dress codes and a reverential hush. Not in a converted living room that cranks up the James Brown and ’90s hip-hop and sprinkles housemade mimolette Cheez-Its on the kale salad.

Ideally, a visit to Atoma starts with the savory rosette cookie (yes, the one the New York Times raved about). Vintage cast iron molds that once belonged to Sarah Courtney’s grandfather deliver savory cookies you want to pick up with the same care as that tiny martini glass. Surprise—each crispy golden flower hides Walla Walla onion jam and soft, white cheese inside. Servers strenuously encourage each diner to order their own, rather than try to share something so delicate. I hate to say it: They’re right.

Might as well get your own radish cake, too. Imagine the turnip cake from your favorite dim sum restaurant booked a glow-up at Per Se. Each order is as big as a fun-size candy bar and shingled with fermented radishes and wafers of geoduck. You can eat it in two bites, each of which unleash multiple waves of flavor. When the Courtneys lived in Australia, they encountered a lot of menu items sold “by the each.” After so many years of share plates, this is a form of self-care I can stand behind.

Besides tiny drinks and oversize canapes, Atoma serves food you’ll only find at a restaurant owned by a shaggy, slightly droll guy who was born in the South, then lived at various times in New Mexico and the watery Baja reaches of regular Mexico. Along the way, Courtney cooked at restaurants in Denver and Melbourne. He brought back more than a few influences from Australia’s famously cross-cultural dining scene, like the perfect sourdough crumpets that I deployed on various visits as either bread service or dessert. His cooks contribute, too. There’s bonito emulsion beneath the black cod, pepita salsa macha in an intricate squash dish. But Northwest produce and proteins form a lingua franca for a globe’s worth of influences.

A straight-up stunning beef tartare gets a kick from XO sauce; the kitchen uses dried geoduck trim to make its own version of the classic Hong Kong condiment. The tartare itself is a hand-chopped double down of raw beef and grilled fat cap; a year from now, I’ll still remember the sensation of raw steak and smoky grilled fat together.

Courtney, of course, also spent five years in the Canlis kitchen, a resume bullet that guarantees expertise, but also expectations. Atoma operates on a much smaller scale than our 74-year dining icon, but offers a similar feeling that someone has considered (and reconsidered) every detail: glassware is either courageously delicate or reassuringly hefty. Tables are spaced out so you’re not sitting crumpets-to-elbows with the next two-top. Even the light switches in the wallpapered bathrooms have a vintage design and satisfying tactile snap. “They’re almost too cool,” Courtney laments. “People have been playing with them and one of them broke, so I had to order new ones." Atoma’s owners even sweat the details you don’t notice, like nearly invisible acoustic panels to ensure that James Brown presents as “party vibes” rather than “what, I can’t hear you?”

It’s rough opening a seasonal restaurant in the barren crop zone of November. As Courtney puts it, “you can only cook turnips so many ways.” But since then, no dish has clocked in at less than impressive. Also impressive: bootstrapping a restaurant this polished.

Atoma’s the kind of place with big chef’s-counter energy, but the row of four tall chairs at the dining room’s far end is actually just the regular bar. These might be the best seats in the house, but they’re only for walk-ins. Dillon Raaz’s cocktails (the full-size ones) are worth their own visit. Here, he offers a little something for anybody lucky enough to wrangle one of these seats—a tiny bowl of those housemade Cheez-Its and a little pour of tepache and sherry, a weirdly perfect pairing. It’s another not-too-serious Easter egg amid some seriously good food.