The Seafood Menu, a new restaurant at the edge of the Atlanta University Center neighborhood, is like the steamed snow crab clusters it serves: a lot of fun, but also a bit of a mess.
Instead of opening a fine-dining destination, Dominique Armani Jones, better known as rapper Lil Baby, opted for a casual restaurant serving a menu of mostly steamed and fried seafood.
The restaurant is equally focused on takeout and dine-in customers, with the front third dedicated to a counter-service area.
The dining room is stylish and modern, more warmly lit than the very bright takeout area. Bright orange chairs and banquettes stand out against a dark floor, ceiling and trim. The playlist is exclusively rap, and the wallpaper features images of famous Atlantans.
The bar was empty on our visits, as the restaurant waited for its liquor license to come through, but it was easy to imagine a hard-partying atmosphere developing once alcohol is available. The restaurant stays open until midnight five days a week and until 2 a.m. on Fridays and Saturdays, and it’s within walking distance of Clark Atlanta University, Morehouse College and Spelman College.
Credit: Henri Hollis
Credit: Henri Hollis
The menu is relatively short, allowing the kitchen to make a couple of things really well rather than serve a large range of mediocre dishes. Most diners will be happiest sticking to the steamed and fried seafood.
The star is the steamed snow crab, available as part of several of the steamed seafood combo plates. Combo No. 1 features a snow crab cluster, half a dozen shrimp, corn and potatoes for a very reasonable $17.99.
Each steamed combo is served swimming in your choice of sauces, which are drawn butter with spices added. The garlic butter, spicy Cajun butter and lemon pepper butter all were tasty and distinctive, adding more to the seafood than would have been the case with plain drawn butter.
The generously sized crab clusters were consistently well-prepared, but diners should be ready to get messy. The restaurant gives each table a bucket with bibs, plastic silverware, wet wipes and even disposable gloves, but you won’t find any shell-cracking tools to help you dig out morsels of crabmeat. On some of the bigger legs and claws, getting the choicest hunks of meat can turn into a real battle.
While the steamed shrimp was overcooked, resulting in a bit of a mealy texture, the fried shrimp was beautifully done — tender and juicy, but still retaining a snappy bite. Unfortunately, the seasoned breading didn’t cling well to the pieces of shrimp, but the overall product still was highly enjoyable, especially when 10 large shrimp with fries cost only $12.99.
The fries at the Seafood Menu are excellent — crispy and hot, with an exterior made crusty by heavy seasoning. The other sides, such as steamed corn and potatoes, made good vehicles for sopping up the tasty butter sauces.
Credit: Henri Hollis
Credit: Henri Hollis
On each visit, our servers were friendly and conversational, without hovering, and they frequently brought extra napkins and water refills without being asked. On one visit, service occasionally dragged, but that seemed to have more to do with a demanding group at another table than our server.
While there’s much to recommend about the Seafood Menu — a fun atmosphere, good service and some decent food options at great prices — it also clearly is a work in progress.
For one, the restaurant needs to be cleaner. It’s hard to imagine the daily challenge of cleaning up after dozens of people who are smashing crabs into pieces with their hands, flicking butter droplets who knows where, but that’s what you sign up for when you open this type of restaurant. The tables seemed to be wiped down often, but seats should be brushed off and floors regularly cleaned as well. There were a few too many drain flies to excuse, too.
Also, as the Seafood Menu waited for its liquor license, its only real signature drink was a frozen lemonade available in a rainbow of flavors, including strawberry, peach, pineapple, mango and blueberry. However, we could see cases of Simply Lemonade sitting on the bar. The drink isn’t particularly expensive, so why pay $4 for grocery store lemonade poured over ice when other Coca-Cola products are only $2?
Luckily for the Seafood Menu, such problems are easy to correct, and they don’t take away from what is a great idea: a fun, accessible, inexpensive restaurant in a part of town that could use a few more locally owned places to eat.
THE SEAFOOD MENU
1 out of 4 stars (good)
Food: steamed and fried seafood
Service: friendly and typically excellent, with occasional slow spots
Noise level: moderate to loud
Recommended dishes: steamed snow crab, tempura shrimp, any fried seafood, french fries
Vegetarian dishes: plant-based diets are not accommodated
Alcohol: liquor license pending
Price range: $-$$
Hours: noon-midnight Sundays-Thursdays; noon-2 a.m. Fridays-Saturdays
Parking: paid, on the street
MARTA: Ashby Station
Reservations: recommended for dine-in service
Takeout: yes
Address, phone: 880 Martin Luther King Jr. Drive SW, Atlanta. 404-549-2563
Website: theseafoodmenu.com
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