Innumerable names and faces deserve credit for keeping Atlanta well fed and for keeping this city on the national culinary radar year after year. Yet, there are select folk in the midst of pivotal moments.

Those having breakout years include entrepreneurs with dining concepts that resonate with the times. They are chefs who have been given (no, earned) keys to the kitchen and are demonstrating that they are up to the challenge. In the beverage world, we’ve got our eyes on a bartender giving cerebral thought toward cocktails and a brewer doing the same with beer.

Meet the up-and-comers who are shaking up Atlanta’s food and drink scene right now in the link below.

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A Korean Air plane takes off from Incheon International Airport in South Korea on Wednesday, Sept. 10, 2025. The plane is chartered to bring back Korean workers detained in an immigration raid in Georgia. (Yonhap via AP)

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Fulton DA Fani Willis (center) with Nathan J. Wade (right), the special prosecutor she hired to manage the Trump case and had a romantic relationship with, at a news conference announcing charges against President-elect Donald Trump and others in Atlanta, Aug. 14, 2023. Georgia’s Supreme Court on Tuesday, Sept. 16, 2025, upheld an appeals court's decision to disqualify Willis from the election interference case against Trump and his allies. (Kenny Holston/New York Times)

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