Another reboot for Parish

The downstairs, with its thrift shop clutter and open trays of breakfast pastries, became a destination long before the Beltline opened right outside its door. Now, it comes alive on sunny weekend days, the reward at the end of a bike ride or jog, the place you go for a fat breakfast sandwich and pretty good cup of coffee, the neighborhood hangout where folks share their newspapers at the community table.

The upstairs? At first, the stage was set for an evocation of old New Orleans. Patina-discolored mirrors and oversized blackboards went on the exposed brick walls, louvered shutters covered the windows, and little bordello lamps with red shades sidled up at the end of the bar.

But despite the tin ceiling and candlelight, nothing really said French Quarter. Would it be rude to say that the atmosphere upstairs at Parish reminded me more of those studied, casual-chic clothing stores my wife favors? A meal there always felt like dining at Anthropologie.

As the Highland Avenue corridor rose alongside Parish, it did its best to adapt to prevailing tastes, morphing from Creole to Southern farm-to-table. Fine chefs came and went, among them Nick Melvin (now making Doux South pickles) and Joe Schafer (Abattoir).

For its latest iteration, the former Parish Food & Goods has undergone a name change and would now like to be known as the Brasserie and Neighborhood Cafe at Parish. Brasserie?

Chef Zeb Stevenson, who came on late last year, has finally come through with his long-promised makeover. As at the Luminary, which recently opened nearby in Krog Street Market, the term “brasserie” now signals the presence of a raw bar and craft cocktail bar in addition to a full roster of dishes that hint at the French playbook.

It’s an intriguing menu, unlike any in town. Even if you don’t love the baroque staginess of the dining room, you’ll want to explore the food and see again whether Parish can find a place on your intown dining roster.

Stevenson crams invention and smart ideas into a single page. Raw shellfish ranges from a selection of boutique oysters to hamachi crudo with olive oil, orange zest and fennel pollen. But you can just as easily start a meal with pull-apart pretzels and beer cheese sauce or chopped chicken liver on toast. The meal is then yours to build, with both smaller, shareable plates and modestly priced entrees.

Some restaurants want to be your Saturday splurge; this one wants to be your Wednesday reliable.

I’ve only visited once for the purpose of this first look, and I barely feel like I’ve scratched the surface.

The highlight of our meal was a plate of thin-sliced speck (the smoked cousin to prosciutto) tangled up with fresh pears, arugula, honey and shavings of bottarga — the dried mullet roe brings both saltiness and umami to the proceedings.

Stevenson has sophisticated ideas and also has fun with them. The “paper fried” chicken is, according to the waitress, his take on Korean-style chicken, which is double battered and fried for a supreme crunch. Here, you get two legs in a spicy honey glaze with sesame seeds. It will crunch so loudly the noise will reverberate in your head.

I didn’t love his black truffle grilled cheese sandwich — which arrived cut into quarters like fat canapés — as much as I would have hoped. The bread was thick and the cheese so promiscuously gushy it made the truffle hard to detect. Greatness in grilled cheese comes with restraint.

A more carefully constructed grilled cheese bite might have been nicer with my cocktail, which was … honestly, I’m not sure what it was.

The menu offers a mystery punch, which is apparently a thing now. (The bartender got wind of this idea at Taste of the Cocktail in New Orleans, according to our waitress.) My mystery was pinkish red, sweet and inoffensive. (It reminded me of the Planter’s Punch my mom used to get at a certain restaurant near our home that came in a keepsake glass. It was her one cocktail.)

So what was in it? White rum? Guava juice? Who knows? The waitress wouldn’t find out for me. Some mysteries, I guess, are best left unsolved.

Other dishes suffered a bit from execution flaws. Fried mixed eggplant, served as an appetizer, was tasty if you happened on a chunk of custardy Japanese eggplant, but floury and mouth-gumming if you got a slice of globe eggplant. A side of creamed spinach thickened with pureed parsnip also left a floury taste in the mouth.

We did not get to sample new pastry chef Kelly Lovett’s creations. But her black mission fig crostata with fernet ice cream and Georgia peach tarte tatin with thyme caramel sure sound appealing.

So, here’s to the new old Parish, a restaurant that has something to say, something it very much wants Atlanta diners to hear.