If you’ve been looking for a way to enjoy the Atlanta Botanical Garden’s Moore exhibit, but want to best the heat, here’s an option: Cocktails in the Garden, every Thursday, features 20 of the English artist’s massive bronze sculptor’s in the cool of the evening, with cocktails and hors d’oeuvres to boot.

Drinks are paired with a featured flower or plant, and the nibbles come from a featured Atlanta restaurant. June 18 offers a taste of Murphy’s in Virginia Highland. Next week, small bites from TAP. There’s also music and strolls galore through the garden. $15 for non-members, free to members.

Continue reading Cocktails in the garden »

Visits to local farmer’s markets will tell you: Summertime is here. As we move deeper into hot summer months, fruits such as peaches and vegetables such as tomatoes are going to be abundant. (Support local blueberry sales if you can find them — almost half of our local crop has been wiped out by frost earlier this spring, followed by heavy rains.)

Both those fruits, plus many others, are perfect for making coulis. Pronounced “cool-ee,” this puree of veggies or fruits is a classic French sauce that originated, according to Alan Davidson’s foodie bible “The Oxford Companion to Food,” as a strained gravy about 600 years ago.

When I taught baking and pastry arts at Johnson & Wales University in Providence, R.I., fruit coulis were all the rage on the plated desserts my students and I sent to the student dining rooms. A fruit coulis, usually raspberry, was on my class’s second day of a six-week curriculum (old-fashioned Southern caramel sauce was first — I have my priorities). …

Continue reading Coulis: Summer Lovin’ »

My Top Five for Friday last week — some fave fried things — needs an addition to the menu: crispy fried ceci peas from newly opened Abattoir.

Laced with a whisper of cumin, these little goodies are like crack — once you start, you won’t be able to stop eating them.

One minute you’re having a little sip of a Pimm’s cup and talking about high school reunions with a friend, the next your stuffing handfuls of these starchy, nutty-tasting orbs into your pie hole by the gobful. What happens next might not be pretty. Step away from the ceci peas. Settle down. Call your ceci-pea sponsor.

Continue reading Fried Things: An Abattoir Addendum »

It took us almost two years, and my daughter, at 12, has outgrown her attraction. But last night an old friend from my childhood was in town with her 12-year-old, and we made a date for dinner at the bistro inside the American Girl doll store in Alpharetta.

I had long since put my daughter’s dolls — Samantha, Nelly, Josephina and Bitty Baby Twins, along with the zillions of dollars of excessories Santa spent on them — away in our attic. But I’ll have to pull them down again now. The evening sparked a renaissance of all things American Girl.

We started at the bistro, which was a surprising treat: The menu options for the pre-tweener set are pretty snappy: tomato and cheese flatbread (basically pizza), cheese fondue, Asian chicken salad, and warm, soft pretzels with dipping sauces. And there were lots of veggie and fruit options, as well as fruit cut into stars and hearts on skewers as garnish for entrees.

And it’s prix fixe: Everyone gets an appetizer and an entree. Chocolate …

Continue reading American Girl: Ain’t No Tom Petty »

A phone call from Bob Amick this afternoon has cleared up the issue of whether or not his sensational French restaurant, Trois, in Midtown, is to close. The answer is no. And yes.

Amick is leaving the bar area open, with a full kitchen intact, throughout the summer. The main dining room upstairs will be shut down and reconfigured. Amick owns the restaurant as part of his Concentrics Hospitality group, which includes Parish, TAP, One Midtown Kitchen and Two Urban Licks.

“In the fall, the restaurant will reopen with a whole new name, and a whole new concept,” Amick told me. “It will be very different visually — softer, warmer, with less sterility.” Amick plans to shut down the concept completely for a short time after Labor Day for a redesign that will give a totally new look and feel that will be “much more casual and accessible.” “Times are hard, and fine dining is taking the biggest hit in our industry,” said Amick. “Dining out is about making people feel good.”

As for the …

Continue reading Trois to Remain Open »

Flat Creek Lodge is making more than some of Georgia’s best cheeses these days.

For summer, the lodge and dairy, located in Swainsboro, will host local chefs at the Lodge’s dining room.

First up is former Restaurant Eugene chef de cuisine David Bies (who leaves for Tokyo in the fall). He’ll be staging on selected weekends, Thursdays – Sundays, throughout the summer. Call 877-352-8273 for more information. 367 Bishop Chapel Church Road, Swainsboro, Georgia .

Continue reading Flat Creek Lodge Pairs Dinners with Local Chefs »

Besha Rodell and the gang at Omnivore are reporting that Trois may be closing as early as next week.

In a phone call a few months ago, owner Bob Amick emphatically denied that he planned to close the contemporary French restaurant, but added that “changes” were in store. He wouldn’t say much more. The loss of chef Jeremy Lieb and the lagging economy may have hit the restaurant too hard. According to CL, the bar will remain open.

And as Trois exits, iconic Southern chef Louis Osteen enters. Fresh from failure in Las Vegas, he’s been hired as chef at the Lake Rabun Hotel in Lakemont, Ga., according to owner Gwen North. The Charleston City Paper has more.

Continue reading Louis Osteen Opens/ Trois Closes? »

Cheers, Atlanta. It’s your turn. Is there a spot in your neighborhood that you feel is perfect for a review? Have I missed out on one of the best restaurants around, but you and your buds know all about it?

Well, I’m counting on you. Each month, I’ll put a call out on Table Talk for reviews. Each month, I’ll pick my review — published online in Access Atlanta and in the AJC’s Go Guide every Friday — from one of your suggestions. It’s that simple. We’re calling it “Your Choice,” and I’ll let all of Atlanta know that you chose the restaurant for me.

Here’s what I’ll need, starting today: Post comments on the blog with the name, address, telephone and website of your favorite spot. Or you can send me an email at mford@ajc.com. C’mon, help me out!

Continue reading Got A Restaurant You’d Like Reviewed? Talk to Me »

Fried chicken? Why stop there? I mean, we Southerners are known for frying everything but shoe leather (hang on – I think I had a great uncle who did that). Chicken is only the beginning to the fried options Atlanta has to offer. Here’s a lineup of local favorites of the frite kind. Currently. My mind is bound to change in a day or so. (Note that Hugh Acheson’s fried okra at Five & Ten, which is seasonal, and Shaun Doty’s Berkshire pork schnitzel, at Shaun’s, which is a signature, are not on the list. I’ve retired their numbers out of sheer homage.)

Rathbun’s ****
112 Krog St., Atlanta. 404-524-8280
Kevin Rathbun’s eponymous restaurant continues its reign as one of the city’s most popular spots. Is it the kitchen’s sea scallop Benedict over country ham grits? The always-fun eggplant steak fries, cut thick, crisp-edged and covered in confectioner’s sugar? Absodanglutely. But veer from your favorites here for just a moment and try the fried kefalatori cheese, …

Continue reading Top Five for Friday: Fried Things »

Chef Linton Hopkins of Restaurant Eugene, Holeman & Finch and H & F Bread Co., is in the spotlight again, this time as one of the “best new chefs,” in the annual crowning of “new” talent dished out by Food & Wine every year. Of Hopkins, the foodie journal writes: “He won because he’s so passionate about Southern cooking.” Hear, hear. Hopkins is featured in the July issue which hits the stands on June 15.

My complaint remains the one I’ve had from the magazine’s inception of this feature back in 1988: Where are all the women chefs? Don’t tell me they aren’t out there. I know they are. This year only one female made the list — lovely Naomi Pomeroy of Portland’s uber cool Beast (and she used to be a vegetarian!).

Another nibble: Antica Posta’s Marco Betti is opening Joia in Midtown “within the next two weeks.” Until then diners can get a taste of the new spot at 1100 Crescent Ave., at Antica Posta with items from the menu, most under $20 featured — poached salmon with a spring …

Continue reading Friday Nibbles: Food & Wine, New Italian »