Photograph by Martha Williams
As someone who has written about the Atlanta restaurant scene for 20 years, I routinely get the same question from friends and strangers on the internet: Where should I go eat?
My answer is always the same. Get in your car, brave the Atlanta traffic, and drive outside of the city center. When I try to describe Atlanta as a dining town, I explain that its landscape and sprawl most resemble Los Angeles. There are no boundaries or borders for excellent cuisine, and there are so many pockets of big communities with great eats. While most major metropolitan cities tend to have their best restaurants downtown, I consider metro Atlanta the inverse.
Eating out is my job, and I love finding new spots. But if I am leaving my house for a meal, it needs to count. I like things I cannot make well at home. Most cuisines I seek, such as Korean or Japanese, are farther afield. I imagine many have been priced out of intown Atlanta, and the overhead is less expensive in Duluth versus Buckhead. But it is not just about affordability. Upscale restaurants such as Brian So’s Spring, right off Marietta Square, are often overlooked simply because they are in Marietta, and there are many more places—say in Roswell or Johns Creek—that are just as ambitious as restaurants in Midtown Atlanta.
So, when people ask me where I’m eating, the places I always tend to recommend require a bit of a drive, but they are worth it—and this comes from someone who hates driving in Atlanta traffic just as much as you do.
Photograph by Martha Williams
One of my favorite restaurants right now is the farthest away—but not as far as Japan, though the food might fool you. I have visited Tokyo many times, and some of the most memorable meals were in deceptively humble places. One such eatery was a tonkatsu spot in the vast Tokyo Station, a fantastic place to spend the day eating.
Tonkatsu, not to be confused with tonkotsu ramen, is a fried hunk of pork served with finely shredded cabbage, steamed sticky white rice, miso soup, and tonkatsu sauce. It is one of my favorite homestyle dishes, and it proved elusive for decades in Atlanta until Aji-Katsu recently opened in Johns Creek. Aji is as close as I have gotten to Tokyo in Atlanta.
While it has an excellent selection of ramen dishes, I come here for the fried pork tenderloin. It’s lean and perfectly grease-free and is served with an enormous mountain of crispy shredded cabbage, all sorts of seasonings, and pickles. It even has one of those dipping-sauce bowls with the textured bottom that you use to grind your sesame seeds with a small stick. If you don’t eat pork, try the shrimp or gooey cheese version that kids go crazy over. The tonkatsu also travels well, if you want to take it to go and reheat it in your air fryer at home. It is unhealthy how often I crave this.
Photograph by Martha Williams
Among my many other cravings is Korean barbecue. Over the years, I have come to accept that it’s something I have to travel far for, because historically there haven’t been many choices inside of the Perimeter. Buford Highway offered the closest options, but most newer spots migrated to Duluth and Suwanee, where the concentration of Korean restaurants is the greatest.
So, I was delighted when an excellent Korean barbecue opened in Cumberland Mall at the Perimeter. Here, where there are both serviceable and fantastic restaurants, SsamJang Korean BBQ opened last year. It offers various high-end cuts of marbled prime meats that diners cook on the grill. Also try homestyle standards such as bibimbap (crispy rice, vegetables, a meat of your choice, and spicy sauce to bring it all together) in the hot stone bowl or bubbling kimchi jjigae (tofu stew), if you don’t want grilled meat.
You can order everything a la carte or as a combination, as at most Korean barbecue places, but the restaurant also offers all-you-can-eat hours from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., so you can get endless amounts of meat—a great option for those on a budget. There’s excellent kimchi and banchan as well, which is not always the case at some Korean barbecue spots. It’s swanky for a mall restaurant.
The Chinese fusion chain Jiang Nan, which started in Flushing, Queens, has locations around North America. Its newest location, which opened in Duluth, is a gorgeous restaurant big on design, even though it is in a strip mall.
The enormous menu has many Chinese standards with some fusion twists. An outstanding Peking duck is served on a tray with neat bowls filled with all the accoutrements—hoisin sauce, wraps, green onion, and cucumber—but it is not carved tableside.
Beyond that are numerous bubbling hot pots, excellent vegetable dishes, such as snow peas with garlic, and other interesting items worth exploring, such as deep-fried bullfrog. Although the setting seems more upscale—down to the cloth napkins and gilded spoons—you order everything from a tablet on which you can see photos of each dish.
Don’t miss the fun selection of beverages and cocktails with names like Blood of Unicorn, a soju and lime drink, or the pineapple beer punch served in a glass keg with shot glasses surrounded by dry ice. It sounds weird, but it was also strangely tasty when paired with the fried tofu seasoned with truffle salt and ground black pepper.
Photograph by Martha Williams
Over in Smyrna, Owens and Hull BBQ (formerly Grand Champion BBQ) open from Thursday to Sunday has exceptional barbecue. The restaurant is the brainchild of owners Robert Owens and Bryan Hull, who spin Texas barbecue staples cooked over locally sourced Georgia oak wood. It has a few fun twists: The menu, with specials handwritten on butcher paper, changes daily so check it before making your plan of attack.
The Once a Week Smoked Burger is a superior burger because it has the right amount of smokiness without being overpowering. It’s served medium rare on a soft potato bun with American cheese, smoked onion jam, and “special sauce.” The smoked turkey is lighter, also on a soft potato bun, but brightened with pickled red onions and mustard sauce.
The ribs are served on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday only, and they are so worth planning your weekend errands around. Another bonus is that Reformation Brewery shares the space, so you can get excellent local beer to pair with your barbecue.
Photograph by Martha Williams
Photograph by Martha Williams
No matter what you choose to eat, get out of your head about going OTP and get into your car. Good eats await. Driving to Johns Creek takes much less time than flying from Atlanta to Tokyo—even direct on Delta.
This article appears in our May 2025 issue.
