Photograph by Martha Williams
As diners and social media consumers, we’ve become accustomed to the culinary theater of smoke, edible glitter, and deconstruction—meals that demand your full attention. So, when you slip into a room that refuses to scream at you, instead offering a gentle, velvet-padded exhale of absolute competence, it feels like a relief.
This is the territory claimed by Elise, the airy, light-drenched second act from Craig Richards, chef-owner of Midtown’s Michelin-recommended Lyla Lila. Housed on the Woodruff Arts Center campus in the former Table 1280 space, Elise functions as a gallery in its own right. Towering windows cast soft light across commissioned artworks, plush banquettes hold you a little longer than you intended to stay, and the hum of jazz is dialed in to match the afternoon. It’s a beautiful place to exist.
Compared with Lyla Lila’s southern European cuisine that emphasizes pasta, Elise maps a slightly different geography, with a broader French-Italian landscape. Across both the lunch and dinner menus, Richards delivers Italian-inspired comfort food executed with the kind of ironclad French technique that ensures every emulsion is seamless and every jus glossy. Nothing leaps off the plate or shocks the palate, but that’s not the point. The kitchen isn’t trying to reinvent the wheel, but to polish it to the sheen of the room’s design. For me, the real highlights belonged to the luxury of a long, stolen lunch.
Seated at a white-tablecloth two-top by myself, I started with smoked oysters ($28) with crisp panisse batons (chickpea fritters) and vegetables beautifully transformed into soup ($9) that was punched up with herb oil. A pristine salad ($15) lets local, peppery greens shine with a very light champagne vinaigrette, but it’s the peaches (in season on my visit) that play the starring role. Cutting into shatteringly crisp artichokes ($15) yields a soft interior to dip in a disappointing mint aioli. I would have preferred a vibrant lemon flavor. Don’t let the check arrive without ordering dessert. The chocolate mousse with a waft of Scotch and a touch of olive oil is as worthy as the lemon tart with blueberry-peppercorn dust.
Lunchtime draws solo diners, ladies who lunch, and the business-meeting set. The wine list is heavy on French staples sprinkled with biodynamic curiosities for the adventurous drinker. A suggested Pierre Gerbais extra brut champagne had nectarine aromas and a persistent, patient bubble I watched as closely as the art. The champagne arrived via staff whose hospitality was knowledgeable and free of pretense.
As for dinner, you’ll find a procession of reliable dishes, and menu headings like “A touch of sun” and “To spoon and twirl” read like poetry. A mound of meaty, cool morsels of tuna tartare ($25) with saffron aioli, sumac, and pickled strawberry matched the red dining room. Crispy vegetable tempura turned up tender artichoke hearts, fresh snap peas, and earthy maitake mushrooms in the lightest of batters.
Courtesy of Elise
Photograph by Martha Williams
The housemade pastas carry the requisite al dente snap. Ordering half sizes is a pro move to experience red wine−braised beef and smoked sheep’s milk ricotta tucked side by side into ravioli doppio ($38). The duck breast balances crispy skin with tender meat, rich yet delicate. Roast chicken ($39) is homey, golden, and textbook-perfect with sauteed chanterelles, its pan sauce reason enough to order the housemade sourdough ($7). For the beef bourguignon, Richards uses brisket for a full-bodied flavor that edges toward barbecue smokiness. While I would have preferred a more traditional take, my dinner date thought the brisket made it better. The meat is slow braised into tender bites and served alongside decadent pommes puree.
The cocktail program at the intimate bar is a lesson in restraint: A menu of low-proof vermouth beverages, listed by ingredients only, treats the fortified wine as the protagonist, not an afterthought. My favorite paired Islay Scotch with rich, bitter-leaning Italian vermouth for a savory-smoky profile.
One practical note: Parking can be pricey and is not discounted for diners ($18 at lunch and $25 at dinner), so budget for it, or take MARTA and walk across the street.
In the end, Elise asks to be remembered not for any single dish, but for how a few well-chosen ingredients and intentional design can become something refined. That’s a rarer trick than a revelatory bite, and a harder one to fake.
This article appears in our September 2026 issue.
