Get the meal of a lifetime anytime at Babette's Cafe

Best dishes: tarragon and artichoke chicken, halibut, mussels

Vegetarian selections: salads, pasta

Price range: $$$

Credit cards: all major credit cards

Hours: 5-9 p.m. Sundays, 5:30-10 p.m. Tuesdays-Saturdays

Children: yes, especially well-behaved ones

Parking: valet

Reservations: yes

Wheelchair access: yes

Smoking: no

Noise level: moderate

Patio: yes, a lovely covered space

Takeout: yes

Address, phone: 573 N. Highland Ave. N.E., Atlanta. 404-523-9121.

More options nearby …

Open since 2001, Wisteria is a fixture in Inman Park. It serves twists on Southern favorites, including versions of pimento-cheese deviled eggs, iron-skillet fried chicken, fried catfish and shrimp and grits. Wisteria’s chef, Jason Hill, is featured in Melissa Libby’s cookbook “Atlanta Cooks at Home.” Wisteria earned three stars in an Atlanta Journal-Constitution review in 2011. 5:30-9 p.m. Sundays, 5:30-10 p.m. Mondays-Thursdays, 5:30-11 p.m. Fridays-Saturdays. 471 N. Highland Ave., Atlanta. 404-525-3363. $$-$$$

Barcelona Wine Bar sits on the main drag in Inman Park, with customers overflowing the generous interior to a wrap-around patio. Chef Shane Devereux helms the kitchen at the Atlanta location of this Connecticut-based restaurant group. Stop in for a few tapas like the cuminy spinach and chickpea casserole or the octopus (pulpo Gallefo), with its nice char and hearty paprika-spiced fingerling potatoes. Linger to try several of the many wines by the glass. 11:30 a.m.-late Sundays, 11:30 a.m.-4 p.m. and 5 p.m.-late Mondays-Saturdays. 240 N. Highland Ave., Atlanta. 404-589-1010. $$-$$$

P’cheen opened in 2005 as one of the Atlanta’s premier gastropubs. The restaurant, now smoke-free, recently received an interior face-lift and menu redesign. The beverage menu now features moonshine-based cocktails. 11:30 a.m.-midnight Sundays, Tuesdays-Thursdays, 11:30 a.m.-1 a.m. Fridays-Saturdays. 701 Highland Ave., Atlanta. 404-529-8800. $$

In 2007, Melanie Dunea published the book “My Last Supper,” in which famous chefs answered the question, “What would be your last meal on earth?”

Some chefs dreamed of grand banquets set on the beach, others dialed it back with simpler fare like Wylie Dufresne’s wish for scrambled eggs, a rare cheeseburger and a steak with hollandaise. Thomas Keller would delight in caviar, a quesadilla and roasted chicken served in his own home.

What would you have? I’m undecided. I’d take a feast, for sure, a parade of small bites, but the lineup remains unclear. Contenders would have to be rich and soulful, yet light and balanced.

I discovered one such candidate during a recent meal at Babette’s Cafe in the Poncey-Highland neighborhood. Chef-owner Marla Adams has a way with chicken.

A month ago, chicken wouldn’t have ranked so highly on my list, but a month ago I hadn’t tried the roast Ashley Farms chicken ($18) in Adams’s luxuriously silky white wine-and-butter sauce spiked with a licoricey tarragon reduction. Steamy browned chicken and fresh artichokes settle in the sauce with a glorious mountain of creme fraiche slowly unfolding around them. Yes, I think we have a contender for my final festivities.

Adams opened Babette’s Cafe nearly 21 years ago. She cooks with confidence and honesty, comfortably infusing French, Italian and Spanish flavors into the menu. The wine list to complement this fare has been pared down since the restaurant opened but balances brand recognition and boutique selections.

Adams named the restaurant for the movie “Babette’s Feast,” a Danish film about the meal of a lifetime prepared for a prayer group by their French housekeeper. Adams says she, too, wanted to bring people together in a simple setting to share the experience of a delicious meal.

Housed in a remodeled 1916 bungalow, the restaurant radiates a warm, sunny glow, with copper pots adorning the walls and French country cookbooks gathered on the fireplace mantel. The decor at Babette’s Cafe is refined and elegant without pretense, much like the fare.

Servers swell with pride as they sell the menu. Hear the subtext in their suggestions: Adams has a way with sauces. Remember the tarragon sauce on the chicken? Let those sauces guide you.

Ever a fan of a beurre blanc, I’m drawn to the halibut ($29), dressed in house-made fennel and mustard bread crumbs surrounded by the buttery bliss. The beautifully white, plump fish takes to the delicate sauce accented with a ring of tangy mustard-seed vinaigrette.

Or consider the filet ($29), which transforms from steak to steakhouse chic with the zippy gorgonzola sauce enriched with veal stock. You’ll find yourself reaching for the crusty bread jutting from a galvanized tin bucket to corral remaining dots of the creamy condiment. If you can’t get enough, Babette’s sells the stuff ($7.50/cup) along with other prepared restaurant favorites like the grilled corn chowder with meaty plugs of lump crab ($8 at the restaurant, $20/quart to go).

You also can buy the fixings to make yourself a star at your next dinner party, with the mussels kit ($20). Once you taste them in the restaurant ($6), you’ll know why. Don’t question the strawberries-and-cream-style sauce; the whiff of berries only provides an illusion of sweetness that pairs well with the bivalves. Reach for that bread again. Tempered with serrano peppers, the broth becomes the best sort of potlikker.

You can even order Adams’ paella, a summer menu favorite, for a group. But if you have it at the restaurant ($17.50), it comes served right from the beautiful black paella pan. Though the crackling bottom bits are few and far between, the saffron-scented Calasparra rice comes overflowing with a bounty of mussels, clams, shrimp, chicken and sausage.

After you’ve licked your plate clean, you may not have room for dessert. If you do, try the daily ice cream ($6), with flavors that range from rum raisin to a peanut-studded peanut butter.

This October, when the restaurant celebrates its 21st birthday, Adams will re-create the meal of a lifetime from “Babette’s Feast.” But you can experience a deeply satisfying meal anytime at Babette’s Cafe. You might even find something worthy of your own last meal.