Most people I know are really looking forward to the end of 2009 — not only was it a rough year for many, but it’s the end and culmination of a tough decade, too. Dining out in Atlanta for the past 12 months has offered a slice — literally — of what’s good and bad about the economy: Fine dining, for all intents and purposes, is dead. Real deal, upscale pizzerias, burgerias and taquerias are everybody’s favorite bite. Farm to table is more than just a menu mantra for some of our finest chefs, who are upholding sustainable kitchen practices while sourcing from local farmers. Potted foods, from pickles to ubiquitous chicken liver mousse, are taking center stage, while seasonal vegetables take a back seat only to wholesome cuts of meat such as pork shoulder and braised short ribs. And then there was that little TV show called “Top Chef.” We had far fewer openings and far too many closings, most notably the Dining Room at the Ritz-Carlton Buckhead, Trois and Taurus. Still, our restaurants hang on. Here are some of my most memorable meals from 2009.
Pizza Antico Napoletana
1093 Hemphill Ave., Atlanta, 404-724-2333, www.anticopizza.it
Few restaurants have had as much media buzz as this tiny take-out spot on the Westside where Neapolitan pizza rules and everyone else drools. One sunny afternoon, I sat at the oversized baking bench that owner and pizzaiolo Giovanni Di Palma has turned into a table and noshed on fra diavolo pizza with spicy peppers, sopressata, pepperoni and mozzarella di bufala — an entire sheet pan for my plate. The pizza here is the best in the city, but what’s really wonderful is the odd comfort this makeshift dining room offers — folks sit together, sheet pans touching, and offer each other slices while Di Palma works the room as if he were Frank Sinatra at the Sands.
La Pietra Cucina
1545 Peachtree St., Suite 100, Atlanta, 404-888-8709, www.lapietracucina.com
If pizza was first in what lit up the blogosphere in 2009, the buzz about this Italian restaurant with Bruce Logue as chef comes in a close second. Unexpected and totally satisfying, La Pietra Cucina is possibly the most authentic Italian restaurant in the area. Originally from Atlanta, Logue spent time growing up out West and even more time as a stagiaire in Italy and working at Mario Batali’s Babbo in New York. He returned to Atlanta to work at Craft, but after waiting around too long for it to open, worked on a deal with Antica Posta owner Marco Betti, an arrangement that eventually fell through. All the better for us: I remember my first visit, when I tried the pasta all’ amatriciana made with perfectly cooked bevette, a string pasta that lies somewhere between spaghetti and tagliatelle. It’s made in Roman style, with rich notes of tomato, red onion and pecorino Romano wrapped around the flavor of the pork. I long for the provisional dining room, before the space that was once Midcity Cuisine was redecorated; it felt like a special secret. But geography matters little when it comes to Logue’s fine cooking.
El Rincon Latino
5055 Buford Highway, Doraville. 770-936-8181
I started 2009 with a review of this El Salvadoran restaurant. A rainy Sunday afternoon found my daughter and me on Buford Highway to check out the pupusas, which Tierra owner Ticha Krinsky had told me were the best in the area. Everyone was stopping in after church, and the atmosphere turned from cold cafeteria to warm revival. The smell of masa mixed into dough on the griddle mingling with a little toasting cheese overwhelms as you enter, a harbinger of good things to come. El Salvadoran pupusas of fat tortillas filled with beans, cheese, ground beef and loroco, an enigmatic herb that tastes a little like asparagus mixed with green beans, make for one of my favorite meals of the year.
Restaurant Eugene
2277 Peachtree Road N.E., Atlanta. 404-355-0321, www.restauranteugene.com
When I began doling out the honor of the AJC’s Restaurant of the Year in 2005, I was drawn to the idea that it should be about more than just kudos for great cooking. It would need to be a chef-owned spot that puts food first, but one that grew from neighborhood enclave to the stature that Restaurant Eugene celebrates today: one of the finest restaurants not only in Atlanta, but in the Southeast. Chef-owner Linton Hopkins furthers his ideals — preserving Southern foodways and forwarding sustainable agriculture — by doing. He is a member of the Southern Foodways Alliance and founder of the Peachtree Road Farmer’s Market. And he was one of the first chefs in the city to list his local purveyors on the back of his menu. When I visited the restaurant in late September for Restaurant of the Year, my dinner included okra, with spears cut and seared over high heat in a cast-iron skillet, served with slightly pickled slices that were tempura battered and fried, joined by some of the kitchen’s house-made chow-chow and hot pepper jelly over a smear of creamy grits. Berkshire pork belly was crisped and at once deliciously fatty and meaty, served with tiny hakurei turnips, preserved apple and a wonderfully sweet-yet-acidic sorghum glaze.
Bocado
887 Howell Mill Road, Atlanta, 404-815-1399, www.bocadoatlanta.com
Pizza, pasta and burgers aside, Bocado was for me the surprise of the year. I had enjoyed chef Todd Ginsberg’s wares at TAP, but he’s finally found a kitchen that allows him to break from the mold and cook like a pro. My first meal here started with a simple lunch of a sandwich with roasted poblano smeared with pimento cheese and stacked with bacon and fried green tomatoes and ended with some of the best desserts all year from pastry chef Jennifer von Schlichten, who manages to update homespun treats with a modern flair. Dinner a week or so later proved that Ginsberg can cook as well as the best in the city — from a thin fillet of tender white flounder — dredged in flour, dipped in egg wash and pan fried with lemon and capers, served with a warm fingerling potato salad dotted with caraway and tossed in a warm vinaigrette and Swiss chard — to hangar steak.
Miller Union (not yet rated)
999 Brady Ave., Atlanta, 678-733-6550, www.millerunion.com
This Westside newcomer from former Sotto Sotto manager Neal McCarthy and former Watershed sous chef Steven Satterfield has a menu that bursts with seasonal flavors, and Satterfield has an eye and palate for seasonally fresh ingredients, while McCarthy warms the dining room with his British charm. Look for my review next week; until then, run, don’t walk, to sip some of Satterfield’s mustard greens soup — a velvety concoction of house-made chicken stock, greens, garlic and onions all thickened with potatoes, not cream. A dinner out with girlfriends had us laughing and sharing — auld lang syne-style — the farmhouse egg over celery cream and toast and Sapelo Island clams while sipping chilled pinot blanc.
Abattoir
1170 Howell Mill Road, inside the White Provision complex, Atlanta, 404-892-3335, www.starprovisions.com
Abattoir is by far one of my favorites of the year — and certainly my pick in the family of stellar restaurants from chef-owners Anne Quatrano and Clifford Harrison, which includes Bacchanalia, Floataway Café, Quinones at Bacchanalia and Star Provisions. Quatrano and executive chef Joshua Hopkins have fashioned wonderfully inventive — yet simple — dishes from tripe stew to newer items of chicken schnitzel — a huge breast of juicy fried chicken, cutlet-style, served in a big white bowl with shards of fennel and celery, plus bits of sweet pear in a juicy au jus. But I really love to come here on a date with my hubby, order an excellent cocktail and nibble on the chicken liver mousse and pickled shrimp — we’ve been several times since my review in July and it only gets better each time.
Phnom Penh Restaurant
4059 Lawrenceville Highway, Tucker, 770-688-8902
A quick-stop lunch at this unassuming spot between strip malls and tire centers proved what I had hoped: The food here offers the only real Cambodian menu in the area, and it’s cooked with homespun goodness. Chef and owner Malis Mam’s cooking bears the mark of this wholesome cuisine’s allure, which proffers much influence from Thailand and Vietnam, even China, but marches to its own drummer when it comes to heat and seduction, leaning more toward sturdy than spicy. Red curry over flat noodles, where coconut milk and broth meet chicken, sliced carrots, sweet yams, onions and red bell peppers, was a favorite standout over the course of my visits; the yams tend to absorb the comforting sauce, making them a vessel of starchy flavor.
Celia’s Carniceria Y Supermercado (not rated)
4664 Jimmy Carter Blvd., Norcross, 770-806-0108
Opportunity often strikes in hidden ways. Stuck in traffic for over an hour, I had made my way to Norcross to try an Indian restaurant, only to find when I got there that it was closed, unexpectedly, for the night. My dining companion had already scoped out Celia’s, which was within walking distance inside a pristine carniceria and grocery store. Tacos and gorditas abound, filled with barbecued goat and topped with lettuce, tomatoes, avocado and crema Mexicana, then blanketed generously with sprinklings of queso anejo. But the real reason to venture beyond the checkout counter is for a sincronizada, a sort of quesadilla on steroids: two corn tortillas filled with carne, cheese, lettuce, tomatoes and avocado, then grilled.
San Pancho (not rated)
4880 Lawrenceville Highway, Suite 9, Tucker, 770-493-9844
There’s little more to this real-deal taqueria than the storefront and a few small tables, a TV switched on to “Manana es para Siempre” and the counter. I remember bringing my entire family one evening to check out some of the best tacos in the area, and one of the only authentic spots that serves tacos dorados — hard, crispy-shelled tacos. Soft or hard, they can be filled with chorizo or lengua (tongue), but the best is al pastor — marinated, spicy meat Mexico City-style — or fish tacos, made with bits of fish and dressed with cilantro and spicy mixed salsas. My daughter loved the tortas — sloppy, fun and filled with chicken, cheese, tomatoes and lettuce.
Dynamic Dish (not rated)
427 Edgewood Ave., Atlanta, 404-688-4344, www.dynamicdish.net
Chef-owner David Sweeney has garnered a lot of praise for his eco-friendly vegetarian restaurant located on the edge of the Sweet Auburn district downtown. The kudos are well-deserved: He cooks with a kind of renewed intensity that can only come from having fresh ingredients and knowing how to use them. The offerings are limited, but what you get will be full of farm-to-table flavor. A friend and I sat one summer afternoon, sharing a rich sandwich of brie and sliced pears on soft, thick-sliced multi-grain bread (from Magnolia Bakery), then finished off a veggie plate of local butterbeans and kale with roasted potato salad mixed with flax seed and seasonings.
Community Q BBQ (not yet rated)
1361 Clairmont Road, Decatur, 404-633-2080, www.communityqbbq.com
David Roberts, one-third of the triumvirate that was the original Sam & Dave’s in Marietta, has opened his own barbecue joint, Community Q BBQ, in the old Epicurean space on Clairmont Road in Decatur with partners-in-pigs Stuart Baesel, who also worked at Sam & Dave’s, and Jim Laber, a former Inland Seafood dude who wants to learn the ’cue ropes. The menu offers old fashioned ’cue — Berkshire pork, including ribs, from Riverview Farms, beef ribs and brisket, chicken — with “standard” sides, as Roberts calls them, from mac ’n ‘cheese to collards. That is, of course, if you consider Roberts’ famous three-cheese mac ’n’ cheese a standard side — cheddar, Monterey jack and Parmesan meld together in cream and butter creating a goo fest for noodles.
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