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DEL.ICIO.USWhat does it take to reinvent a restaurant?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
I ate lunch recently at Joel, a north Atlanta restaurant that’s in the process of reinventing itself.
Chef and part-owner Joel Antunes left earlier this year for New York’s famed Plaza Hotel, to head the revamped hotel’s Oak Room. Cyrille Holata, Joel’s chef de cuisine, took over the reins in Atlanta. He has worked with Antunes for 14 years, including a stint at the Dining Room at the Ritz-Carlton Buckhead.
He knows the restaurant’s customers well enough to leave favorites like the gazpacho with tomato sorbet and mango pavlova on the menu, but is also introducing his own dishes.
The most recent change — and the restaurant has seen many since its opening seven years ago, from a cozied-up dining room to a now-defunct lunch takeout shop and spa menu — is a bistro lunch menu, a 30-minutes or less selection all at $10 or less.
Choices include French comfort foods like croque monsieur, a grilled ham and Swiss cheese sandwich served with bechamel sauce, along with a salmon and cucumber pasta, and other salads, pastas and sandwiches. You can still order from a more traditional lunch menu, too, where the gazpacho, pavlova and more labor-intensive entrees are offered.
Holata is focusing on foods sourced from local farmers when possible, although it’s not something customers will notice on reading the menu. At other restaurants that focus on local food, menus often identify the farm, perhaps converting diners into customers for those farmers when they see their meat or produce at local markets.
Do you notice the names of farms on restaurant menus? If so, does it influence whether you buy from that farm, or your opinion of the restaurant? If you’ve eaten at Joel recently, what do you think of the changes?
Take care, and eat smart.
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Comments
By FCM
August 31, 2008 8:58 AM | Link to this
Don’t care where the food comes from as long as its fresh not frozen or canned. A well known, respected, food place known for it’s spinach dip (the best in town) has people claiming the salsa on the side is amazing! One of the servers told me it’s Pace like you get at the store. Pathetic.
I want fresh foods that taste fresh. However, more and more I find that I wish I had more time to just do it at home…it would taste just as good, but be less expensive.