1660 McLendon Ave., Atlanta. eatmespeakme.com
My wife and I have bought a few actual pieces of art over the years, but more often we buy museum posters and frame them. After a few years, we may get sick of the posters and shuffle them off the walls. Yet we’ve invested a fair amount of money in the frames, so we look for ways to reuse them.
Such are pop-up restaurants, which establish themselves within the physical framework of actual brick-and-mortar restaurants. These roost-by-night operations sounded peculiar at first, but they’ve become creative forces within many urban dining scenes, including Atlanta’s.
Pop-ups pop up when the restaurant is taking a breather. Some come into a popular place once a week on, say, Monday nights. Others move into a breakfast-lunch cafe over the weekend and dish up foie gras over a counter where eggs are typically slung.
A pop-up might serve one craveworthy dish done right, or it could be the canvas for a creative chef to let his imagination run wild. It almost always will be a place where cooks take chances.
The city’s most interesting pop-up takes place Friday-Sunday nights at Gato (formerly Gato Bizco) in Candler Park. This sliver of a restaurant has a diner-style open kitchen with a terrible exhaust system fronted by a counter, a row of swivel stools and a few booths on the far wall. (Advice: Sit near the door.)
The chef is Jarrett Stieber, a young culinary autodidact who apparently develops his craft through practice. His menu consists of eight to 10 small plates, which you may order à la carte or as a tasting menu. The name of the $40 grand tasting uses an expletive often associated with overindulgence (among other things). You can bring your own wine or beer or pop over from Candler Park Market next door.
The food, which looks like it was plated at Bacchanalia, comes on sturdy diner ware. It’s kind of all over the place in the best possible way. You get a tofu stir fry that could come from any Chinese carryout, then a remarkably assured composition of coconut milk, grilled peaches, cauliflower and parsley that finds every way possible to relate to the slab of pan-roasted trout stretched atop.
“Good as hell” tacos filled with foodie bait (pork heart, chicken liver) just seem clumsy and clunky. But I marveled at a braised then fried chicken drumstick that packed a flavor and texture punch like nothing I’ve tried. Plus: How cool is it to revel in a chicken drumstick in the midst of a multi-course menu?
Stieber has a terrific culinary voice, and I don’t think we could hear it in a more traditional venue.
Across town, Oddbird has set up shop within the West Egg Cafe, a popular westside haunt for hearty breakfast and brunch. Serving dinner Wednesday-Saturday nights, this pop-up is all about boneless fried chicken and its best friends. There are chicken biscuits, chicken sandwiches and chicken and waffles in various permutations.
The owners of West Egg opened the pop-up themselves after toying around with the idea of a new chicken restaurant. They figured they could test-market the menu before taking the leap.
I have yet to visit, but the food looks tasty, as does the selection of craft beers. Sounds like the makings of a great impromptu meal.
Are there other pop-ups? Here and there. I was a huge fan of my friend Mihoko Obunai’s fantastic ramen pop-up called Ramen Freak, which took place every Monday at the Sound Table. But she’s taking a break for now.
I’d love to see more pop-ups, and I think the first folks to open on the Northside will find a welcome audience. (Just imagine someone cooking in one of those taquerias on the edge of downtown Roswell.)
Think of pop-ups as incubators for artistic souls. A small army of chefs with the creative interests and chutzpah of Jarrett Stieber would do this city good.
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