Truth Be Told offers Roswell a rare dining experience
Don’t be surprised if you leave Truth Be Told with your head spinning.
The new tasting-menu restaurant in Roswell is an excellent dining experience, with inventive food and smart service. And the cost is an amazing value, considering the level of cooking, quality of ingredients and attention to detail.
Yet it was nearly empty on both of my visits, begging the question: Can such an ambitious restaurant work in this area?
Even though it’s in a historic house along Canton Street, everything about Truth Be Told feels new — an exciting prospect in an area where the best restaurants, such as Little Alley Steak and Table & Main, look to the past.
The restaurant’s interior is warm, attractive and modern enough to feel current without becoming trendy. You won’t find any neon signs on the walls. Every detail feels considered, also a characteristic of the menu.
Truth Be Told serves a hybrid of a chef’s tasting menu and a la carte dining. The fixed-price meal includes seven courses for $115, but diners choose the largest three courses. (Some of those, especially items featuring beef, have an added cost.)
Dinner starts with three amuse-bouches, crudites and bread service, all automatically included. Diners choose their own appetizer and entree, but the main courses are served with a predetermined group of side dishes, which are considered a separate course. The final course is dessert, chosen by the customer.
Nearly every ingredient is from Georgia. Most of the vegetables come from the restaurant’s farm in Buchanan, a town about 11 miles from the Alabama border. Beef comes from North Georgia Meat Co. in Ellijay, the firm behind Vice Steak Bar and the Vice Kitchen butcher shop. Chef Matt Marcus said the kitchen uses no hydrogenated oils; even the deep fryer is filled with local beef tallow.
The kitchen’s execution on my visits was nearly flawless, although not every dish worked. Of the amuse-bouches, the honeydew melon paired with gelee was not quite ripe enough, and the gefilte fish spread on a cracker wasn’t memorable. But a huitlacoche tartlet and a gougere with house-made cheese spread were delightful, creative and packed with flavor.
The bread service of warm challah was fabulous, with cultured butter and salt from coastal South Carolina. A course of crudites also was wonderful, featuring adorable miniature vegetables from the Buchanan farm that could be eaten whole, greens and all, with a whipped goat cheese spread.
The fun continued with the selected first courses, including snow beef carpaccio (so named for the meat’s high level of white fat marbling) with bits of Caesar dressing frozen in the style of Dippin’ Dots. The fanciful dish used complex techniques for a classic flavor combination.
And the beef tartare, deeply savory and served on three tiny waffle cones, was as cute as the miniature vegetables, yet deeply savory and satisfying — highlighting the quality of the meat.
On the other hand, the goat cheese terrine appetizer fell a little flat. Although there was plenty of window dressing, the central element was a log of goat cheese that seemed untransformed, leaving it too dense and a little overwhelming.
Beef took a starring role among the entrees, as well. The wagyu tongue and tri-tip was another lovely showcase for Georgia cattle; the steak was tender and beautifully cooked, while the tongue was served as a thin slice of a mosaic terrine.
Bigeye tuna, meanwhile, was seared perfectly rare and served in a rich pool of “bone sauce,” a classic beef and veal demi-glace.
Although I wasn’t able to try it, I asked about a menu item called ripper in a tux, which turned out to be a hot dog made in-house and deep fried until its casing breaks (the “ripper” style popularized in New Jersey). The dog is served with caviar and other high-minded fixings; Marcus said it has been one of the most popular menu items so far.
Truth Be Told’s owner, Jonathan Yu, helms the beverage program, which is characterized by thoughtful cocktails and a well-rounded wine list. Wine pairings are available with the tasting menu for just $51, an offering that often creeps into the triple digits at similar restaurants. The price is lower because it includes five half-glasses, allowing customers to enjoy paired wines and still remember their meal.
The service at Truth Be Told is polished and professional, although meals can drag occasionally. Marcus said the restaurant’s target is about 2 hours, 15 minutes for the full experience, but servers ask diners at the beginning how quickly the meal should be paced.
I didn’t ask for a faster experience, and both my meals at Truth Be Told took well beyond two hours. A few of the breaks between courses felt too long.
Those delays couldn’t be blamed on the restaurant being too busy, as the place was nearly empty both times. On a Sunday night, when the rest of Canton Street was buzzing, hardly anyone seemed to make it to Roswell’s newest, most exciting restaurant.
Truth Be Told isn’t perfect, but the restaurant does a lot of things right, with high-concept cooking, strong service, good beverages and obsessively sourced area ingredients. It’s also an incredible value — the menu price is about half what the same restaurant could charge in the city of Atlanta.
Nearly everything about Truth Be Told signals that it’s a labor of love. Will Roswell love it back?
TRUTH BE TOLD
3 out of 4 stars (excellent)
Food: American fine dining
Service: excellent
Noise level: low
Recommended dishes: snow beef carpaccio, beef tartare, salmon tartare, cacio e paradiso (grana padano, allium, egg noodles), Georgia wagyu tongue and tri-tip, bigeye tuna, ripper in a tux, strawberry dessert, blueberry ganache
Vegetarian dishes: goat cheese terrine, farm greens, cacio e paradiso, corn agnolotti
Alcohol: full bar with cocktails, well-rounded wine list
Price range: $100-$200 per person, excluding drinks
Hours: 5-9 p.m. Wednesdays-Thursdays, 5-10 p.m. Fridays-Saturdays, 5-9 p.m. Sundays
Accessibility: fully ADA-compliant, but call ahead to ensure accommodations
Parking: valet, paid lots nearby
Nearest MARTA station: none
Reservations: recommended, available through Resy
Outdoor dining: yes
Takeout: no
Address, phone: 1104 Canton St., Roswell. 470-663-6791
Website: tbtlounge.com
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s dining critics conduct reviews anonymously. Reservations are not made in their name, nor do they provide restaurants with advance notice about their visits. Our critics always make multiple visits, sample the full range of the menu and pay for all of their meals. AJC dining critics wait at least one month after a new restaurant has opened before visiting.
About the Author
Henri Hollis is a reporter and restaurant critic for the Food & Dining team. Formerly a freelance writer and photographer with a focus on food and restaurants, he joined the AJC full-time in January 2021, first covering breaking news. He is a lifelong Atlantan and a graduate of Georgia Tech.
