It’s like Jake said in Sweet Home Alabama, “You can have roots and wings.” Here is a short list of what I deem the best restaurants in Atlanta. Both my favorite expensive (high-brow) and casual (low-brow) restaurants to boot.
“Yes. I’ll have the foie gras with cornichons please,” I can remember telling the wide-eyed waiter. I was 12. That was 1990. There were no teenage foodies taking pictures of their meals with ring lights yet. At my senior prom, I ordered escargot at dinner. I think my date lost all interest in making out with me after the dance in that moment. But I didn’t back down. The whole table watched me as I ate every last snail. They were buttery and garlicky and scrumptious.
Born and raised outside of Atlanta, as a result I had an affinity (aka a hankerin’) for gooey, salted cheese grits and patty melts at the Waffle House. But I also was obsessed with Cornish game hens, salmon rillettes and my beloved melted brie slathered on fancy crackers. Not just Ritz or Saltines like my friends were eating. I delighted in expensive thin crackers or hearty seeded crackers even then. Sure, my friends called me weird. Even their parents made fun of the food I ordered when I tagged along on a restaurant outing. Some of them still do.
Being Two-Sided Southern means I never met a Styrofoam cup of boiled peanuts I didn’t like, for instance. But I also can look at cuisine and see it as an art form and part of the culture. It speaks to me. Being Two-Sided Southern means you can adore the low brow, and still appreciate the high-end too.
Moreover, whether I’m at Sushi Hayakawa’s small bar, knee-deep in a 14-course omakase experience ($165 per person) and been just as wowed as when I’m delighting in a fluffy fried chicken biscuit with red pepper jelly ($15) at Buttermilk Kitchen. It’s like Jake said in Sweet Home Alabama, “You can have roots and wings.” I would encourage you to try this list of what I deem the best restaurants in Atlanta. From high- to low-brow.
1. High Brow – Atlas Restaurant
From roasted sunchoke soup or the olive oil poached halibut, you’ll discover the Atlas fine dining experience swaddled inside the back corner of The St. Regis Atlanta is a struggle to surpass. Lead Sommelier Samuel Gamble assists in making the entire evening a home run, no matter what arrives on your table. Put yourself in his hands and he’ll pair every course with surprising palette-pleasers. Ordered the Durham Ranch venison chop? The roasted mushroom agnolotti? No worries. He’ll pair it with an obscure bottle from a region you’ve never heard of. Mix in a high-end, dim-lit ambience straight out of a 1950s romantic movie (see picture below), and color any date impressed.
2. Low Brow – Home grown
I’ve been known to order the Ruffles potato chips and onion dip appetizer at this truly Homegrown kitschy diner and not share at all. You best get your own if you’re dining with me. I might share my comfy chicken biscuit or split some fried green tomatoes, but I’m definitely hoarding the onion dip and taking a tub of pimento cheese home with me too. That’s because everything on the menu at this cozy Reynoldstown diner inspires lustful, gluttonous behavior. It’s the brainchild of a fine dining chef who wanted to make delicious affordable comfort food for the working people of his neighborhood. He nailed it.
3. High Brow – Kimball House
Even eating here during a pandemic is an experience that’s elevated among other restaurants even in pre-COVID times. The oysters are a given. Don’t skip them. Order a duo of each if you can. But the Caviar and Middlins appetizer is the ideal cross between high- and low-brow because it pairs Southern rice grits and white sturgeon caviar with an egg yolk and wows all 10,000 taste buds in your mouth. There’s a reason it’s constantly named one of the best restaurants in Atlanta: Here you can move between Blue crab claws and fried chicken skins or venison and creamed collard greens and satisfy all sides of your culinary personality.
4. Low Brow – Buttermilk Kitchen
Breakfast is queen bee here. When chef Suzanne Vizethann (an Atlanta native) decided to brine her fried chicken breast in sweet tea, she entered genius status for me. Plunked onto a fluffy biscuit and served with red pepper jelly, the crispy breast sky rockets past its chicken biscuit brethren around town. It comes with a sidecar of pimento cheese grits and house pickles for all the acid, fat and salt you can handle. The lox plate with its crispy Jerusalem bagel would be my runner-up choice for most delightful brunch in town. There’s a reason that a 2-hour wait is not a dealbreaker for most weekend patrons.
5. High Brow – The Optimist
Chef Ford Fry’s ode to an elevated fish camp has been open since 2012 (the year it was named Best New Restaurant by Esquire), but it still surprises me every time I visit. The Optimist still serves that exquisite whole shrimp a la Plancha with sopping toast that makes me drool, but it also delights with wood hearth roasted fish specials that would take 10 visits to try each one. I’m an appetizer fiend, so I usually order too many (She Crab soup, smoked fish dip and crispy fried oysters) and end up stuffed. But the surprises come with getting a group together to try the Plateaux menu with its $140 The Starving Man spread.
6. Low Brow – Fox Bros. Bar-B-Q
You. Just. Can’t. Beat. It.
The barbecue plate is wholly satisfying, but those hickory-smoked wet wings… What? Who? Huh? They are heaven’s (or the devil’s, I’m not sure) idea of worthy of a last supper. We love Fox Bros.’ cute Frito Pie that comes tucked inside the chip bag still, but those fried pickles with ranch dipping sauce are about as trashy and tasty as you can get this side of the Mason Dixon.
7. High Brow – Umi
Owner Farshid Arshid is one of the most exceptional restaurateurs I know. He cares more about his chefs, his staff and people leaving feeling like a million bucks than most anyone else I know in the business. At Umi, you will dine next to A-list celebs, B-list locals, fashionistas, ballplayers and millionaires-next-door. One of the most fabulous parts of dining here is you never know who you’ll see. While the yellowtail jalapeno appetizer and black cod misoyaki entrée are home run staples and some of the most popular dishes on the menu. But it’s the more obscure scallop tiradito or the omakase experience at the sushi bar where the chef takes you through a custom experience of sashimi, nigiri and aburi that I’ve only had rivaled at Kenzo in Napa Valley.
8. Low Brow – Gato
This Candler Park treasure used to be the Gato Bizco (translation: the cross-eyed cat) and I used to drive from Brookhaven all the way through town just to have their omelet-a-dilla to cure Saturday or Sunday morning hangovers. But as I grew up the drinking lessened, the hangovers are definitely less frequent and time changed the place. A new, younger chef took over and has a penchant for authentic Mexican touches. Since COVID hit they only serve Fri-Sun., but the Huevos Rancheros in the a.m. and skirt steak mixtos in the p.m. are out of this world.
9. High Brow – Sushi Hayakawa
The first time I sat down in front of sushi master and Itamae Hayakawa for his honkaku omakase (a 14-course extravaganza) I was in shock. How could this be happening in a strip mall on Buford Highway? I had just put him in a skirt at skirt! Magazine (a monthly feature we did) and so it was around 2007 or 2008. Since then, his talent has only grown and more Atlantans in the know find their way to his sushi bar. He’s a wildly entertaining personality who orders fish flown over fresh from Tsukiji Market regularly. But beyond that you couldn’t be in more deft hands for a one-of-a-kind culinary experience.
10. Low Brow – Ticonderoga Club
This one could go high-brow too, on certain nights. My husband and I have done their New Year’s Eve dinner in the private room upstairs with friends and it was quite lovely and expensive. However, most of the time I adore sitting in the bar that looks like it belongs in a lakeside road pub in the middle of nowhere and chowing down on Ipswich clam rolls, shrimp chips or a Mexican street corn special they had one night that I can’t stop thinking about. The craft cocktails here reveal there’s something a little more elevated going on behind the scenes (Sazeracs and Gimlets abound), but the low-key vibe of the place makes you feel down home.
In conclusion, I know I’m missing 50 other incredible restaurants (dives to delicacies) and if you asked me tomorrow, I’d have an entirely different list. But what obvious choices do you think I am missing here? Who are your high- and low-brow faves around Atlanta? And the South for that matter? (I’m looking at you Birmingham, Charleston, Nashville!) Leave in the comments. Honey, you know I’ll go visit if I’m nearby.
