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Miller Union

Bill Addison
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Miller Union

The braised rabbit at Miller Union looks homely, as many of the South’s finest dishes do. Shredded meat, sauteed mushrooms, russet-colored gravy, and a moat of grits make for an unglamorous collage of earth tones. But, oh, the taste. Bite after bite, this entree reminds me of Nat King Cole’s voice: velvety, soothing, timeless. The rabbit is cooked for two hours with carrots, celery, and fennel in chicken stock and red wine before being pulled from the bone—a step that helps squeamish eaters disassociate their meal from the cuteness of bunnies. No fancy seasonings mar the Logan Turnpike grits from North Georgia. They are simmered in water and milk and finished with salt, pepper, cream, and butter. The mushrooms add pleasant murkiness, and the braising liquid, acting as gravy, curtails the richness. This is food in high definition, a vivid sequence of flavors that reflects the agrarian roots and ingenuity of our region’s cooking.

Steven Satterfield, Miller Union’s co-owner and executive chef, has a knack for unpretentious food that transcends cliche. His business partner, Neal McCarthy, wields a similar talent as the restaurant’s general manager: He directs a front-of-the-house staff that radiates warmth, interacts intelligently with customers, and generally appears excited to be a part of this venture.

Their synthesis of know-how, on display since Miller Union opened in November, is impressive but not surprising. Both Satterfield and McCarthy are dining-scene veterans who spent lengthy tenures at two of the area’s most enduring restaurants. Satterfield, a Georgia native, worked as Scott Peacock’s executive sous chef at Watershed, where he absorbed powerful respect for the simplicity and seasonality of Southern cuisine. McCarthy, a native of Kent, England, managed Sotto Sotto and Fritti for five years, and his suave Brit accent, lanky frame, and sly humor became as much a part of those Italian darlings as the Tortelli di Michelangelo and Regina Margherita pizza.

So while it doesn’t startle that these two have created a destination that many food lovers were instantly urging their friends to try, what does astonish is how fresh the perspective of the restaurant feels in both design and menu. It’s an antidote for jaded diners, and the renewing effects kick in almost as soon as you walk in the door.

Of course it makes sense that this next generation of restaurateurs would pioneer yet another forlorn industrial corner of the Westside, in an area that was once the Miller Union stockyards. When you enter, the concrete world outside recedes. Start the evening with a cocktail at the rustic stretch of bar, where Cara Laudino pours novel cocktails such as The Evergreen (gin, rosemary, citrus, and a judicious splash of potent Zirbenz pine liqueur) and the signature Miller Thyme (Miller’s gin, lemon, and thyme syrup), a sunny potion that will particularly entice come summertime.

Design firm AI3 grabs the lion’s share of work for edgier new restaurants in town these days, but it outdid itself with the sophistication of Miller Union’s space. From the bar, black-rimmed windows frame the center dining area, which looks like the set piece for a sitting-room drama Tennessee Williams might have penned. Whitewashed cabinets display homemade canned goods and winter squashes. To the left, a hallway is covered with a silky burgundy pattern that suggests a house of ill repute. Notice the subtle tree print running through the material—this is an environmentally conscious bordello, perhaps? Across the hall is a much more modern dining room with chocolate banquettes and slate-gray walls.

It’s a thoroughly inviting atmosphere in which to plunk down and seriously chow. As much as I enjoy the cocktails, I’m equally drawn to start the meal with a bourbon on the rocks, which attunes the palate to the food ahead. (McCarthy can make fantastic wine recommendations as the meal progresses.) I don’t think I’ve had one meal at Miller Union that didn’t begin with the little spheres of fried grits that burst with flecks of country ham and melted globs of Thomasville Tomme from South Georgia’s Sweet Grass Dairy. The other inexpensive, don’t-miss nibble is the “radish and feta snack”—a peppery, salty, crisp, creamy contrast between cheese and vegetable that only makes you hungrier with each crunch.

Satterfield keeps his menu tight, with around nine appetizers and seven main courses. Several starters have become immediate keepers: The farm egg baked in celery cream, a sumptuous union of custardy textures that you heap onto thick pieces of toast; smooth chicken liver mousse accented with pickled vegetables; and any of the revolving soups. Satterfield’s mustard greens soup during the zenith of winter was a particular masterwork of pureed nuance: The greens were gently tamed with chicken stock without being stripped of their wintry brawn.

There’s something radically understated about Satterfield’s cooking. At its best, it hits a reset button in the head, reawakening memories of how gratifying clean, uncomplicated flavors can be. Chicory lettuces are dotted with pieces of grapefruit and tossed in a shallot vinaigrette that is barely visible but so piquant in the mouth. The unflinching sear on griddled poulet rouge reinforces the essential pleasure of deftly prepared chicken. The honest simplicity of beer-braised pork shoulder with sauteed greens and sea island red peas can induce sighs of contentment.

Satterfield was almost too shy with his seasoning in the restaurant’s first weeks, but that’s mostly been resolved. I wish that an entree of unadorned pan-seared flounder (the type of fish changes frequently but the preparation largely remains the same) had a light sauce or chutney; it’s too austere. And I find the Carolina Gold risotto with roasted pumpkin and escarole is better as a side dish split among the table than as a stand-alone main course. Vegetarians should instead opt for the vegetable plate composed of five ever-changing sides that add up to a satisfying whole.

Satterfield has found a worthy sweets counterpart in pastry chef Lauren Raymond, who embraces Miller Union’s aesthetic with unfussy but intense desserts such as the trio of herb ice creams (thyme, rosemary, sage), pear tart with textbook flaky pastry, and a coconut cake with whipped cream–like meringue icing and freshly grated coconut. I loved the orange-cardamom upside-down cake she crafted for the restaurant’s first Harvest Dinner, a weekly Tuesday night family-style meal that incorporates the best of-the-moment ingredients the chefs can collect from local farmers.

For the inaugural dinner, Satterfield served silken carrot soup, roast pork loin with apple cider jus, whipped rutabagas, sauteed escarole, those lovely sea island red peas, and cornbread as light as spoon bread. I’ll not be surprised if this weekly feature flowers into as much of a tradition as the Tuesday night fried chicken at Watershed. Miller Union has all the makings of a restaurant poised to inspire the next generation of Atlanta’s food professionals. —Bill Addison

Miller Union
RATING ***
999 Brady Avenue
678-733-8550
HOURS Dinner Monday–Thursday 5–10 p.m.; Friday–Saturday 5–11 p.m.
millerunion.com

Photograph by Alex Martinez. This review originally appeared in our March 2010 issue.

Bistro Niko

Bill Addison
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Bistro Niko

Stepping into the blast of noise and spectacle generated by a new Buckhead Life Restaurant Group extravaganza always reminds me of that moment when Rick Moranis unwittingly opens the door to another universe in Ghostbusters. The brilliant light causes me to squint. I imagine my hair mussed from the rush of energy.

Bistro Niko, the group’s French-inspired brasserie, is the first local venture from the company since it launched Kyma, its upscale Greek restaurant, in 2001. And the tony mob at Bistro Niko looks ecstatic—relieved, even—to have a new hot spot in which to bask once again. There’s little talk of which businesses folded this week or exactly how many more months or years it’ll take the economy to fully recover. Instead, there’s flirting and sparkling cocktails and loud laughter.

The space, inside the lavish Sovereign building, inspires joie de vivre. A short hallway frames the glassed-in kitchen, luminous with its white tiles, and leads into the rollicking open room filled with low-slung booths and lined with banquettes. A butterscotch glow filters down from the patterned ceiling. Servers and managers in black suits wind through the maze of furniture as if they’ve worked the floor for years. Hostesses may tell you that your reserved table has yet to be vacated and direct you to the bar. This could be the only place in town where you must elbow your way through huddled, fur-clad bodies to request a vodka and tonic. An older crowd frequents the bar without much thought toward eating, though an even more mature bunch seems to have the inside track on a quieter salon dining area off the main room.

But after the swirl of exhilaration, when you finally sit, the meal deflates some of the thrill. Much of the menu—a sprawling list of Gallic greatest hits—lacks a true sense of tradition. Executive chef Gary Donlick, an accomplished cook who spent years at the group’s now-closed Pano’s & Paul’s, is out of his métier: He’s a better fit for that restaurant’s forthcoming reinvention, Pano’s. Bistro Niko’s kitchen doesn’t really speak French with its food; it stammers guidebook phrases.

As a result, eating here often feels like a Vegas approximation of a French restaurant. Take, as one example, the raclette, a dish in which strong cheese is broiled and poured over potatoes, with pickles on the side to cut the richness. Niko’s version arrives at the table resembling queso fundido. A blob of melted cheese sits in a crock, scattered with some lovely pickled enoki mushrooms, but with slices of limp baguette on the plate. Sure, melted cheese tastes great, but this is a bastardization of a relatively simple preparation so glorious in its original form. Why dumb it down? I have similar questions about the spiral pasta that appears incongruously in boeuf bourguignon, and roast chicken whose skin isn’t crispy and fragrant, and a baba au rhum for dessert that’s missing even a whiff of booze.

Bistro Niko’s culinary approach feels like a step backward for Buckhead Life. After years of opening restaurants with flashy concepts (Southwestern Nava, fusion Bluepointe), the cuisine at Kyma introduced an authenticity—attributable to owner I. Pano Karatassos’s Greek heritage and the culinary skill of his son, executive chef Pano I. Karatassos—that those other restaurants needed. I’d hoped the company was entering a new era that honored the essence of the cuisines it tackled. The times demand it. In the decade-plus since the company opened restaurants regularly, Atlanta’s dining habits have been shifting toward a more rooted style of cooking, whether the restaurant is Southern or Italian or Japanese. For all the French verbiage used liberally on Niko’s menu, many of the dishes taste as if a corporate American committee designed them.

All that said, it’s certainly possible to pull together an enjoyable meal. When gougères emerge from the kitchen hot, which they sometimes do and sometimes don’t, they kick things off memorably. Mussels may be ubiquitous, but the kitchen steams them with finesse in cream, white wine, and shallots and makes them seem like a treat again. Frisée salad holds the right balance of brash bacon lardons and delicate poached egg in its frilly leaves. “Hachis parmentier de veau” is a mouthful of a moniker for shepherd’s pie given a gourmet makeover: Veal osso bucco forms the saucy base, earthy celery root melds with potato in the creamy pureed topping, and a thin sheen of browned fontina on top adds a bit of texture and a welcome salty nip.

I like the chicken liver mousse terrine, though I wonder why the restaurant insists on calling it “faux gras.” Look around: So many places in Atlanta offer chicken livers now. We’re no longer petrified of offal, so go ahead and label it what it is. And the name also makes me want to just order foie gras, which the restaurant offers in a charming rustic terrine with brawny morsels of ham hock, accompanied by brioche toast and apple compote. Pork rillettes, another meaty hors d’oeuvre, have a smooth, spreadable consistency. Avoid the salmon rillettes, in which butter enriches smoked and fresh salmon. This variation can be done beautifully, but it must be served at room temperature. Niko serves it cold, and you end up with globs of congealed butterfat.

Skate wing in brown butter with capers draws an immediate comparison to FAB Downtown and its predecessor, the late and still-lamented Brasserie Le Coze in Lenox Square. Here, the skate wing is cut too thick, and without the burnished sear on the outside that FAB does so well, the skate turns mushy in the middle. If you’re craving fish, go for the smoked trout fillet instead. And if you’re craving steak, head to sister restaurant Chops down the street. The entrecôte frites—a mealy rib-eye with lackluster fries—was among Bistro Niko’s most disappointing entrees. A slice of citrus tart, the best dessert, always buoyed me after such letdowns.

A great brasserie meal ideally makes the diner feel effervescent. And while it is heartening to wade into Bistro Niko’s action-packed scene after some calmer years for the Buckhead Life Restaurant Group, this blockbuster still needs more editing to reveal its potential brilliance. —Bill Addison

Bistro Niko
RATING *
3344 Peachtree Road
404-261-6456
HOURS Lunch Monday–Saturday 11:30 a.m.–5 p.m., Sunday 11 a.m.–5 p.m. (brunch menu 11 a.m.–3 p.m.). Dinner Sunday–Thursday 5:30–10 p.m., Friday–Saturday 5:30–11 p.m.
buckheadrestaurants.com

Photograph by Deborah Whitlaw Llewellyn. This review originally appeared in our February 2010 issue.

Bocado

Bill Addison
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Bocado

Watching Atlanta’s Westside develop has been the urban equivalent of witnessing a new mountain range emerge in fast-forward: So much fresh geography, so many uncharted nooks. What is currently the area’s most fertile corridor of businesses—between the junction of Northside Drive and Marietta Street and the intersection of Howell Mill Road and Fourteenth Street—felt forsaken just five years ago. Now you can stop for Thai curry at Spoon, pick up cupcakes in a dozen flavors at Caryn’s Cakes, grab panini at Toscano & Sons Italian Market, and disappear into the clump of businesses dubbed the “Beer-muda Triangle”: 5 Seasons Brewing Company, retailer Hop City, and Octane, which serves Belgian ales and microbrews alongside coffee. This stretch also claims its share of destination restaurants—Bacchanalia, Abattoir, and the just-opened Miller Union among them.

But Bocado, which launched in October, may be the Westside’s first true neighborhood restaurant, bearing all the strengths and imperfections that label implies. It straddles the edge between affordable and occasion dining, and its solidly American menu, heavy on seasonal small plates, offers some smart dishes that appeal equally for a quick weekday lunch or dinner or a lingering weekend meal. Bocado also has some weak points (particularly its beverage program) that, due to its undeniable charms, can often be overlooked.

The digs certainly reflect the neighborhood. Design firm AI3—which also fashioned the interiors of Flip Burger Boutique, Holeman and Finch Public House, and 4th & Swift—distilled the essence of the Westside’s industrial-frontier aesthetic in the minimalist dining room. No mustard and burgundy bistro-cozy paint job here: A refreshing, mossy green climbs the walls instead. It eschews lofty dimness in favor of windowed brightness that conveys a breathe-easy sense of space.

Such a surplus of space, in fact, that the proprietors set up a rectangular black table in the center of the dining room as a service station for silverware and napkins. Odd, that table—it’s the one fine-dining conceit in an otherwise casual atmosphere, and it speaks to the background of Bocado’s principals. Owner Brian Lewis comes from a family of restaurateurs, and his last venture was an upscale spot in Birmingham called Table that focused on local and sustainable foods. Executive chef Todd Ginsberg most recently ran the kitchen at the now-closed Trois, and his resume includes stints at the Dining Room at the Ritz-Carlton, Buckhead; Joël; and Asher in Roswell (called the “Bacchanalia of the burbs” during its run in the early 2000s).

Ginsberg’s determination to redirect his high-end past into a neighborhood-friendly present adds a unique moxie to his cooking at Bocado. The menu is low-key with a vengeance: sandwiches at lunch and a lengthy list of small plates with only a few entrees at dinner.

The formula resonates with the locals. A steady lunch crowd is never easy to cultivate in Atlanta, but the “Mexican” is an instant noontime favorite, a construction of roasted pork, ham, avocado, cheese, lettuce, red onion, and chiles that gushes into rich and mellow mouthfuls. It’s not the only caloric pleaser: Buttery toasted bread enfolds roasted poblano peppers, pimento cheese, bacon, and fried green tomatoes and holds its texture for a satisfying crunch. For simpler tastes, a grilled ham and cheese with Dijon mustard sauce, threads of caramelized onions, and thin apple slices is quintessential winter comfort, particularly alongside a cup of Ginsberg’s soothing tomato bisque.

Bocado’s burger has drawn comparisons to the cult burger at Holeman and Finch: Both go the thinner-double-patty route with homemade pickles and American cheese, and they’re even mounted on the same bun (from wholesale H&F Bread Co., owned by the Holeman folks). To my palate, the Holeman burger triumphs—but then, unlike Holeman’s quirky late-night-and-Sunday-brunch availability, Bocado’s two-fister can be snapped up easily at lunch or dinner.

Vegetarians don’t get shortchanged, either: A sandwich with Asian overtones includes roasted cauliflower, layers of Chinese and Thai eggplant, cilantro, and spicy mayonnaise. A jolt of vinegar from pickled vegetables ties the flavors together. And as it turns out, a playful approach to acidity is a Ginsberg trademark on this menu. We christened it the “zing factor” at one dinner. A dual nip from balsamic and olives in a beet salad with arugula and valbreso cheese: Zing! Lemon and capers among Chesapeake flounder with Swiss chard and fingerling potato salad acted as a cartoon bubble floating over the dish and yowling, “Pow!” Ditto for the same lemon and capers tossed among roasted Brussels sprouts with Parmesan.

If only the drink list delivered a similar bang. When I asked a server one night which of the cocktails he thought might be the least sweet, he gave an embarrassed smile and said, “They’re all pretty sweet.” He’s right. And surely the wine selection will grow as the restaurant settles into a rhythm. Currently it has six whites and six reds available by the glass and bottle, and the options are neither inspired nor particularly well suited to the food. It’s a double shame, since the bar—outfitted with stacked metal tubing that improbably evokes the effervescent motion of champagne bubbles—would be an ideal spot to sip interesting vino while savoring Ginsberg’s warming oyster stew.

Given the wide-open possibilities that the Westside embodies, I’d also love to see Ginsberg color a bit more outside the lines at Bocado. His veal cheek with grits is a good starting mark. It’s as tender as pot roast, and of all the less familiar animal parts being embraced by chefs, the veal cheek could well be the one diners come to accept. But a few too many other dishes—standard mussel and crab offerings, mushy gnocchi, salads with the usual ingredients—come off as pleasant, and Ginsberg strikes me as a chef too ambitious to be content with “pleasant.” I’ll be looking for more surprises such as the almond-and-apricot-studded chocolate tart with root beer ganache. Root beer ganache? It looks like a muddy slick on the plate, but its enigmatic scents of licorice and mint mingle with the chocolate in wild, wonderful ways. More like that, please: The neighborhood can handle it. —Bill Addison

Bocado
RATING **
887 Howell Mill Road
404-815-1399
HOURS Lunch Monday–Friday, 11 a.m.–2:30 p.m.; Saturday, 11:30 a.m.–3 p.m. Dinner Monday–Saturday, 5 p.m.–close
bocadoatlanta.com

Photograph by John Autry and Charlotte Fekete. This review originally appeared in  our January 2010 issue.

Iberian Pig

Bill Addison
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Iberian Pig

Federico Castellucci III understands hospitality. He appears at our table moments after we’re seated at his Decatur restaurant, the Iberian Pig. Wearing glasses with thick but modish black rims, he looks like an olive-skinned Clark Kent—and radiates that character’s earnestness, too. “Folks, thanks for stopping in,” he begins, smiling and extending his arms. “I’m a fifth-generation restaurateur. My family has been in this business for a hundred years. So if I’m not doing something right, there’s definitely something wrong.”

Castellucci delivers variations of his greeting to first-time customers over and over, and his enthusiasm never cracks. It’s a talent he learned from his father, Federico Castellucci II, who began his restaurant career in Providence, Rhode Island, moved to Georgia and costarted the Roasted Garlic in Alpharetta in 1998, then opened the first Sugo (there are now three) in Roswell in 2003. Family-friendly Sugo serves oversize portions of Greek and Italian dishes that match the elder Castellucci’s boundless personality: His ebullient salutations and colorful menu soliloquies should be studied at restaurant management courses.

Though the Iberian Pig is primarily the operation of Castellucci III and his sister, Stephanie, their father could be found on-site in its early weeks, his graciousness still unflagging. He’d wander the dining room, peer over his glasses paternally, and ask in his Brooklyn-esque accent, “Are you happy? Is there anything else we can bring for you?”

Their brand of conviviality builds immediate rapport with diners, who unwind in the mustard-colored room with floor-to-ceiling drapes. These are times that reward generosity of spirit. The place has done steady business since opening in October, bringing needed verve to the restaurant row on the south edge of Decatur Square.

This is the family’s first attempt at realms beyond the red-sauce bounty of their other establishments. Head bartender Thomas Jhun rides the cocktail craze capably with a smart list of old-school standards and signature variations on classics. He’s particularly adept at mixing absinthe-laced drinks such as Sazerac and Corpse Reviver No. Two, and his “550 Madison Ave.” with rye whiskey, vermouth, and brandied cherry syrup has the right hook of a Manhattan, but with a kiss of Southern sweetness. I’d gladly sip any of these at the long, handsome bar while devouring the restaurant’s thick burger topped with bacon-onion relish and tangy Mahon cheese.

Other options require some mental adjustment. During his spiel, the younger Castellucci defines the menu’s theme as “modern Spanish,” and he’s quick to point out that the kitchen takes liberties by employing “unique American twists.”

That understates the approach. Many of the dishes include an over-the-top fusion of ingredients that contradicts the inherent simplicity of Spanish cuisine. And in several cases, the owners repurpose Sugo’s Italian and Greek recipes and swap in Spanish ingredients to fit the premise of their new venture: crunchy potatoes, baked and stuffed calamari, and even a permutation of Sugo’s signature date-sweetened meatballs, rechristened here as “albondigas.”

Certainly, these cuisines share close affinities, but the cooking is more comfy-creamy Italian than direct, robust Spanish—more Roberto Benigni than Pedro Almodovar. Spain is currently a global inspiration for creativity and transcendent ingredients. I wish the Iberian Pig explored bolder frontiers and didn’t recycle so many ideas.

But if you’re willing to embrace the Castellucci ideology of busy, feel-good, in-the-vicinity-but-not-really Spanish food, you’ll discover some endearing dishes. The ensalada de Marcona plunges you into the aesthetic: Butter lettuce is scattered with Marcona almonds, caramelized parsnips, shaved manchego, slivers of chorizo, crispy shallots, and brandied cherries dressed in a champagne vinaigrette. It never becomes monotonous, that’s for sure. Ditto the cocas—pizzalike constructs on crackly Sardinian-style flatbread that come in variations such as the “Meat,” with Serrano ham, arugula, caramelized onions, manchego, and pistachios arranged carefully over the surface.

“My God, they served you the entire pork tenderloin,” said a tablemate when my entree arrived during one visit. Yes, the Castelluccis specialize in generous portions at affordable prices. (The tenderloin costs $18.) I’ve never seen a plate more closely resemble a Jackson Pollock at his splattering heights. Lines of cherry-Rioja reduction zigzag across the pork, and fried shallots, spiced walnuts, chopped piquillo peppers, and cherries crisscross on top. Underneath all this, the pork is juicy, and the flavors do mesh.

But ordering an uncomplicated dish or two can be a relief. The top of the menu lists charcuterie and cheese. The restaurant is proud that it offers jamón Ibérico, a ham cured from Spanish black-footed pigs. Several grades of the ham exist, and if this isn’t the most exquisite caliber, it still has a lovely earthiness. Too bad the restaurant piles it on the plate in ragged shards rather than serving thick, elegantly long slices as they do in Europe. If you want to pair it with a cheese, try idiazabal, an aged sheep’s-milk gem with a faint smokiness.

After those morsels, consider the barbecued octopus from the tapas selections. It is simmered, char-grilled, and finally painted with a vinegary tomato sauce that blessedly avoids being too sugary. The most straightforward-tasting entree, other than the burger, is the halibut. Despite a flurry of accompaniments—a grilled corn crema sauce, more caramelized parsnips and fried shallots, and a tuft of arugula salad—somehow the fish’s gentle flavor stays in the forefront.

If you go for the excellent burger, request a $4 tapa of crunchy potatoes, which I prefer over the greasy eggplant fries that typically come on the side. Pass on dessert: The churros, for example, need to be tweaked so that the doughnuts’ interiors are silkier and contrast more effectively with the crunchy exterior. Have another cocktail instead.

Beyond the food’s unevenness, the Iberian Pig clicks: The servers have warmth and hustle, the wine list explores Spain commendably and includes several novel options by the glass and half glass (try the Capafons-Osso Vessants, a spicy red blend), and the room flatters the buzzing crowd with shadowy, honeyed lighting. The next generation of Castellucci entrepreneurialism looks promising. For its next business, though, maybe it can look beyond the family fold for a simpler taste of the Mediterranean. —Bill Addison

Iberian Pig
RATING *
121 Sycamore Street, Decatur
404-371-8800
Dinner Monday–Thursday, 5 p.m.–midnight; Friday–Saturday, 5 p.m.–1 a.m. (Bar is open until one hour later.)
iberianpigatl.com

Photograph by Alex Martinez. This review originally appeared in our December 2009 issue.

Woodfire Grill

Bill Addison
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Woodfire Grill

Woodfire Grill on Cheshire Bridge Road has undergone many changes in the last year, but its most essential trademark endures. The sweet, smoky aromas drifting from the open kitchen at the dining room’s entrance still tranquilize as if a lullaby had dissolved into fragrance. Borrowed from the playbook of California cuisine, the layout places the focal point of cooking directly in the path of newly arrived guests, who inhale scents evocative of campfire and barbecue en route to their table. Those first wafts anchor the meal. They communicate the tone and ambitions of the restaurant more effectively than words on a menu ever could. And now they act as an aromatic through-line that connects the restaurant’s past with its recent and remarkable reinvention.

Michael Tuohy, who first dazzled the city when he moved from San Francisco in the eighties to run Chef’s Cafe on Piedmont Road, launched Woodfire in 2002 to showcase his devotion to simply prepared seasonal ingredients. Tuohy was one of the city’s original advocates of “farm-to-table” dining, before that phrase began to corrode from overexposure. I remember the frenzy when Woodfire opened—folks three deep at the long bar, no reservations available until 9:45 on a Tuesday night. The crowds eventually thinned, and the restaurant could be inconsistent, but business remained steady over the years.

Last July, Tuohy announced that he was moving back to California. Less than a month later, he sold the restaurant to Bernard Moussa and Nicolas Quinones, two veterans of Midtown’s Loca Luna. They partnered with Kevin Gillespie, previously Woodfire’s chef de cuisine, who now helms the kitchen. As Gillespie tells it, the night the new owners took over, Tuohy’s loyal customers vanished. The trio struggled with a slow, disquieting first year.

Credit reality television with averting what could have been an untimely end to Woodfire Grill. This spring, Gillespie was cast on Bravo’s current season of Top Chef, along with Hector Santiago of Pura Vida and Eli Kirshtein of Eno. Of the three Atlanta chefs, Gillespie is proving himself the most promising frontrunner to win the title. His cherubic face, tattooed arms, and red lumberjack beard belie the competitiveness and the sharp-witted, slyly Southern sense of composition he brings to the dishes he creates under pressure. (Escargot with bacon jam? The judges loved it.)

The boon for Atlantans is that much of Gillespie’s food is actually way more thrilling to eat than to watch on TV. The show has attracted a new generation of regulars to Woodfire Grill, and Gillespie displays bolder confidence than when I first tried his cooking six months ago. You can taste his bravado and affection for the South in plates such as boneless circles of wood-grilled local quail arranged over sweet potato puree glossed with brown butter. Braised greens add contrast, as does a juicy crown of pears spiced with piquant ground coriander.

Expect similar dishes wrought with equal parts intelligence and soulfulness, but don’t hope for that exact entree: Gillespie constantly rotates his menu to reflect the ingredients he procures from nearby farms, though a couple of produce-rich first courses were the only disappointments during recent stellar experiences. Cream of lady pea soup included tiny orbs of roasted Sungold tomatoes, droplets of curry oil, and scallion, but the seasoning was oddly awry and the flavors all fell flat. A salad of local arugula with figs, blackberries, hazelnuts, and brown butter–sherry vinaigrette sounded like a summer-to-fall extravaganza. The dressing, however, had been dotted on the plate rather than tossed into the leaves, requiring awkward swiping for every bite. I’ll chalk that one up as an anomaly: From a meal in March, I recall a watermelon radish salad with orange, goat cheese, and almonds where each element was skillfully lacquered with understated vinaigrette.

 
 Chef Kevin Gillespie

Items from the more substantial appetizer and main course categories show Gillespie at his creative heights. The man thrives on the push-pull of different textures, temperatures, and colors: Crisp, lightly battered sweetbreads sit atop smooth roasted vegetable mascarpone, accented with mostarda—a savory condiment of preserved fruit—made from dark beer and apricots. A combination of fried shrimp and shrimp sauteed in cream tumbles over a chive biscuit, splotched with tomato jam for a bit of acidic jolt. Columbia River salmon is paired with Madeira-mushroom butter, a treatment that brings to mind high-society cooking from Charleston. An honest hunk of beef strip loin, grilled exactingly to medium-rare, is surrounded with silky, smoky roasted cabbage, hummus made from butter beans, and a tuft of salad starring an heirloom fruit called “vine peach” that more closely resembles melon.

Did I mention that Gillespie is only twenty-seven years old? These are mightily attuned flavors for such a young chef.

And he isn’t reserved about his goal: to eventually elevate Woodfire Grill to Bacchanalia-stature fine dining. Though the impulse against affordable dining sounds unnerving in this economy, we’re facing a dearth of high-end options in Atlanta, so I support Gillespie’s ambition. The $65 five-course chef’s tasting menu gives you a glimpse into the restaurant’s possible evolution: We started with shrimp arranged with celery, cucumber, shallot, lemon, and herb aioli beside warm shrimp toast, then segued to one precisely seared scallop with lady peas, mushroom jus, and bacon; quail over butter bean hummus with chermoula aioli (chermoula is a Moroccan spice blend) and a salad of beets and carrot chips; and boneless smoked pork sparerib over corn grits and a smear of smoked pepper sauce that tasted like a collage of flavors on their way to becoming a mole. Co-owner Nicolas Quinones is also the restaurant’s wine program director, and for $50 per person he matches elegant wines to each course from his worldly list.

Pastry chef Brittany Emerson has skillfully adapted to the new Woodfire aesthetic. One wow-after-wow dessert entailed gloriously gushy banana fritters alongside a square of dense chocolate mousse, banana Bavarian cream, a slick of salted caramel, and, teetering atop all of this, one thin, crunchy slice of candied bacon. I know Gillespie is resistant to consider any creation as a permanent addition to the menu, but this luscious, off-the-wall finale may need to be an exception. —Bill Addison

Woodfire Grill
 RATING ***
1782 Cheshire Bridge Road
404-347-9055
Tuesday–Thursday, 5:30–10 p.m.; Friday–Saturday, 5:30–11 p.m
woodfiregrill.com

Food photograph by John Autry and Charlotte Fekete; Kevin Gillespie photograph by Fredrik Brauer. This review originally appeared in our November 2009 issue.

Shoya

Bill Addison
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Shoya

Anyone who’s ever trekked beyond Atlanta’s urban nucleus in search of a secluded dining pearl knows this backdrop well: a desolate commercial stretch scattered with low buildings erected decades ago, a smattering of luxury car dealerships, discount megastores, and, mingled among this alien landscape, the strip malls where the destination restaurants hide.

A friend and I turn into such a mall—a new, multistoried one—west of Spaghetti Junction in Doraville. Super H Mart, a large Asian grocery chain, has plans to anchor the complex, but it remains unopened, and other storefronts stand largely empty. At night, its vast parking lot feels like a college athletic field that sits lit but ignored while school is out for the summer. We park in the one corner where a cluster of cars has amassed and walk into Shoya, a Japanese restaurant that opened in May.

The set change inside is abrupt: austere white walls framed by knotty wood paneling, round lanterns inscribed with Japanese characters, oversize bottles of sake arrayed on a table near the entrance, scurrying servers, the burble of animated conversation. A smiling woman greets us.

“Table for two, please,” I say. Her smile turns apologetic. “I’m sorry, no tables right now,” she responds, gesturing to her left. “The sushi bar, perhaps?” I regard the unoccupied sushi bar, then look around. Families, businessmen, and young hipsters (aone raven-haired Asian woman wears a faded vintage T-shirt that says, “Brunettes have more fun”) huddle in booths and around tables in the front and back of the tiered dining room. I peer upstairs to see if anyone might be vacating a spot on the second floor.

No one wants to be stuck at the sushi bar, a coveted landing-place elsewhere, because raw seafood isn’t the main draw at Shoya. This is an izakaya, which Richard Hosking, who wrote A Dictionary of Japanese Food, describes as a “simple tavern where customers eat and drink at small expense in a cheerful atmosphere.”

That definition suffices, though some izakayas, as with commonplace British pubs morphed into fancier gastropubs, have grown more ambitious in recent years. The ambition travels as izakayas blossom nationally into Japan’s next big culinary import. As its early popularity attests, Shoya captures the izakaya’s essential convivial quality better than any other similar establishment in the Atlanta area, making it absolutely worth the journey.

Shoya may actually be too enthusiastic, though: The menu is ridiculously bulky. It began as a two-sided, tabloid-sized sheet and expanded further into a jumbo, seven-page folio. The endless categories can blunt your senses: starters, salads, vegetable dishes, sashimi, raw seafood compositions, kushiyaki (skewered grilled morsels) and other grilled dishes, beef specialties such as “meat loaf Japanese” with daikon and ginger sauce, fried dishes, gyozas, sizzling hot plates, teriyaki, “light meals” of protein and rice combinations, steam basket dishes, noodles, and funky Japanese American dessert hybrids.

Then there are the equally important drinks: sake, shochu (a distilled spirit commonly made with barley or sweet potato), beer, wine, whiskey, and soft drinks in strawberry, mango, and green tea flavors. This menu isn’t a greatest hits collection; it’s an all-inclusive box set.

A colleague erudite in Japanese culture and weary of my propensity to over-order begs me to embrace the izakaya ideology: no manic snarfing. Take it slow, he coaches, a few dishes at a time. We start with cups of rich red miso soup and a round of hai-sours—shochu cocktails with soda and varying kinds of citrus (I’m partial to grapefruit), which the servers bring to the table with juicers so we can squeeze the fruit ourselves.

Then we ease into moderate dabbling: Aji namerou, a gently compressed circle of mackerel, is scented with exactly enough ginger, miso, and chive to temper the fish’s aggressive nature. Kushiyaki chicken livers are a quiet revelation: Grilling reveals the livers’ unctuous sweetness. Ninniku shiokara—raw squid, marinated in garlic miso and in fermented soybeans and squid innards—turns out to be as repellent to Western palates as it sounds.

We scale back on adventurousness: Hamachi kama, the cooked yellowtail collar dish frequently served in sushi bars, is full of plump, mild meat. Kushikatsu, breaded and fried pork cutlet, gives good crunch and tastes especially satisfying through a swipe of strong mustard. Hiyashi chuka—a cold ramen salad special crowned with tidy sections of omelet strips, ham, and cucumber—appears in Japanese restaurants only in the summer. How rewarding to find such quirky indigenous noshes suddenly available in Atlanta.

But a menu this grandiose is bound to tax a kitchen, and Shoya produces its share of inconsistencies. Okonomiyaki—a pancake filled with egg, pork shreds, and vegetables covered in a sweet sauce akin to hoisin—comes out fluffy at one dinner and mealy at another. Gyozas might arrive artfully arranged or stuck together and scorched on the bottom. Presentations in general veer from meticulous to downright sloppy, depending on the level of business. And it gets frantic on weekends. That’s when customers become grateful to occupy the sushi bar, and harried servers can disappear for prolonged spells. Several tables come equipped with service call buttons. I’m betting the owners are sorry they installed those things. Folks can get rowdy after a few shochu cocktails.

Izakayas are meant to be boisterous, though; this isn’t a place to eat and drink when you have a time crunch. Nibble a little more on pleasingly austere “seiro steamed” pork with crisp sprouts, or grilled “chicken balls” with a flavor profile nearly identical to the Salisbury steak in Swanson TV dinners. Skip the green tea ice cream served with mashed red beans and instead try the traditional final dish called ochazuke—barley tea poured over rice in a souplike fashion and topped with umeboshi (pickled plum) or flaked pieces of salmon. It speeds digestion, absorbs alcohol, and is just the dish to send you into the night to face the otherworldly stillness of the stadium-size parking lot. —Bill Addison

Shoya
RATING **
6035 Peachtree Road, Doraville
770-457-5555
Tuesday–Saturday, 5–11:30 p.m.; Sunday, 5–10:30 p.m.
shoyaatlanta.com

Photograph by Iain Bagwell. This review originally appeared in our October 2009 issue.

Abattoir

Bill Addison
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Abattoir

To Anglo ears, the word “abattoir” has an almost spiritual chime. Without knowing its meaning, one might guess that it refers to a labyrinth of monastic cloisters, or the dwelling of a particularly devout ascetic. But it’s French for “slaughterhouse,” the term being derived from the verb abattre, meaning to shoot, knock down, or demoralize. Abattoir is one of the least onomatopoeic words ever adapted into the English language.

The new westside restaurant called Abattoir can likewise discombobulate. The name may be phonetically pleasing, but it makes a gruesome moniker for a restaurant—even if it does correspond to the space and theme. Abattoir resides in the White Provisions building, a former meatpacking plant. Initial word of mouth buzzed that Anne Quatrano and Clifford Harrison’s new venture would specialize in “snout-to-tail” cooking featuring “local proteins.” It sounded like PR-speak for the choice animal parts that the British sometimes nickname “the squiggy bits”: sweetbreads, liver, kidney, brains, tongue, and so forth. Would Atlantans embrace an in-your-face menu full of organ meats?

It turns out to be an irrelevant question. True, all the charcuterie, meaty terrines and roulades, bewitching preparations of offal, and house-made snacks such as beef jerky and “thin Jims” can tempt vacillating omnivores into carnivorous overdrive. But Abattoir’s menu encompasses almost fifty modestly sized and moderately priced dishes, including well over a dozen seafood and produce-rich options. This is, after all, a restaurant by Quatrano and Harrison, the chefs/owners of Bacchanalia, Floataway Cafe, and Star Provisions market—three of Atlanta’s most successful culinary hallmarks. They made Joshua Hopkins, a Bacchanalia veteran, the executive chef and a partner at Abattoir, and the three of them have a solid grasp on the psychology of the city’s dining public. The name may jar, but the cooking invigorates, comforts, and occasionally pushes boundaries in easy-to-swallow ways.

Not that the trio can resist a little cheekiness here and there. As you walk up a flight of stairs to the restaurant, you’ll notice an Angus beef butcher chart taped up in one of the windows. Bovine decorating touches mostly end there, though. Designer Dominick Coyne didn’t entirely disguise the dining room’s industrial past, but now it more resembles a restored farmhouse than a processing facility. Weathered wooden slats line several walls around the open room, softening the concrete edifice. Dim, honeyed lighting casts a pastoral glow, offset by gray leather banquettes and marble tabletops that inject metropolitan élan.

When you sit, you’ll see that the large paper menu doubles as your place mat. The list changes constantly, though its structure remains the same. On the left side are lighter dishes divided into categories: “Snacks,” “Salted/Cured,” “Food in a Jar” (pickles and pâtés), and “Local Produce.” The right side describes more substantial dishes, as well as cheese and desserts. Wine options flank the food descriptions, and it’s hard to resist ordering a bottle when so many respectable options (from a fresh, uncomplicated ugni blanc from France’s Côtes de Gascogne to a Ridge Three Valleys zinfandel blend from Sonoma) lie in the $15 to $30 range for both whites and reds.

Dig in by mixing and matching nibbles from up and down the food chain: One of the servers will set them down all together on a circular wooden tray. Everyone goes bonkers for the ceci peas—puffed, fried chickpeas dusted with cumin. Pommes frites with mayonnaise are textbook fantastic: crisp on the outside, silky on the inside. Chicharrones may be pork rinds, but they’re nothing like the gnarly squiggles sold in plastic bags in gas stations. These cloudy beauties crunch loudly, and their taste only faintly reveals their porcine origin. Who needs flavored potato chips?

For contrast, opt for Georgia white shrimp pickled with fennel or the prismatic salad of heirloom tomatoes. The kitchen recently began offering terrines teamed in tasting portions—a smart idea. We received a judiciously seasoned country pork roulade with a pleasant coarseness, a slightly more assertive rabbit terrine with pickled onions, and a rustic slice of head cheese—a terrine made predominantly from mild pork cheek meat. Trust me: The concept of head cheese is much less terrifying once you’ve experienced it. If the terrines make you squeamish, look to the charcuterie platter—a spread of four or five house-made salamis, each a nuanced expression of meat and spice.

While we’re on the subject of scary foods, let’s plunge into the offal selection. Tripe stew is the most unassuming version you’ll ever try, with the lacy slivers adrift in an aromatic herb broth. To lure the uninitiated, the kitchen pairs the tripe with the most popular protein of the decade: pork belly. Well played. They make a playful combination. Capers and egg yolk elegantly dress veal sweetbreads, though I wish the sweetbreads came with a crisper exterior. No such complaints about the lamb sweetbreads draped in a sour plum sauce and scented with rosemary. Fruity, puckery, piney, gamy: what an extraordinary collusion. If you venture to try only one don’t-think-too-hard-about-where-it-came-from plate at Abattoir, make it the lamb sweetbreads. And if you aren’t at all squeamish, dive into the lamb liver fritters, served with tomato relish to temper the funkiness.

On to more placid alternatives: The pork chop is robust and juicy and feels like a steal for $18. Bacon and citrus brighten shrimp stew. Pan-roasted trout impresses with its honest simplicity. The Abattoir burger warrants a caveat: Made with pork and beef, salted, and vacuum-sealed to briefly cure, it’s really a burger en route to being a sausage. I wouldn’t mind seeing this version alongside a more typical burger, or even the foie gras and truffle-studded affair sold at Star Provisions.

I plan to return often to Abattoir on my own dime—which is about the highest praise a critic can give—but a few gaffes bear mentioning. The kitchen team can have a heavy hand with salt: At one meal, the chicharrones and a duo of braised kale and trigger fish were oversalted to the point of inedibility. And this is a personal preference, but the local filet beans with small tomatoes and herbs are served raw: They taste green and stringy. I’m not a Southerner who needs his beans cooked to pap, but I’d prefer at least al dente.

Dessert expunges most sins. The flaky, gushy fried fruit pie (filled at first with a rotation of summery berries; expect apple soon) demolishes any leftover childhood fondness of McDonald’s fried pies. Chocolate pot de crème is dense and silky. But the true diet wrecker? Hot maple-bacon beignets. Nearly every table orders them. And why not? In a cathedral of meat, it seems only appropriate to slip a little cured pork into the evening’s sweet finale. —Bill Addison

Abattoir
RATING ***
 1170 Howell Mill Road
404-892-3335
Tuesday–Friday, 5–11 p.m.
starprovisions.com

Photograph by John Autry and Charlotte Fekete. This review originally appeared in our September 2009 issue.

La Pietra Cucina

Bill Addison
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La Pietra Cucina

For the first nine months of its existence, La Pietra Cucina was a literal boîte—a box of a restaurant—squashed into a back room of the deserted space in the Pershing Point office building where MidCity Cuisine played out its few coquettish years. The setup, in one of MidCity’s old dining rooms, was meant to be a short-term starting point for La Pietra Cucina while the entire space underwent renovation. At first, the taped-up signs that announced the Italian newcomer were vague, leading customers to walk through the graveyard of MidCity’s dining room, past once-jolly striped banquettes and an abandoned bar, toward a beckoning light at the far end of the expanse. It felt both disorienting and juicily clandestine.

La Pietra Cucina opened in August 2008, with intentions to move into its newly spruced-up digs by midfall. But construction was pushed further and further back, and the temporariness of that odd back room took on an increasing air of permanency as more people discovered chef Bruce Logue’s confident, idiosyncratic style of Italian cooking.

An Atlanta native, Logue has a resume that includes culinary studies with Slow Food in Italy, a gig as sous chef at Mario Batali’s famed Babbo in New York, and, immediately before returning home, the executive chef position at Vivace in San Diego’s Four Seasons resort. He gathered his experiences into a menu that toggles between contemporary and traditional dishes: meaty nibbles, crudo (the Italian version of sashimi, popularized at Batali’s Manhattan restaurant, Esca), and salads with poise; soulful, house-made pasta with bold sauces; and Cal-Ital meat and seafood entrees rife with seasonally current vegetables.

I grew to love eating Logue’s food in that tabula rasa of a room. A bowl of linguine mustered all the personality the restaurant really needed. And with no atmospheric distractions, the visual stimulus relied on the chummy vibe that blossomed when the room filled to capacity. Sure, it looked a bit like a corporate meeting space: Perhaps that’s why it gained momentum as a power-lunch destination. Even during recessionary times, Atlanta restaurateurs scramble to glitz out their newest ventures. I savored La Pietra’s refreshing blankness.

It was never meant to last. The restaurant finally closed for its long-awaited overhaul for three weeks in May. Given the rock-and-roll energy behind much of Logue’s cooking, I expected the makeover to be light, airy, and fresh. Boy, did I guess wrong. It turned out country-club stodgy, with a touch of the absurd. MidCity’s center-stage bar remains, but the enormous room’s perimeters have been colored a dusky rose, with hardwood floors darkening the scene even more. The banquettes are now gray. A wall conceals the previously open kitchen, with a painting of a horse hanging roughly where the salad station was once in view. To the left of the bar sits a row of tables, each outfitted with extravagant, high-backed chairs straight out of the Mad Hatter’s tea party.

The waitstaff grew to accommodate the expansion, and the restaurant hired some true characters. One server’s theatrical false eyelashes were so spellbinding, even behind her Lisa Loeb glasses, that we had trouble focusing while she recited the specials. A food runner bowed with peculiar solicitude every time he dropped off plates, then ambled away singing to himself. These folks definitely offset the space’s formality. In the future, though, I’ll always make it a point to seek out the old-guard servers. You can spot them easily—they stand out as more grounded and self-assured.

But all the dubious changes recede in the glow of Logue’s food, which hasn’t lost any of its spunk or care in the transition. The dishes here may not be designed as small plates, but this kind of cooking is inherently meant for sharing. Begin with a La Pietra signature: squiggles of prosciutto di Parma draped over four triangles of flatbread, served with freshly made ricotta as well as pineapple mostarda, a sweet and piquant conserve spiked with yellow mustard seeds. To explore Logue’s range, I strongly suggest making certain the rest of your meal includes at least one item from each of the following categories: cold antipasti, warm antipasti, pastas (that’s the toughest decision you’ll make), and secondi, or main courses. Remember, you’re sharing.

Though smattered with perennials, much of his menu remains in continual flux. Columbia River salmon was in season during a visit in late May, and Logue offered a creation that he labeled a crudo but was technically more a tartare. The fish was chopped into a silky mince and blended with spicy extra virgin olive oil—a double helping of healthy fats to wallow in without guilt. Shaved fennel, olives, and tangerines lightened the oily factor. Stay sharp when the servers discuss salad specials such as roasted baby artichokes over escarole perfumed with mint and heightened by slivers of ricotta salata.

Want a taste of Logue’s time under Batali’s employment? The tender rings of calamari united in a tomato broth with Vermentino (a Sardinian wine), toasted garlic, pine nuts, currants, and olives zap with the same bombastic concentration of flavors I remember at Babbo.

If you’re not overly hungry or aren’t in the mood to commit to a protracted meal, head directly to the pasta options. They convey the kitchen’s spirit most meaningfully, and in Italian-cuisine-challenged Atlanta, the combinations can be revelatory. Chitarra—a thick spaghetti-like noodle—stands up to the plucky duo of mussels and capers in a tomato broth. Fettuccinelike tagliatelle appears to be the teacher’s pet: It gets all the best of-the-moment ingredients coiled in its tangles.

In spring, the pasta cradled morel mushrooms and wild ramps with lots of butter and Parmigiano-Reggiano. Early summer called for squash blossoms and nearly melted orbs of robiola cheese. Exquisite. Beware the bucatini all’Amatriciana, however: Loaded with onions and guanciale (house-cured pork jowl), it has a funky barnyard note that dominates the whole dish.

After the pastas, the secondi often act as savory denouements: a modestly sized whole fish such as daurade or branzino divided among tablemates, dabbed with chunky lemon-marjoram jam; sliced flat iron steak with polenta; comforting roast chicken over fregola (tiny semolina pasta) dotted with speck ham. And desserts have actually improved since the changeover. Pistachio semifreddo flaunts a more luxurious smoothness, and the pretty fruit crostata—plum during my latest dinner—models a more delicate crust than at my final lunch in the old room.

There. I found one solid reason to bless the transformation. I’ll keep coming back for Logue’s inspiring cooking and trust I’ll hit upon others. —Bill Addison

La Pietra Cucina
 RATING **
1545 Peachtree Street, Suite 101
404-888-8709
Lunch Monday–Friday, 11:30 a.m.–2 p.m. Dinner Monday–Saturday, 5:30–10 p.m.
lapietracucina.com

Photo by Deborah Whitlaw Llewellyn. This review originally appeared in our August 2009 issue.

Varasano’s Pizzeria

Bill Addison
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Varasano’s Pizzeria

I have, over years of searching for transcendent pizza, developed a quirky progression when I tackle a whole pie. I always begin by ripping off a substantial crescent from the pizza’s brim the moment it arrives. The crust’s appearance and flavor, unadulterated by other ingredients, tell its own complete story.

Crusts may range from wafer-like flatbread to fulsome-lipped Chicago deep-dishers, but I’m forever praying to find the middle-path crust—properly fermented dough, stretched to taut but not crackery thinness, which has spent just enough time in a ferociously hot oven to develop a crisp-chewy bite, complex taste, and come-hither scorching. (Pizza aesthetes debate the intangibles and nuances endlessly. For the record, I join many others in naming the miraculous Neapolitan–New York hybrid pies at Pizzeria Bianco in Phoenix, Arizona, as my favorite in America.) Only after geeking out on the universes discernible in a pizza crust do I then move on to consuming a proper slice.

Performing this ritual with the Nana’s, the house special pizza at Varasano’s in south Buckhead, I start by appreciating the handsome polka dots singed across the wedge of dusky beige crust. The texture has a crisp snap but feels substantial in the mouth. It’s deeply satisfying, as is the smoky tang that becomes more pronounced as the piece cools.

Now I turn my attention to the rest of the pie—the concentrated, herb-speckled sauce on this particular creation, and the way it melds with a lacy veneer of mozzarella. Crunch, squish, ooze, mmm. Over several review visits, the Nana’s and other variations at Varasano’s have been more and more rewardingly attuned. This may well be the finest pizza in Atlanta.

Our pizza-challenged city whipped up a flabbergasting amount of buzz around this restaurant, mostly from the hype and mystique perpetuated by owner Jeff Varasano. A native New Yorker, Varasano moved to Atlanta more than a decade ago, bemoaned the city’s lack of worthy pizza, began deciphering its mysteries in his home kitchen, and penned a pizza-making doctrine online that sparked widespread notice from aficionados and the media. He settled on a dough fashioned from a sourdough starter and, in what has become legend, jerry-rigged the latch on his oven’s self-cleaning mode so he could access the highest possible baking temperatures.

When his software engineering career reached a crossroads last year, he decided to leap into the restaurant industry. The sneak-peak tasting parties held at Varasano’s house in the months before the restaurant’s opening not only wooed would-be investors but fueled ingenious word-of-mouth and anticipation.

Jeff Varasano’s ascension as pizza guru enthralls as a backstory, but it can also distract from the reality of the brick-and-mortar (or, in this case, glass-and-stucco) business and distort expectations: The restaurant offers a fairly straightforward experience. Ensconced on the ground floor of the new Mezzo Atlanta building, the dining room is a rudimentary mix of red walls, faux-vintage posters, tables, booths, and a modest patio, with a friendly little bar space in the front and an open kitchen in the back dominated by the large, tiered, electric Pizza Master oven imported from Sweden. (Varasano had hoped for a brick oven, but the building zoning wouldn’t allow it.) One subtle, welcoming touch: As you walk to the restaurant, a host or hostess awaits your arrival and opens the door for you.

Many first-time customers, I think, expect to see Jeff Varasano in the kitchen, tossing dough in the air. But Varasano instead works the floor, pulling up chairs to gab with customers and occasionally demonstrate his prowess with a Rubik’s Cube that, as a teenager, won him his first bout of fame.

When I asked him in a phone interview why he isn’t making the pizzas himself, he said bluntly, “It’s not my thing.” (Not that he isn’t consumed by the quality of the pies—more on that in a bit.) Thankfully, after a few fitful opening weeks when his recipes were adjusted for larger-scale production, his cooks now wrangle a mostly reliable product. Sometimes the edges are downright blackened in places, but there’s a goodly amount of real estate to these personal pies, so it seems acceptable to have a bit of crust sacrificed for the good of the whole.

Of the nine pizzas on the menu, the concoctions made without tomato sauce outnumber those made with, but try both. A combination of caramelized onions and Emmenthaler strays far from Italian convention but is masterfully conceived: The shellac of piquant cheese bonds with the crust to keep it extra crisp. The Nucci comes with the same Emmenthaler base but is finished, post-baking, with olives, a fluffy wig of arugula, and wispy ribbons of the Italian ham called capocollo. The New Haven–style clam (which can be made either “white” or “red”; choose white) vibrates with garlic. I wish at least some of the clams were left whole rather than minced, but I still return for a third slice.

I’m not as quick to stuff myself on the Salumi. Its layers of peppery cured meats never quite meld with the other toppings of mozzarella, tomato sauce, and spiced olives. And the calzone needs serious work: The dough seizes as hollow and stiff as papier-mâché around its pepperoni, sun-dried tomato, and cheese fillings.

If you’re after the acidic kick of tomato, go for the aforementioned Nana’s, or the margherita. Don’t be scared off when you receive an emphatic speech from a worried server that goes something like this: “Just so you know, the margherita is made in a traditional Neapolitan style and it’s a little soupier in the middle than our other pizzas, but it’s delicious!” Complaints about lack of crisp crust when the restaurant first opened instilled fear in these folks. And while its center can get soggy toward the end, I love the gentle sweetness of the margherita—particularly when dotted with gorgeous, milky blobs of optional buffalo mozzarella.

As for the rest of the menu? It’s all serviceable: unimaginative, if fresh, salads. A snooze of a salumi platter. A wine list skewed too heavily to California. The bubbly staff like to talk up the fried doughnuts for dessert, but if you want more dough, order the dessert pizza slaked with fontina and flecked with rosemary, walnuts, and molten dates. I don’t expect the meal’s peripheral elements to improve any time soon: Jeff Varasano remains single-mindedly fixated on improving the pizza. He hyped his product; he wants it to be world-renowned.

But it sounds like perfectionism can be hard on a fellow. When I mentioned during our phone chat how much I had enjoyed my most recent meals at his restaurant, he sighed. “We’re going to be serving a lot better pizza soon,” he said. “This is a continuous process.” —Bill Addison

Varasano’s Pizzeria
Rating **
2171 Peachtree Road, 404-352-8216
varasanos.com

Photograph by Iain Bagwell. This review originally appeared in our July 2009 issue.

Restaurant Eugene

Bill Addison
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Restaurant Eugene

Among the forty-four dishes listed on an April menu at Restaurant Eugene, my eyes came to rest on a description that roused my curiosity: “Roasted shad roe, onion puree, lime pickle butter.” An uninitiated tablemate cocked his head quizzically when this plate arrived at the table. No way around it: Shad roe is one of nature’s uglier handiworks. A lobe of tiny eggs from the notoriously bony shad fish that runs briefly through the mid-Atlantic rivers in spring, the roe looks like a bloody horror-flick prop when raw and turns an unappealing gray when cooked. Yet this fleeting prize is sublime in flavor, offering a mild but hardscrabble pungency that suggests freezing water, upstream struggle, and the funkier nuances of caviar. Matching it with lime pickle butter tamed its feral qualities and evoked two distinct cuisines: Pickles are a staple in the South, but the triple hit of brine, heat, and citrus tasted undeniably of an Indian condiment. What an ingenious collaboration.

The shad roe stood out as an especially dazzling feat among many highlights over three recent meals that all illustrated how much Restaurant Eugene and its chef/owner, Linton Hopkins, have evolved in the last five years. Buckhead’s moneyed and mature crowd immediately embraced Eugene when it opened in 2004, offering them a concise, frequently changing, and generally conservative menu of New American dishes with regional overtures. It may have been enough to sustain the restaurant for a good long time.

An Atlanta native, Hopkins named the restaurant after his grandfather, a Tennessean who grew up on a farm and cooked frequently for his family. After sixteen months or so in operation, Hopkins began to retune Eugene’s cooking style, drawing on his heritage in earnest. He developed close relationships with local farmers and experimented with gussying up traditional regional dishes—at a time when few Atlanta fine-dining restaurants venerated Southern cooking. Soon he established a three-course Sunday Supper menu for $29.50. Its weekly centerpiece remains the fried chicken—browned in a combination of oil, lard, butter, and bacon renderings—inspired by Mary Randolph, the author of the 1824 cookbook The Virginia Housewife. And last year, in the space opposite Eugene, Hopkins and his partners opened Holeman and Finch Public House, a gastropub whose food, accompanied by smashing cocktails, illuminates the connection between Southern and British cooking. His gambles to celebrate and explore his culinary birthright have reaped awards: This year, Hopkins has been nominated—for a second time—as Best Chef Southeast by the James Beard Foundation, and he was named one of 2009’s Best New Chefs by Food and Wine magazine.

The myriad accolades, and the public’s support of Holeman and Finch’s adventurous nose-to-tail cooking philosophy, seem to have liberated Hopkins, allowing him to take his firstborn in playful and unrestricted new directions. As Hopkins tells it, he and his wife, Gina (who manages the restaurant’s intelligent wine program), came to dine at Restaurant Eugene early in the year and felt constrained by the succinct menu’s lack of options. He and Eugene’s chef de cuisine, David Bies, concocted a solution that goes fantastically overboard: a menu of more than forty dishes, dominated by small plates and divided into three sections that focus on vegetables, seafood, and meat and game. Folks attached to the restaurant’s former approach can still pluck out appetizers and entrees—silky Charleston crab soup poured tableside over jumbo lump crab, for example, followed by a skillet-roasted dry-aged rib-eye with potato gratin. Really, though, the kitchen now clearly aims to coax diners toward shared small plates and their whirligig of ingredients and preparations.

Where on this feverishly unwieldy menu to begin? Simply, perhaps, with French radishes garnished traditionally with fleur de sel and clean-tasting butter. (Note: The menu never, ever stands still. Even this uncomplicated dish changed in the course of one week—first with a side of herbaceous radish pistou, then without. Both charmed.) From there, it’s up to your predilections: Most servers will encourage you to order piecemeal, two or three dishes at a time. I leaned toward the customary progression of lighter to heavier. One meal kicked off with marinated, uncooked fluke dressed with rivulets of blood orange juice, jalapeño, and shaved fennel; segued to butter-poached lobster with orange mustard and fried sage (a later switch to tarragon more graciously complemented the lobster); graduated up the food chain to crisp, lusciously salty duck confit over blushing sea island red peas with apple for juicy contrast; and peaked with sliced porchetta (a Tuscan method of roasting richly seasoned pork) flanked by an earthy duo of cauliflower and shiitakes.

Another night, I lingered over the vegetable offerings, most of which are prepared to proudly flaunt their clear, sometimes strong flavors. Thin spears of little gem lettuce came splotched with sheep’s milk yogurt—a study in enjoyable sourness that its adornment of the Spanish anchovies called boquerones further accented. House-made cow’s milk ricotta added a luxe touch to thumbnail-size sunchoke agnolotti. Smoked trout roe, caramelized on the surface but which still popped in the mouth, gave the licorice aspects of roasted baby fennel an unusual radiance. Turnip gratin proved a lovely sidekick to meatier dishes such as pheasant two ways (roasted and made into a complex sausage) and sweetbreads served with peppery arugula pesto and a poached egg sexily oozing its yolk.

This changeover must be murder on the kitchen staff, but remarkably few disappointments appeared. A confit of cod shone less brightly than other fish treatments and concealed soggy bits of fingerling potato underneath. Sweets—along the lines of smoked chocolate mousse (weird but rather delicious, too) and buttermilk cream pie domed with meringue—also included a dessert billed as an inventive-sounding chocolate “popover.” Bummer: It was essentially a conical-shaped chocolate cake, though piercing mint ice cream and house-preserved cherries alongside mitigated the letdown. And in the glow of this enlightened and intrepid shift in course, the formality of the dining room feels . . . well, not stodgy, but certainly not as jaunty as the food. The skilled servers, too, retain a sense of formality: They may relax as word of the small plates brings in an entire new generation of Restaurant Eugene devotees. And fans will appear, all right. In five years, Hopkins has grown from a competent fine-dining chef to one of the driving minds behind Atlanta’s reclamation of Southern gastronomy. I can’t wait to taste where his restless imagination takes our dining scene next.

Restaurant Eugene
Rating ***
2277 Peachtree Road, 404-355-0321
restauranteugene.com

Photograph by Amy Herr

Originally published in the June 2009 issue of Atlanta magazine

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