Porterhouse steak at The Capital Grille (Becky Stein)

Because of complicated travel plans, my family and I ended up spending Christmas Day staying near a high-end suburban mall in a faraway city. The holiday morning greeted us with a light dusting of snow and a view of a vast, empty parking lot through our hotel window. There were no cars near the entrances to the department stores, none near the big-box restaurant bunkers lining the lot and none sidling up to any of the satellite shopping strips across the street.

AJC Chief Dining Critic John Kessler writes about all cuisines.

We could go downstairs to the hotel restaurant, where the staffers wore red felt stocking caps and smiled bravely through double shifts away from their families. But it seemed to me that some research would turn a few restaurants nearby that were open on Christmas Day.

So I turned to Santa’s little helper app, Opentable. I promptly discovered we were but two miles down the road from another cluster of …

Continue reading How to make the most of high-end chains »

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My college dormitory in upstate New York had two large communal kitchens on each floor. It also had the International House, a wing set aside for students to celebrate and share differing cultural heritages. The International House used its communal kitchen to prepare large potluck dinners that attracted students from across campus.

But the magic in those kitchens happened on the weekends, when large groups of students, often hailing from South Florida or Latin American countries, came together for informal cooking sessions. And while the smells of garlic, onions and cumin permeating the hallways were quite different from my home, they made me pine for the Sunday suppers happening at my grandmother’s house a thousand miles away.

Cuban-born Lazaro Tenreiro, owner of Lazaro’s Cuban Cuisine in Roswell, grew up in a South Florida home where the kitchen was the largest room and such family cooking gatherings were the norm. After years of praise for his cooking skills, but …

Continue reading Lazaro’s Cuban Cuisine restaurant review, Roswell »

Sauteed peppers with black vinegar at Gu's Bistro (credit for all photos: Becky Stein)

There are the Chinese restaurants you go to because they are in your neighborhood, because they deliver and, well, because the chicken lo mein could not come any more steamy and tightly packed into its cardboard box. Say no more.

AJC Chief Dining Critic John Kessler writes about all cuisines.

Then there are the Chinese restaurants you go to because there are ducks hanging in the windows and fish swimming in tanks. Or because there are hundreds of items on a menu that promises a culinary tour of an entire region of the Middle Kingdom. Or because people whose proclivities lead them to Buford Highway and other prime dining destinations cannot recommend them highly enough.

Let’s talk about the second kind.

Let’s say you venture into one of these buzzed-about Chinese restaurants, and the waiter drops a pot of tea and — thud — a menu that’s an almanac of curious foodstuffs. Noodles and …

Continue reading Tour of China: how to break the ordering rut »

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Kids and restaurants: It’s a contentious topic.

I confess that I myself moved from the “I’m not paying for a nice meal to listen to your heathens” perspective to the “I just want a nice meal, too” camp when I had my own children. Funny how that happens.

Bantam & Biddy’s chef-owner Shaun Doty, father of two, identified a need in Atlanta for a place to get a good family meal for under $50. Driving back and forth to work at Yeah Burger by way of Ansley, Doty realized that there was little in between McDonald’s and Empire State South in our dining landscape.

Inspired by the mom-and-pop Belgian bistros he grew to love while training in Europe, Doty set out to create such a place, a Southern bistro of sorts, with a menu, atmosphere and price point accessible to multiple generations, tastes and needs.

At Bantam & Biddy, Doty has succeeded, crafting what he calls “a steppingstone” between fast food and fine dining. The restaurant, located in Ansley Mall, sports …

Continue reading Bantam & Biddy restaurant review, Atlanta »

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In our Internet-driven age of information saturation, being a critic can be tricky.

To remain completely devoid of preconceptions after reading first-responder blog posts or crowd-sourced reviews often requires conscious effort, which is why I always try to avoid over researching potentially reviewable restaurants. Now more than ever, objectivity is a skill. Walking in the door with inflated expectations is often unfair to the chef, while believing every online nitpicker can make a mediocre meal pleasantly surprising.

When I decided to try Hammocks Trading Company in Sandy Springs, I had no expectations to overcome, knowing nothing about the restaurant or the chef. I knew it was seafood, but that’s it.

I had no idea that executive chef and partner William Sigley spent seven years in Las Vegas working under the likes of Todd English and Wolfgang Puck before moving to Atlanta to lead the kitchens of Aquanox, Aja, and Bone’s. Nor was I

AJC Dining Team member Jon Watson …

Continue reading Hammocks Trading Company restaurant review, Sandy Springs »

Mi Cocina's bright interior (all photos by Becky Stein unless otherwise noted)

If you’re not with the queso you love, can you love the queso you’re with?

AJC Chief Dining Critic John Kessler writes about all cuisines.

That is the question transplanted Texans ask themselves every day when they search out the Mexican food from home. They certainly will have no trouble finding hundreds of restaurants that sling tacos, enchiladas and burritos. But does any of this food taste like Texas?

“I was basically told by CNNers here from Texas that you couldn’t find any good Tex-Mex, anywhere in Atlanta,” says Travis Nichols, a news producer for the cable network who has lived here for five years. He recalls a first experience at a now-shuttered Midtown Latin restaurant where he ordered chorizo and queso and was served pepperoni and mozzarella.

But Nichols has since learned that most of the Mexican food in Atlanta isn’t that bad, and some it is actually acceptable to his band of …

Continue reading Far From the Heart of Texas: Enchiladas, Orange Queso, Frozen Margaritas »

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Almost two years ago, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s chief dining critic John Kessler wrote an open letter to Atlanta chefs calling upon them to “up [their] game,” noting that “The standards aren’t what they used to be.” He issued a 10-part challenge to the restaurant community to boost the quality of the Atlanta dining scene.

In response, chef Nick Oltarsh, then leading the kitchens of Concentrics’ Lobby Bar and Bistro and Room at Twelve, wrote an open letter to Atlanta diners, highlighting their role in supporting quality restaurants and chefs, thereby enabling them to accept Kessler’s challenge for improvement. He called for Atlantans to be more adventuresome, allowing chefs to express their creativity, and to support restaurants financially by dining out, especially on weeknights.

Now two years later, we find Oltarsh at the helm of One Midtown Kitchen, the 10-year-old Concentrics venture that has been the training ground for some of Atlanta’s …

Continue reading Atlanta revisited: One Midtown Kitchen »

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Sometimes, you just want a nice glass of rye and a Glitter Pizza.

Until a few months ago, those two things would never be found together. But no longer, now that brothers Jason and Hugh Connerty have opened Ammazza in the Old Fourth Ward — the newest hot Neapolitan pizza shop in town.

Ammazza brought with it a considerable amount of buzz, due in no small part to the fact that the Connertys at one point worked for the company that purchased the out of state franchise rights for Antico. As if a pizza place can open in this town without drawing comparisons to Antico, their brief affiliation with the Neapolitan heavyweight made things even worse.

But the similarities end with the fact that they both serve pizza. And I love that about Ammazza.

If nothing else, the Connerty brothers have created a genuinely hip vibe that their competitors lack. Diners order at

Credit: Becky Stein

the front counter and take a number back to the seating area. I was surprised when I first …

Continue reading Ammazza restaurant review, Old Fourth Ward »

What do you desire? The dining room at Tantra (photos: Becky Stein)

I know “tantra” is not the medieval Sanskrit translation for “baby got back.” It is a set of spiritual practices designed to awaken and enlighten the soul, much more than the cult of ecstasy portrayed in Western culture.

But if you’re going to name your establishment Tantra, it suggests a booty call, right? Or, at the very least, an expensive session with a specialist.

Such has been the identity challenge faced by Tantra, an ambitious restaurant that opened in late 2010 in a prime location on Peachtree Road, only to be roundly ignored by nearly everyone in the food community.

At that time a certain dining critic gave its website a cursory glance and decided the expensive Middle Eastern/Mediterranean/Indian-accented menu — as intriguing as it sounded — was a mere adjunct to a bar and lounge. Tantra, the critic surmised, would appear to be more in the business of dim lighting than dining.

But then, …

Continue reading A visit to Tantra (finally!) »

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Buttermilk purchased in supermarkets bears little resemblance to traditional buttermilk, the thin liquid byproduct of butter-churning. Commercially available (or cultured) buttermilk is created by fermenting milk with bacteria.

The concept of traditional buttermilk, of leaving nothing to waste, inspired both the name and philosophy for Buckhead’s newest breakfast and lunch eatery, Buttermilk Kitchen.

Even the design of the space, a 1930s home formerly occupied by Cafe at Pharr, was driven by this mind-set with liberal “upcycling” of materials. The decor includes original hardwood floors, a bar made from reclaimed wood, corrugated metal accents and a ceiling made entirely of old shutters. Yet it has an unfinished, somewhat discordant Pottery Barn-meets-Pinterest-project vibe.

Buttermilk Kitchen translates this philosophy into making its own lard, butter, mayonnaise and more. The restaurant buys local products when possible and organic when not. It sources goods from …

Continue reading Buttermilk Kitchen restaurant review, Buckhead »