Restaurants

White Oak Kitchen & Cocktails quietly opened its doors Monday night for dinner service. The downtown restaurant, located in the 270 Peachtree building, is the latest to jump on the Southern chic, farm-to-table bandwagon. The menu offers the expected pimento cheese and deviled eggs but also ventures out with dishes like caramel fried chicken, trout ravioli, and a stew with roasted prawns.

On Wednesday night, Greg Best and Regan Smith announced to their staff that they are moving on from Holeman and Finch Public House. It’s no overstatement to say that Best and Smith, along with partners Gina and Linton Hopkins and Andy Minchow (the latter moved on from the business last year), were the catalysts for Atlanta’s now-booming cocktail culture. When Holeman and Finch opened in 2008, it brought Atlanta up to speed on the booze renaissance happening in cities like New York, Chicago, and San Francisco.

Scheduled to open October 14 for dinner and October 20 for lunch, Gypsy Kitchen will focus on Spanish-inspired shared plates created by executive chef Randy Lewis.

Last week Asha Gomez surprised Atlanta when she announced that she would be closing Cardamom Hill after dinner service tonight. Cardamom Hill had been named among Bon Appétit magazine's Top 50 Best New Restaurants in 2012, and the restaurant later became a James Beard semi-finalist. But even after tonight, Gomez will still be hard at work; she plans to open an Indian patisserie called Spice to Table in Studioplex Friday.

Ticonderoga Club's Greg Best discusses New Orleans, a cocktail trend he's over, and his favorite dive bar.

Ian Jones, proprietor of Victory Sandwich Bar and Paper Plane, is frustrated. Originally, he had a May opening in mind for Victory Sandwich Bar’s new Inman Park location (913 Bernina Avenue, the space formerly home to Park’s Edge). Then he figured July. Now, due to a seemingly endless series of meetings and reviews with the city permitting department, it’s looking more like August or September, he says.

Empire State South chef Hugh Acheson reveals the one dish he wishes he knew how to cook, his favorite cookbooks, and why he hates Jell-O.

You might be familiar with chef Suzanne Vizethann but, if you're like many Atlantans, you haven't had a chance to taste her food yet. Vizethann made a splash on television, winning the Food Network's 2011 season of Chopped, and she's been running a small lunch counter, The Hungry Peach, inside the until-very-recently private design center ADAC. So, unless you've been a television food judge or a design professional, Vietzthann's food has been out of reach. Today that changes, as Vietzthann's new restaurant, Buttermilk Kitchen, opens today at 4225 Roswell Road.

Come September, Buckhead Atlanta, the massive mixed-use development, will add two more restaurants to its burgeoning dining scene. Backed by JP Piemonte and Chris Hadermann—the duo behind Tin Lizzy’s, the Big Ketch, and Milton's Cuisine and Cocktails—Gypsy Kitchen and the Southern Gentleman will share a 10,000-square-foot space and an executive chef, Randy Lewis, who comes from California where he worked as a culinary director at various wineries. “I was looking to get back to the South—my parents are here,” he says. “I love what’s going on here with the food scene.”

This week, as longtime employees stopped by to pick up their final checks and his phone continued to ring off the hook, a full week after Dante’s Down the Hatch officially closed, the landmark Buckhead fondue and jazz emporium’s owner Dante Stephensen faced some difficult decisions. With a wrecking ball tentatively set to begin swinging at his 43-year-old business at 3380 Peachtree Road on October 31 and representatives at Ahlers & Ogletree Auction Gallery eager to auction off everything from the vintage autos parked out back to the last Dante’s daiquiri cocktail glass on September 21, the 77-year-old restaurateur has to figure out his future — and fast.