Karlie Redd, reality star of MTV’s “Love and Hip Hop: Atlanta,” will open her second restaurant concept in downtown Atlanta Sept. 28.
Red Room Bistro is a lounge and restaurant at 255 Trinity Ave. Redd and her business partner Ace Carrington, who also owns Spice House and Crescent City Kitchen, brought in executive chef Teddy Lopez to collaborate on a menu featuring a mix of Southern, American and Caribbean cuisine.
Lopez, Carrington and Redd are all from New York and have Trinidadian backgrounds, Lopez told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, so it was important to bring those influences into the restaurant with such dishes as snapper, oxtail mac and cheese and oxtail empanadas.
Credit: Courtesy of Red Room Bistro
Credit: Courtesy of Red Room Bistro
The menu will be “fun and young, but very sexy,” Lopez said, which means “big, bold, colorful, delicious” food with lots of sauces.
The menu includes appetizers such as wings, chicken tenders, waffle fries and kebabs and entrees like a lobster roll, lamb chops, smashburgers and steak frites. The full bar will mix specialty drinks like a lemon drop cocktail with cherry juice and strawberry puree.
Credit: Madelynne Grace Ross
Credit: Madelynne Grace Ross
Red Room Bistro comes a little over four years after the launch of Redd’s first restaurant, Johnny’s World Famous Chicken and Waffles, which she opened in 2021 in College Park with Crystal Smith and rapper Ne-Yo.
Redd’s interest in the restaurant industry started with her father and stepmother, who owned a restaurant in New York called Dewars.
“That was everything, my safe haven,” she said. “It was just our family.”
Her restaurant brand is built around the idea of red (and a reference to Redd’s similar-sounding last name), she said, and the 100-seat Red Room Bistro reflects that with a centerpiece sign declaring “Love is” with a red heart, plush red booths and bar seats and walls with red painted cracks running across the room.
Credit: Madelynne Grace Ross
Credit: Madelynne Grace Ross
“I want people to think of love. My mom, my dad, they cooked out of love,” she said. “When you cook out of love, you can’t miss.”
On Sundays, the Red Room Bistro will have Bubbles and Bunnies Brunch, where some of the servers dress up in Playboy Bunny outfits and offer bottle service from noon-4 p.m. It’s a reference to when Redd posed as a bunny for Playboy in 2015, she said.
Brunch will include menu offerings like the Velvet Vixen with fried chicken wings stacked on red velvet waffles; French toast with macerated strawberries and topped with cinnamon crumble and vanilla syrup; and the Breakfast Rodeo with steak and eggs.
Credit: Courtesy of Madelynne Grace / Bites and Bevs Media
Credit: Courtesy of Madelynne Grace / Bites and Bevs Media
Redd’s goal is to continue opening restaurants around Atlanta and in other states. She never realized how much she would fall in love with the industry, but “subconsciously one day I was like, ‘I get it,’” she said. “No matter what you’re doing, love what you do.”
Red Room Bistro will be open 5 p.m.-2 a.m. Wednesdays-Fridays, 11 a.m.-2 a.m. Saturdays and 11 a.m.-midnight Sundays.
255 Trinity Ave. SW, Atlanta. 470-263-1664, instagram.com/redroombistro
About the Author
Keep Reading
The Latest
Featured
