 
Gulf Crab Fritter Bacchanalia Anne Quatrano and Clifford Harrison must surely be sick of preparing this crab fritter, which has functioned as the sole anchor on their ever-changing four-course seasonal menu for the past fifteen years. A little smaller than a tennis ball, the fritter has a crisp golden breading that yields to a center of the sweetest blue crabmeat lumps held in creamy suspension. Thai pepper and citrus juices sharpen a tiny spoonful of clear sauce in the bottom of the bowl for a startling, ideal contrast. After this bliss-out starter, your palate will be hypersensitive when it encounters, say, barbecued bobwhite quail over tarragon-flecked creamed local corn. 404-365-0410 Foie Gras Hot Dog Repast Husband-and-wife chefs Joe Truex and Mihoko Obunai never once consulted the neighborhood restaurant playbook when devising the menu for their unique midtown bistro. While Obunai references her native Japan in dishes such as the tuna tartare with yamaimo (Japanese mountain yam), her Louisiana-born husband makes shrimp and grits, a fantastic banana bread pudding, and, yes, a tricked-out homemade hot dog. It arrives on a plate with ketchup and mustard as well as a flaky sheath playing the role of the bun. This piggy in a blanket looks like a hot dog, smells like a hot dog, has the juice and snap of a hot dog. And the flavor? It starts as a ringer for Oscar Mayer but then alchemically transforms into foie gras in your mouth. Hilarious, and delicious to boot. 404-870-8707 Ghetto Burger Ann’s Snack Bar If you have three hours to spare, find this converted bungalow in the Kirkwood neighborhood, take a seat on the screened porch, and determine your place in line. When she’s ready—and only when she’s ready—Ann Price will invite the next seating of burger supplicants to her eight-stool counter. Do not address Miss Ann until she talks to you first. When she does, order her calling card, the “world-famous ghetto burger.” This ungainly and yet meticulously assembled heap of hand-pressed beef patties, cheese, and chili seems to erupt from its griddle-toasted bun. Some claim its manifest deliciousness comes from the slivered onions and seasoning salt pressed into the meat. 404-687-9207 Spicy Turnip Greens Taqueria del Sol Eddie Hernandez has parlayed his spot-on fusion of Mexican and Southern food into a three-unit chain that has Atlantans lining up all over the city. At the west side original the bartender mixes an especially tart margarita to nurse while you wait for your turn at the counter to order. It’s hard to say no to a soft taco filled with fried fish strips, jalapeños, and tartar sauce. But there is no resisting Hernandez’s turnip greens, cooked to limp submission in a potlikker flecked with onion, garlic, and red flakes of spicy chile de arbol. In lieu of corn bread, crumble a handful of chips on top. 404-352-5811 East Village–Style Chopped Liver Shaun’s In a city where cafeterias still heap fried chicken livers along with meat loaf and baked ham on their steam tables, “East Village” might seem out of place. Shaun Doty may have cracked the code to Jewish deli/soul food fusion with this appealing dish. He piles huge hunks of liver and hard-boiled egg slathered in chive mayo over grilled bread rusks. Another semi-Southern standout: Doty’s pork schnitzel with Vidalia onion and peanut relish. Sounds strange but tastes slap-your-Viennese-grandma good. 404-577-4358 Hot Vegetable Plate Watershed It seems that every publication short of Boys’ Life has come to this Decatur restaurant to praise its Tuesday-night fried chicken special. While chef Scott Peacock has done yeoman’s duty in restoring the good name of Southern cooking nationwide with this one dish, his regular customers go to Watershed for the ever-changing veggie plate. A recent assemblage featured florets of crisp cornmeal-fried cauliflower, field peas swimming in a clear, potent potlikker, Roma tomatoes stewed in butter, a mound of whipped Beauregard sweet potatoes, and a wedge of tangy buttermilk corn bread that dissolved on your tongue like a custard. You won’t even miss the mac and cheese. 404-378-4900 “Chicken and Dumplings” JCT. Kitchen & Bar If it’s a dish that someone’s grandmother served in the South in the 1970s, you can be pretty sure you’ll find it retooled and rethought for an Atlanta menu in the 2000s. Witness the chicken and dumplings boom. The best is JCT. Kitchen’s version. Chef Ford Fry sets a stewed leg quarter over ricotta gnocchi in a red wine sauce. This dish could just as easily have been called coq au vin, but when that shreddy chicken meets those melt-away pillows of cheese and flour, it does evoke a memory. 404-355-2252 Pork Barbecue with Braised Greens Home Restaurant & Bar A haze of liquid nitrogen has followed Richard Blais through the various Atlanta dining rooms he has run. He has delighted some diners and confounded others with his scientifically enhanced technique and nervy recipes. Tricks aside, he knows how to wow guests with flavors that are both familiar and brilliantly reconceived, a skill he shows time and again on the contempo-Southern menu at Home Restaurant & Bar. His best dish is a smokeless pork barbecue—actually a slab of belly cooked sous vide then flash fried so that every bite contains a layer of silken fat and one of meaty, porcine crunch. With a coffee barbecue sauce, lively greens, and local apples outfitting the plate, this dish engages your palate and mind more with each bite. 404-869-0777 “Oreos and Milk” The Chocolate Bar This would-be martini bar in Decatur might qualify as Atlanta’s most underrated gourmet destination. It is not much to look at, but the pastry chef, Aaron Russell, cooks with an uncompromising gourmet edge. The “Oreos” turn out to be miniature hot soufflés sandwiching a round of white chocolate ganache, the “milk” a clean and amazing sorbet. This talented young chef carries off weird ideas with finesse. His warm chocolate cake may come frosted with a layer of cool avocado mousse and set off by a grapefruit sorbet. But if you just want a truffle from the candy case, no problem. 404-378-0630 Banana Peanut Butter Cream Pie Rathbun’s Kevin Rathbun, a victor on Iron Chef America, has become well loved in Atlanta for his generous, more-is-more style of cooking and surefire palate. A meal here might leave you woozily sated if not just a bit exhausted. Pastry chef Kirk Parks knows just where to go next. He follows Rathbun’s big flavors with a thrilling list of indulgent miniature desserts. You’ll surely find room for his fantastic two-bite pie—a buttery round of crust holding sweet bananas suspended in creamy peanut butter mousse with a dollop of cream. Rathbun’s, set in a warehouse space hidden on the industrial back side of Atlanta’s pretty Inman Park, draws locals and out-of-towners, so reservations go quickly. The covered, heated patio is first come, first serve, and better for conversation. 404-524-8280 |
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