At Thanksgiving dinner this year, a friend served some wonderful vegan truffle balls alongside the pie parade. One variety had a health food thing going on with dates, nuts and coconut. The other, made of peanut butter mousse enrobed in a chocolate shell, was like the best Reese’s peanut butter cup imaginable.
“Cupcakes are out! Cronuts are out!” I cried. “2014 will go down as the year of the vegan ball.”
Though the remark was made for an easy laugh, it was also an honest prediction. Healthier sweet treats do figure among my predictions for food and dining in metro Atlanta in 2014. Without any further ado, here’s what I’ll be looking for in restaurants, food shops and farmers markets in the new year.
A semi-permanent pop-up: Talk about a good idea. Take unused restaurant space and let a creative, underfunded chef go to town. We've seen a few. Hudson North brought a farm-to-table to the former Grape space in Atlantic Station. Chef Mihoko Obunai brought her fine ramen-making skills to lunchtime at SoBa, the East Atlanta Village Vietnamese restaurant. Jarrett Stieber took over the old lunch counter in the back of the Candler Park Market and began serving homemade blood sausage from paper baskets at the pop-up he called Eat Me, which closes at the end of this year.
Someone soon is going to get the bright idea that started the storied career of Danny Bowien at Mission Chinese restaurant in San Francisco. He moved into an extant and not particularly notable Chinese restaurant and found a way to peaceably coexist with the chef who was making lo mein and orange peel beef. Some smart kid with an arsenal of exotic spices, organic greens and locally pastured meat needs to strike up a deal with the owner of an atmospheric dive. Everyone will win.
Rock-n-roll Asian: That was an easy segue. We've got a little boundary-pushing, next-gen Asian cooking at Miso Izakaya, Sobban and Octopus Bar (the late-night menu at SoBa). We're also starting to see some popular OTP Asian restaurants move into town. Raku, a ramen shop in Duluth, has opened a Westside branch. Gu's Bistro, the Buford Highway Sichuan place, will open a dumpling bar in the new Krog Street Market, which is slated for a spring 2014 debut. Also in spring, Nhan Le and Angus Brown of Octopus Bar will open a full-service seafood restaurant, Lusca, with a raw bar and Asian-style fish in Buckhead.
Look for the Asian invasion to continue. I’d love to see someone open a rock-n-roll Asian restaurant with spicy, righteous food and the kind of low-key setting of a burger bar.
Bounty in the 'burbs: After the runaway transformation of downtown Roswell's hot dining scene, every suburban neighborhood in the metro area wants a piece of the action. It's starting to happen. The Butcher The Baker has brought craft cocktails and farmstead cool to Marietta Square. Seed Kitchen & Bar and the new Stem Wine Bar from Dough Turbush have cheered East Cobb gourmets, who have shaved an hour off their dining commute to Roswell or Buckhead. Avalon, a mixed-use development from the Atlantic Station folks, will open in Alpharetta in fall 2014 and transform that city's dining scene. A second Antico Pizza Napoletana and a burger bar from the Bocado folks will figure among the tenants, along with a branch of Charleston's upmarket Oak Steakhouse. Some other big Atlanta restaurateurs have been sniffing around the development. This time around, the suburban developers are looking to the city's restaurant culture rather than the big-box chains.
Sustainable fast food: Roll your eyes all you want about Chipotle, the endlessly replicating chain of burrito quick-service restaurants. This company has shown it's possible to use natural, hormone-free meats and some organic vegetables on a large scale. Closer to home are Shaun Doty and Lance Gummere, the two fine-dining refugees who opened Bantam and Biddy and Chick-a-Biddy, and will open a new chicken restaurant in Avalon. They bring pastured chicken and organic veggies to the people. Pallookaville, the wacky soda shop in Avondale Estates from corn-dog celeb Jim Stacy, touts the cold-pressed non-GMO canola oil in its fryer. Fast food, good ingredients: They don't have to be mutually exclusive.
Bakery boomlet: There may be a high rate of gluten intolerance in our population today, but that hasn't stopped artisan bakeries from taking foothold throughout the city. From Little Tart Bakeshop in Grant Park to Decatur's Ratio Bakeshop, which operates out of a commercial kitchen and sells at local farmers markets, we suddenly have an embarrassment of riches in the sweet treat department.
These bakeries and others like them seem at their best with whole grains, dried fruit, nuts and all the other energy foods we should be eating. Why would you ever buy another Clif Bar when you could get the granola crunch shortbread bars from Ratio or the salted caramel nut tart from Little Tart? There aren’t yet a lot of true artisan bread bakeries in this city, though La Calavera, slated to open this winter in Decatur, may give H&F a run for its money. (Try the olive boule.)
So far, I have yet to find the hot new bakery touting vegan balls. But just wait and see. It’s on its way.
