LOWER EAST SIDE — A new restaurant, Galeria, is designed to let customers buy everything from their meals to the art — and even the chair one sits in while eating.
Jairo Barros, who previously worked at Organika in the West Village, created the concept with the idea of combining an art gallery with a restaurant. Artists will showcase their work a month at a time while furniture makers will have a chance to shuffle in on a quarterly basis.
"My idea was to have a space for artists to take their art but also to make it different from the galleries than we have in this neighborhood now," said Barros, 32, who grew up in southeastern Brazil and moved to New York to attend Baruch College.
The space at 43 Clinton St. will function first and foremost as a restaurant, serving fresh local food in bowls over salad or rice, for instance, for three meals a day.
Galeria — which aims to attract all types of people, especially those who don't frequent art galleries — is currently in its soft opening phase, but plans on fully opening at the end of the first week of February, Barros said. The hope is that people will come for the food and stay for the art.
"Galeria is a space for artists to showcase themselves," Barros said, emphasizing that nothing is off limits for sale.
Each item will feature details of origin and the artist who created it.
"If we have a turntable playing music, the turntable and the disc will both have price tags on it," he said.
