Swan Coach House: The ladies who lunch

Best dishes: Swan's favorite, fried green tomato sandwich

Vegetarian selections: salads

Price range: $$

Credit cards: all major credit cards

Hours: 11 a.m.-2:30 p.m. Mondays-Saturdays

Children: fine

Parking: valet

Reservations: yes

Wheelchair access: yes

Smoking: no

Noise level: low to moderate

Patio: upstairs patio used mostly for events

Takeout: yes, with additional items for takeout

Address, phone: 3130 Slaton Drive N.W., Atlanta. 404-261-0636.

IF YOU LIKE …

More options for this type of cuisine:

FULTON

Mary Mac’s Tea Room

Like the Swan Coach House, Mary Mac’s is another Atlanta tradition. More meat-and-three than dainty tea room, Mary Mac’s serves traditional Southern favorites including fried chicken, pork chops, tomato pie and fried okra. You can’t escape without a back rub from Jo Carter or a helping of the Georgia peach cobbler. 11 a.m.-9 p.m. daily. 224 Ponce de Leon Ave. N.E., Atlanta. 404-876-1800, www.marymacs.com. $$.

FULTON

The Roswell Teahouse

Housed in a modestly decorated 1920s home in Historic Roswell, this wellness teahouse creates a unique experience for tea-goers — one that nourishes the body and soul with healthful and satisfying foods. Salt and sugar sneak into recipes only occasionally, and olive, coconut and sesame seed oils replace butter. Produce is local and organic when possible. Tea sourcing also receives high priority here, with a selection of more than 100 teas from around the world. 11:30 a.m.-3 p.m. Tuesdays-Fridays, 11:30 a.m.-4 p.m. Saturdays. 108 Magnolia St., Roswell. 770-643-5813, www.roswellteahouse.net. $$-$$$.

CHEROKEE

Tea Leaves & Thyme

Located in historic Woodstock, Tea Leaves & Thyme serves a full lunch and traditional English afternoon tea. The tea room offers more than 60 varieties of hot tea. Children can join in the fun with special teas attended by popular characters like Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella and Belle. See the website for event dates. Tea and lunch service: 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Tuesdays-Saturdays; dinner service: 6 and 7:45 p.m. seatings Thursdays-Saturdays. 8990 S. Main St., Woodstock. 770-516-2609, www.tealeavesandthyme.com. $-$$.

With a leer on his face, Chef Roblé Ali tentatively poked at the cream-colored disc with a fork. “What is that? I’m afraid of that!”

The star of the reality show “Chef Roblé & Co.” had his first encounter with the Southern marvel that is frozen fruit salad at Atlanta’s Swan Coach House. He came to the restaurant as a guest of “Real Housewives of Atlanta’s” Phaedra Parks, who had hired him to re-create a Southern tea for an event she held in New York.

Ali’s thoughts on the “ambrosia” served with a piped swirl of mayonnaise? “Grody to the max.”

I’d wager he didn’t grow up eating canned pear salad with mayonnaise and shredded cheddar at Grandma’s Sunday suppers. His childhood likely lacked church potlucks and Junior League cookbook concoctions.

Those food experiences set the framework to enjoy a classic Atlanta meal at the Swan Coach House. The restaurant, along with the adjacent art gallery and gift shop, was opened in 1965 by a group of women who came together to establish the Forward Arts Foundation. It sits in a former carriage house just behind the historic Swan House, which is now home to the Atlanta History Center.

The ladies who started the foundation also contributed the recipes for the restaurant’s menu. In the past 47 years, the menu has been revised only twice, with all the original items remaining untouched.

While this brand of cooking may not be representative of all Southern cuisine and certainly not of its agrarian/farm-to-table focus, it celebrates a sliver of our culinary history.

There’s no denying the existence of the convenience food cooking era that dominates Southern food stereotypes. Cookbooks that rely on pudding mixes, whipped topping and powdered soup mixes — like “The Swan’s Palette,” the restaurant’s own Junior League-style cookbook — document this period well.

At the Swan Coach House these food traditions are honored in a luxuriously feminine setting. Soothing pastel furnishings offset bold flowered wallpaper and vibrant table arrangements of multi-colored roses. Antique sideboards and parquet wood floors anchor the appointments.

If you grew up in Atlanta, chances are good that you’ve experienced the Swan Coach House, a local tradition. It’s here that you had a bridal or baby shower, attended a Red Hat Society gathering, or brought multiple generations of your family’s females for special tea events.

While tea service at one time featured a selection of steeped loose-leaf teas, it now comes with a handful of Mighty Leaf tea bag options. I’d suggest you sample the afternoon beverage menu with the restaurant’s signature blush-colored champagne punch ($5.75) or the Bubbly Atlantan ($7.25), a mixture of champagne and jasmine liqueur.

Either of these choices will pair with the restaurant’s signature Swan’s Favorite ($12.50), featuring that misunderstood frozen fruit salad. Two slightly greasy but crispy timbales (pastry shells) come filled with mounds of chicken salad, finely ground meat mixed with loads of mayonnaise, pepper and celery. Crunchy cayenne-spiked cheese straws balance it all out. The salad of cut grapes, maraschino cherries, pecans and canned pineapple set in a frozen slice of the cream cheese-whipping cream mixture steps in to reset the palate.

Once you’ve experienced the Swan’s Favorite, you can move on to explore other salads or the plate of tea sandwiches ($10), two made with chicken salad and two with a thin pimento cheese spread.

If you prefer something heavier, try the thickly breaded croquette-style crab cakes ($15.75) or the tart fried green tomatoes with red pepper aioli on grilled triangles of focaccia ($10.25). Or, there’s the bright yellow chunky-chicken curry ($14.25) slathered with sauce and topped with endless garnishes of sweet chutney, coconut, peanutty bits, bacon, green onion slices and grated boiled eggs.

You mustn’t skip dessert. It’s only proper that you partake of the French silk swan ($5.25), a meringue crisp filled with whipped cream-covered chocolate mousse fashioned into a swan’s body and fitted with a pastry swirl to resemble the graceful curve of its neck. After that, the pecan pie ($5.75), though tasty and chock full of pecans, seems downright pedestrian.

You don’t have to be Atlanta-born and raised to enjoy the Swan Coach House experience (although it doesn’t hurt). What you need is an understanding of context and a knowledge that food is more than the assembled ingredients set before you. Let’s honor this piece of our Southern heritage. It’s tradition, y’all.