The Atlas Luxury Hotel and Ama Restaurant Open in Harvard’s Enterprise Research Campus

The Atlas Hotel and its connected restaurant opened their doors on Wednesday in a major milestone for Harvard’s Enterprise Research Campus, bringing the first luxury hotel to Allston.

The Atlas Hotel wrote in a Wednesday press release that it hopes to bring a “new standard of lifestyle hospitality” to its guests. The 16-story hotel — located at 40 Western Ave. at the edge of the ERC — includes 246 rooms priced starting at $314. The hotel also includes a fitness center, rooftop bar, and private event spaces.

“Luxury hotels with classic New England elegance are commonplace,” managing director Arnaldo Almonte wrote in the release. “The Atlas offers a social hub rooted in connection, culture, and community.”

Ama at The Atlas, a restaurant located on the ground floor of The Atlas Hotel, also debuted its 180-seat dining establishment Wednesday. The restaurant is co-owned by Nyacko P. Perry and Biplaw K. Rai, who also run Comfort Kitchen — an African and Asian fusion restaurant in Dorchester.

The menu ranges from classic breakfast staples like buttermilk pancakes to confit duck legs for dinner. Renato Rodriguez, the food and beverage director for Ama, described their menu as “reflective of the diversity of the Allston community.”

“It’s a diverse menu from different parts of the world, taking the basic ingredients, putting it together to bring something new,” he added.

But the hotel's high price point initially worried some residents who feared that the addition of a luxury hotel to the area would price out smaller local businesses.

Edward Boches, a local photographer, has spent the last six years capturing the transformation and gentrification of Allston through his photography project, Postcards from Allston. He was initially hesitant when the ERC’s development firm Tishman Speyer reached out to him asking if they could use his photographs to decorate the hotel.

“My first reaction was, ‘Huh? I wonder if that’s good or bad for Allston?’” Boches said. “I didn’t jump on it eagerly. It was like, ‘Okay, let me find out what they’re really up to.’”

“But after I met the folks from Tishman and some of the other people involved with the project, I came to believe that — even though this is the high-end hotel — there’s a real interest and a real desire, and a genuine one, to try to be part of the community,” he added.

Boches said that The Atlas was “very eager and excited” to sign an agreement for the hotel to donate all profit from hotel-branded postcards featuring Boches’s photos to local arts programs.

The Ama restaurant is also offering a 15 percent discount to residents of Allston, Brighton and Cambridge from Feb. 1 to Feb. 13 to encourage them to try the restaurant.

“We’re here seven days a week, so we hope that they’ll come in here, have a good time, feel at home, feel nurtured, and feel like they’re being taken care of,” Rodriguez said.

“They have the right to have some concerns, but I think when they come here, they’ll find a neighborhood restaurant with neighborhood residents working here,” he added.

Alex Cornacchini, executive director of Allston Village Main Streets, said he was encouraged by the hotel and restaurant’s opening, pointing to efforts by Tishman Speyer and the hotel to engage the community through local artists and nonprofits, and the choice of Ama over a large chain.

“So super excited about the opening of the hotel, and just excited that they were proactively interested in working with the community through us,” he added.

—Staff writer Thamini Vijeyasingam can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her on X @vijeyasingam.

—Staff writer Kevin Zhong can be reached at [email protected].