Last year, Richard Blais got back in the kitchen with the Spence, Fifth Group opened a sustainable seafood spot (Lure), and the Optimist was named “Restaurant of the Year” by Esquire Magazine. Giovanni Di Palma drafted plans for a miniature Little Italy near Georgia Tech (see Bar Antico below), Shaun Doty got into the fast-casual chicken market with the opening of Bantam and Biddy, and numerous local chefs appeared on Chopped.

What will 2013 bring? We’ve compiled the 13 most anticipated restaurants of the year—just to give you a little something to look forward to.

KR SteakBar
Scheduled to open in late February after months of delays caused by permitting, KR SteakBar will be the fourth restaurant in Chef Kevin Rathbun’s growing empire. More affordable than Rathbun’s and Kevin Rathbun Steak, KR SteakBar—located in ADAC, newly open to the public, in Peachtree Hills—will tout Italian-inspired small plates targeted at the 20- and 30-year old set.

Gunshow
Chef Kevin Gillespie recently left his longtime post at Woodfire Grill and plans to open this Glenwood Park restaurant in the spring. With a name that represents his Southern upbringing, Gunshow will have an “open format” . . . what that means exactly has yet to be revealed.

The General Muir
The West Egg Cafe team is branching out, Jewish deli-style. The General Muir will open in the new Emory Point city center early in the year. Todd Ginsberg, formerly of Bocado, will take the lead in the kitchen.

King Duke
Ford Fry supposedly has three new metro-area restaurants in the works. The first, King Duke, will take over the former Nava space in Buckhead and serve colonial American cuisine. This hearth cooking restaurant is estimated to open in March.

Bar Antico
Antico Pizza’s Giovanni di Palma opened Gio’s Chicken Amalfitano in December 2012. Next up in his Piazza San Gennaro plans is Bar Antico, where he hopes patrons will enjoy dessert and after-dinner drinks. The gelato shop and bar are set to open near Georgia Tech in the spring.

Villains
After several pop-ups in the fall, Villains’ “wickedly good” sandwiches will open in the former Little Azio space in Midtown come February. Alex Broustein (Grindhouse Burgers), Jason McClure (formerly of FLIP), and Jared Lee Pyles (formerly of HD1) promise a new, decadent take on regional classics.

Chick-a-biddy
The sister restaurant of Shaun Doty’s Bantam and Biddy, Chick-a-biddy will be a smaller rotisserie chicken spot in Atlantic Station. Look for it in the spring.

Foundation
If everything goes according to plan, Inman Park residents can expect a new restaurant, led by chef Mel Toledo (formerly of Bacchanalia), on DeKalb Avenue this winter. Not much has been said about the food, but ai3 is designing the interior, so you can expect a fun vibe.

Ink & Elm
Said to celebrate the history of Druid Hills and particularly Frederick Law Olmsted’s role in designing it, Ink & Elm will open in Emory Village this winter and feature a lounge, tavern and dining room specializing in Southern cuisine.

Chai Pani
This Indian street food restaurant helms from Asheville and is moving into the old Watershed space in Decatur. It will likely open in the first quarter of 2013.

Octopus
Angus Brown and Nhan Lee of Octopus Bar have been scouting locations to turn their late-night sensation into a restaurant that serves dinner at regular hours. The opening date is yet to be determined, but we do know Brown is traveling to Vietnam this winter, so spring or summer seems more likely.

BoccaLuppo
Bruce Logue bought the old Sauced space from Ria Pell and plans to open BoccaLuppo, an Italian-American restaurant, there in the spring. Logue promises a pasta bar, local cheeses, and perhaps some old favorites from his days at La Pietra Cucina, such as Calabrese sausage.

Airport eats
Okay, we cheated a bit here. So many well-known Atlanta restaurants are opening outposts in Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport this year that we just couldn’t name them all individually. We’re excited for Varasano’s Pizzeria, Ecco, Chicken & Beer (from Ludacris), Twist, and more.

Kevin Gillespie‘s first cookbook, Fire in My Belly, came out earlier this week. Back when we announced that Gillespie would be leaving Woodfire Grill, I mentioned that the cookbook was a part of a plan for Gillespie to reinvent his career: leaving the restaurant that he made his name with and opening up a new one, Gunshow, that intends to be radically different from the table-linen fine dining experience at Woodfire.

That big restaurant news shouldn’t overshadow the accomplishments of this cookbook, though. As Gillespie explained to me, the two years of work that went into testing and developing recipes for the massive, 356 page book were painstakingly thorough and biographically driven. Gillespie speaks about the book with the kind of youthful passion that reminds you just how much he’s accomplish despite being barely 30 years old.

Gillespie is currently on the road doing a nationwide book tour for Fire in My Belly. If you can’t catch him at one of those dates, the interview below should give you some insight into his work.

When did you start working on the book? Let’s see, I gotta’ timeline backwards here. It was due December of last year so I started working on it basically the December before that.

December 2010? Exactly. It took almost exactly one year to write the book properly. Properly write the book. We knew from the very beginning that we wanted the book to be able to embody an entire year so that we could truly express seasonality. And so we slated that full amount of time for recipe development.

Where did you do the testing? We did almost all of it at Woodfire Grill. We would get up super early, and I mean like 4:30 in the morning, and come to work and be there at about 5 a.m, and start doing the recipes and then we would work to about 10 on the book and then clean up and start the regular day on the restaurant work. It was a really long year, to say the least.

Did you have like your sous working with you on it? I did. I had my chef de cuisine E.J., who’s been working with me for years. He was there almost every recipe session. I’d give him a few off, periodically I’d just lie to him so he wouldn’t come in but for the most part he was there. And then Gena Berry was our recipe tester, and she was there every day. Because the way that we did it — rather than — I never knew what I was making on any day that we came in.

What E.J. and I would do is that we would order products from our farmers, just like we do for the restaurant. And we would come in super early, and we would just take stuff out of the cooler — whatever was truly in season at that moment, whatever looked best — and we just sort of set it upstairs. And then Gena would come in and she usually had an assistant, and I would just come up with the dishes there. I’d sorta draft out an idea and we would start cooking. Every time I’d cut up an onion, she’d take it and put it on the scale and say, “Ok, it weights this much” or “1 cup.” I wasn’t focused on how much of this and how much of that. I was focused on creating the dish the way that I would cook it based on — I wanted to express that once you reach a point, cookery is not about knowing a cup of this or an ounce of that. It’s about being able to be instinctive enough to know that that’s enough or that’s not enough. And so the only way to capture that was for me just to do it naturally and her document the quantity.

Once that was done and I made that dish, then she would take the recipe that she had just written and she would reproduce the dish. If her’s and mine’s matched, then it was given the thumbs up to go to home recipe testers to try it. If their’s matched ours, then we said “Ok, the recipe works.” If there was a breakdown anywhere in that chain, we went back to the start, to me, and said, “Ok, what happened to their dish. Ok, this happened. All right. Well, then somewhere in here we didn’t acknowledge something that I did.” And then we would go back and redo it or scrap it entirely.

That’s incredibly thorough. It was because I remember when I was young, and I wanted to learn how to cook and I had the books from all the famous chefs at the time, all the people on television. And some worked and some didn’t. And it was a really frustrating moment for you because I didn’t know whether I was the variable or whether the recipe was variable. I can say confidently at this point that it was a little of both. But I can also say that I’ve seen many recipes in really great books that missed something, and they just don’t work. And that was frustrating. I didn’t want anyone to ever take my book, sit down with it, and try to make something and be able to say, “Well the book just doesn’t explain what I need to know to be able to make this happen.”

Right. You shot pretty wide with your recipes, too. It’s a pretty broad book.  It is because, you know, once again I just didn’t want to pigeon hole this book into being something — the reality is that as a cook, I’ve been thrust into a movement that I care a lot about. But that does not encompass everything that I believe in as far as being a cook. I have a tendency to cook professionally a style of food that fits into the modern southern movement, but as a cook in the world, I appreciate food from all over everywhere, and I wanted a book that really hit on that subject matter. I was tired of reading chefs books that made it seem like we were so much better at what we do than regular people are.

I think that the difference between a home cook and a professional has more to do with hours logged in the kitchen than anything else. I don’t think that we’ve been bestowed some amazing gift that you can’t get for yourself if you’re willing to do it sixteen hours a day for a decade. You know? I mean, there’s no mystery as to why I’m better at this. I do it all-day, every day.

I wanted to write a book from a professional that showed my professional life, that showed my personal life, and one that just said, “You know what. I’m just not going to bullshit anybody here. Let’s just say what we wanna’ say about things.” If I don’t like something, I’m just going to say “I don’t like it.” Or, you know, I think there’s something to be able to admit that I’m a professional that has a restaurant that serves very fine food, but I like ramen noodles and hot wings, too. It’s food. You know, I love food. As a cook, I love food, and that’s not — I didn’t say I love only the finest cuisine. No, I just love food in general. And so why not write a book that expressed that? It seemed more real.

Like those dueling ramen recipes that you have from you and E.J. — you have that sense of what actually is going on in the kitchen there. It’s common now in cookbooks to have the intro essay or the intro to the beginning of the chapter, but almost every recipe is some sort of like tieback to your family or an experience in your life. Well, for me, every dish that I cook has to be put in context for it to be relevant. I’m not much for simply doing something for the sake of doing it. Every dish that I cook at the restaurant and in my life has a story. The story might be real simple. It might be that my wife loves so-and-so so that’s why I make it. Or it might be so much more than that. And for me, any time someone has tried to explain something to me in life — to learn to do this or learn to do that —, if it could be accompanied by an explanation of why, that always seemed to give it more of an ability to solidify in my mind. So, before you ever see the steps to how to make this dish, I mean I want to tell you the story of where it came from or I wanna’ go ahead and say, you know, just point out that the direction this is going is here so if you can get your head wrapped around that. I think that people know where it came from before they ever read it helps explains a lot of things.

Then there was a secondary reason behind it, which was that I didn’t want this just to be a cookbook, I didn’t want this to be a collection of recipes. I knew that this was my opportunity, finally, to say what I wanted to say and to try to give people a better insight into who I am. The reality is that I was on a television show that was wildly popular and people have begun to know me, but they know a very specific set of things that they’ve seen. They know edited footage. And it’s not to say that’s inaccurate but it is to say that it’s very shortsighted. There’s so much more to me than that. And the reality is that there’s not a day that passes now that people that I don’t know come up to me and introduce themselves to me and they feel like they know me, and I am constantly in these moments where I’m engaging with people on a very personal level, and I wanted an opportunity to give even more for people. When they take this book home, I think that when they read it, they will actually know me quite a bit better than they did from just watching me on Top Chef.

One of the things that stood out to me is this chapter of foods you thought that you hated. And there’s like a number of anecdotes that—please correct me if I’m wrong—but makes you sound like a bit of finicky eater as a kid. Absolutely. I think I was like most kids, and I was like just most Americans or people in general. I think there is mythology surrounding chefs that we somehow or another were born into this world with an advanced palate, and we came out of the womb only appreciating the things of — the progress of Joel Robuchon or the attempts of Paul Bocuse. And it’s just not true. I came out as a little kid who didn’t like things that were green and squirmed at the things that seemed slightly abnormal. It took me trying to — it took me wanting to grow out of that to grow out of it. You know, I had motivation. I chose to do this for a living. So, it was either keep disliking these things and limit what you can cook and what — how you’ll be as a chef or learn to at least wrap your head around them and hopefully grow up.

I just think that’s something people can sympathize — emphasize maybe is a better term. Not a day passes without someone telling me about what they don’t like at the restaurant, and it doesn’t bother me when they say “I don’t like this” or “I don’t like that.” If anything, it challenges to try to find something for them that will change that. I think it’s an extremely empowering moment when you try something you previously thought you hated and you get to let go of that. I hated Brussels sprouts my whole life, and now I can say that I hated all the ones I had up until now, but I know that I don’t hate Brussels sprouts. I just don’t like what I had before. That’s huge. I want to provide that for people because I clearly remember all of those moments. They obviously meant something to me that I’ve been able to remember them and catalog them over my lifespan — the day I stopped liking this or that.

That timeline is very specific. It was huge for me. It means a lot, and I wanted to start with that chapter because I think it does a couple things. The first thing is that I think it sets the tone for this book being different. I don’t know that anybody else that has started a book out with a bunch of recipes that are going to be controversial. The most controversial recipes of the book start at page one. And two it gives it a sense a humanity. And I don’t mean this as a slight against The French Laundry or Eleven Madison Park but it’s not a tome of precise restaurant cookery. It’s never meant to be that. I cook professionally. It’s what I do for a loving, but I’m a person who cares and loves food and I think there are a lot of us out there that do that, and I was talking to them more than I was talking to anyone else.

We reviewed 2012 a couple weeks back. What will 2013 bring? Here are the thirteen restaurants we’re most anticipating:

KR SteakBar
Scheduled to open in late February after months of delays caused by permitting issues, KR SteakBar will be Kevin Rathbun’s fourth Atlanta restaurant. Set at a lower price point than Rathbun’s and Kevin Rathbun Steak, KR SteakBar, located in ADAC (the design center newly open to the public) in the Peachtree Hills section of Buckhead, will feature Italian-inspired small plates and petite cuts of steak.

Gunshow
Chef Kevin Gillespie cooked his last meat at Woodfire Grill on New Year’s Eve and plans to open this Glenwood Park restaurant in the spring. With a name that represents his Southern upbringing, Gunshow will have an “open format” … and what that means exactly has yet to be revealed.

The General Muir
The West Egg Cafe team is branching out with a Jewish-style deli. The General Muir will open in the new Emory Point city center early in the year. Todd Ginsberg has already left his post at Westside’s Bocado to take the lead in the General Muir’s kitchen.

King and Duke
Ford Fry has at least three new metro-area restaurants in the works. The first, King and Duke, will take over the former Nava space in Buckhead and serve “Colonial American” cuisine (for now, we only know that means plenty of cooking in the restaurant’s large hearth). Expect an April opening.

Bar Antico
Antico Pizza’s Giovanni di Palma opened Gio’s Chicken Amalfitano last month. Next up in his plans for his Piazza San Gennaro (his nickname for the businesses he’s opening on his block of Hemphill Avenue near Fourteenth Street) is Bar Antico, where he will serve dessert and after-dinner drinks. The gelato shop and bar are set to open near Georgia Tech in the spring.

Villains
After several pop-up trial runs in the fall, Villains’ “wickedly good” sandwiches will open in the former Little Azio space in Midtown come February. Alex Broustein (Grindhouse Burgers), Jason McClure (formerly of Flip), and Jared Lee Pyles (formerly of HD1) promise a new, decadent take on handheld meals.

Foundation
If everything goes according to plan, Inman Park residents can expect a new restaurant led by chef Mel Toledo (formerly of Bacchanalia) on DeKalb Avenue this winter. Not much has been said about the food, but ai3 is designing the interior, so expect a fun, smart vibe.

Ink & Elm
Also being designed by ai3, this 7,000-square-foot behemoth in Emory Village (with both a lounge and restaurant) will feature Southern cuisine from Atlanta native Stephen Sharp, whose resume includes Blue Ridge Grille and French American Brasserie (FAB). Winter or spring.

Chai Pani
This Indian street food restaurant hails from Asheville and is moving into the former Watershed space in Decatur. It will likely open in the first quarter of 2013.

Octopus
Angus Brown and Nhan Le of Octopus Bar have been scouting locations to turn their late-night sensation into a restaurant that serves dinner at regular hours. The opening date is yet to be determined, but we do know Brown is traveling to Vietnam this winter, so a summer or fall launch seems probable.

Pura Vida Redux
Hector Santiago closed his longstanding Poncey-Highland favorite on December 31 when his lease on the building ended. Santiago and his wife, Leslie, are hunting for a larger space in which to reopen—hopefully by the end of the year.

BoccaLupo
Bruce Logue bought Sauced, located on Edgewood a few blocks northeast of Ammazza and Miso Izakaya, from Ria Pell and plans to open Italian-themed BoccaLupo there in the spring. Logue promises a pasta bar, local cheeses, and perhaps some old favorites from his days at La Pietra Cucina.

Airport Eats
Okay, we cheated a bit here. So many well-known Atlanta restaurants are opening outposts in Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport this year that we just couldn’t name them all individually. Before your summer vacation to Europe, plan to arrive early for a meal, choosing from among Varasano’s Pizzeria, Ecco, Chicken & Beer (from Ludacris), Twist, and more.

Plenty has already been written about the controversial name of Kevin Gillespie’s forthcoming restaurant, Gunshow. Despite some objections, he decided to keep the name as a tribute to his father, who worked seven days a week to feed his family, yet would make time to occasionally visit a gun show on Sundays with his son. Gillespie dreamed up the Gunshow concept after hearing from his mother that his pop never quite felt comfortable dining at Woodfire Grill (where Gillespie worked for nine years).

“Gunshow is founded on the values that I hold truest—humility, the desire to create a healthful dining experience,” he says. “Success is driven by sacrifice. It was really hard to leave Woodfire, but my heart was just not in it anymore. That makes every piece of this a little harder because of the tremendous personal connection I have to it.”

Keeping it personal for diners as well, Gunshow is designed to make people feel like they’re at home—not in the sense that the restaurant looks like a house (it doesn’t), but instead focusing on a convivial transparency to the experience.

“You can sit anywhere in the restaurant and see everyone else. It has this feeling of ‘We’re all in this together,’” he says. “The walk-in cooler’s in the dining room—you can see the fridge at home, so why not? There are no mysteries or secrets; it’s just dinner.”

Gunshow will have three circulating carts from which diners can select food. Despite rumors that stated otherwise, Gunshow will have menus, which will change weekly. They describe almost all of the food served that week with the exception of the snacks and desserts, to allow for more flexibility in the kitchen. Snacks might be Swedish meatballs made with lamb and pork, salmon chicharrones, to short rib tamales, and headcheese nuggets (similar to pork fritters). Desserts may include bonbons, candy and cookies.

The rest of the menu is as varied as the inspiration for the way the food is served—a cross between Brazilian churrascarias and Chinese dim sum. Items may include spring vegetables in Georgia pollen, pork skin risotto, braised short rib with lemon spaetzle and “stroganoff sauce,” and tunnbrodsrulle—described as hot dog, potato, shrimp, dill, and “another Swedish thing.” They’ll be prepared by Gillespie and his team, whom diners can watch in the completely open kitchen. Gillespie himself will likely be pushing one of the food carts! And when Gillespie has to go out of town—say, for a book tour—his good friend Marco Shaw, formerly executive chef at Piedmont in Durham, N.C., will fill in.

For such a personal restaurant, it may come as no surprise that everything from the food to the decor is sourced locally. Gillespie’s grandfather built the butcher blocks. The napkins (gray Americana bandanas) come from the last independent bandana manufacturer in the country. A guy in Cartersville made the burned wood tables that so perfectly reflect the color of the barns where tobacco was hung when Gillespie was a child.

Gillespie’s parents—who inspired the very foundation of Gunshow—have not seen the restaurant yet. They have plans to come in for the Friends and Family night, which is scheduled for next Tuesday but will likely be delayed due to inspections and permitting. “We’ll find a way,” Gillespie says.

Gunshow is scheduled to open May 8. For reservations, call 404.380.1886.

4th & Swift. Bocado. Flip Burger Boutique. Local Three. Holeman & Finch Public House. Miller Union. Gunshow. These restaurants may all look different, have different menus, and serve different facets of the community, but they have one thing in common: They were designed by ai3. The design and architecture firm uses a unique, collaborative process to take restaurants from an idea in someone’s head to an aesthetically unique and functional space. How exactly does restaurant design go from concept to completion? Ai3 partner Lucy Aiken-Johnson walks us through the process.

You start with a Vision Session guided by questions on Post-it notes. What kind of questions do you ask?
We always start with the players. Everyone introduces himself and shares a bit about how they met and got to this point. From there, we start with hard questions: How will you measure your success? How will you measure our success? We want to be able to meet expectations. Then we discuss concepts, vision, mission, philosophy, and what that represents. What’s the inspiration behind the restaurant’s name? Why this restaurant and why now?

Do people usually have answers for all these questions?
Some people have been working on the restaurant for 10 years and have a business plan and a three-ring binder with five years’ worth of images from magazines or online. Some just have the opportunity presented to them; it was right place and right time and they’re looking for a good fit for the neighborhood. Our role is as listeners. Some people love to talk and will be here for four hours; with others, we have a succinct, 1½ hour conversation.

Where does it go from there?
We hit on innovation. Is there something you believe will differentiate you: maybe the menu, drink program, etc.? What will be the most memorable thing for diners? What do you want people tweeting when they walk out of the restaurant? It gives us a challenge to find that “differentiator” if the restaurateurs don’t know right off the bat. We obviously don’t want everything to look alike or tell the same story. It puts the challenge on us. Some people are more articulate than others.

We create eight-foot tall, four-foot wide image boards with pictures all over them. Sometimes we can interpret things in a way the client wasn’t able to see. Sometimes we’ve read about a trend and hear them talk about it without realizing it. It can be a challenge to steer them away from what’s already been done. Everybody has reclaimed wood. Sometimes it’s just saying that nicely and reminding them that this is their opportunity to make it all theirs.

What if what they want is what everyone else already has?
We have them describe what they like about that look or feel and then we find something different that fits it. After all, what you think is modern might not be what I think is modern. The images give us visual tools to understand peoples’ preferences.

What comes after the innovation discussion?
After innovation, we do Post-its about the experience, and we profile who the guest is—where are they coming from? Is it a neighborhood place or a destination? What kind of crowd do they expect—couples or family?

Then we talk the experience. What will the online presence be like? Social media? Website? Is there valet? What happens at the front door? Is there a waiting lounge or do people hang out at the bar? How do you want to handle menus? What does the staff wear: Jeans? Are there white tablecloths? We talk about plating, table settings, flowers, and candles. Often they know in their heads what they want and we try to get it out.

Wow, that’s a lot. So do you split up each conversation (innovation, experience) into different sessions?
Nope, they’re all in the same session. We also ask about color, and we talk about benchmarks—competitors or people they admire. We ask why they like them and ask them to share any lessons they’ve learned from previous restaurants. We want to know what went wrong if you built out a space before so we can avoid that issue and/or pay special attention to it.

How do you store all of this information?
We collect it all in the vision book with handwritten notes and visuals. Then we use that to establish the goals and we keep referencing it. Sometimes clients use it as a fundraising tool.

What happens next?
Schematic level design. We take down the program components—the number of seats needed, dining room versus bar—for a planning exercise. Our team builds a 3-D model to see where the opportunities for memorable pieces are, where the server station and high chairs will go. We create renderings and then have a big design presentation. We try to bring samples of the chairs or bar stools so the client can sit in them and get a feel for the look, as well as make sure they are comfortable.

For some projects, we do pricing packages. We give the details to the contractor. They get permits from the city. The construction starts. We’re usually out there one or two times a month to protect the design intent. We help purchase the furniture, and get it stored and then installed. The restaurant usually has a Friends and Family night with our team. We all toast to the completion.

After a bout of doldrums, when only a handful of exciting restaurants opened in each of the last few years, 2013 is fizzing with activity. And among the new crop, Gunshow stands out as one of the most promising, perplexing, interactive, and utterly ballsy restaurants Atlanta has ever seen. Three chefs—including owner Kevin Gillespie, whose flaming beard draws the eye like a male cardinal—scramble in an open kitchen, artfully composing dishes on small plates. Then they take to the floor. Rather than ordering from a menu, guests choose their feast as the chefs themselves circulate their creations. Meals often take on the qualities of both performance art and reality television.

And like any enthralling drama, a surprise plot twist occasionally pops up to confound and tickle the audience. On one recent night the kicker was beef Wellington, rolled toward the table on a cart out of the mists of 1950s dinner parties. How many of us have even had the proper version of this butt of jokes, this symbol of fogey Continental corniness? A log of tenderloin is covered with duxelles (essentially mushroom paste) and then wrapped in puff pastry and baked; most who attempt the recipe find the meat cooked to well-done and the dough drooping into a sodden mess.

But not this beauty queen. The meat blushed rosy under taffeta pastry, ringed by an inner layer of pureed mushrooms lightened to a mousse. Joseph Ward, the cook who tackled the beast, sawed off a generous slice onto a white plate with frilly blue etchings. He dolloped the beef with béarnaise sauce heady with tarragon and surrounded it with potatoes and smoked mushrooms cooked in beef fat. My table of food lovers shook our heads, marveling at how flawlessly he pulled the whole thing off. (I learned later that Ward cooked the beef sous vide, for starters.)

And then, like other gems before and since, the dish disappeared at week’s end. Will it return? Maybe. Maybe not. That’s part of thirty-year-old Gillespie’s blueprint. He’s been mulling over how to rejigger the restaurant experience for several years. His ascent to the finals on season six of Bravo’s Top Chef in 2009 resuscitated business at Woodfire Grill, where Gillespie was then executive chef, and which he and two partners had bought the previous year from the original chef-owner, Michael Tuohy. Gillespie’s whirlwind success was encouraging, but he felt increasingly restless in the codified fine-dining format: the formality of the coursed service, the separation between the cooks and the guests. How could he buck the system while still serving high-caliber cuisine?

He toyed with the idea of opening a barbecue joint, and he wrote a cookbook, Fire in My Belly, that was a James Beard award finalist this year. Gillespie finally left Woodfire in January to open Gunshow, a fifty-four-seat corner space long vacant in the Glenwood Park development just off I-20, between Grant Park and East Atlanta Village.

He chose a brilliantly deviant name, and its political associations are unavoidable. I mean, you half expect to find a poster of Charlton Heston on the wall, hoisting an antique rifle and bellowing his “cold, dead hands” line. But its origins are strictly sentimental: Gillespie wanted to honor his father, who worked seven days a week to support his family in North Georgia. On the occasional Sunday afternoon when his dad was free, he would take young Kevin to a gun show for some bonding time.

The restaurant itself is astonishingly spare: The kitchen stretches along the back wall, with a massive walk-in cooler sitting in plain sight on the far end. Handsome burnt-maple tables are often connected, communal-style, by baseless tabletops secured with C-clamps. Gunshow has the transient feel of a pop-up, save for the name emblazoned on the dropped wall over the kitchen. The letters are so mammoth they’re visible from the street through the floor-to-ceiling windows—no outside signage required. Harsh overhead fluorescents bear down mercilessly. Blanche DuBois would not approve.

But hey, you do need to see your dinner before you select it. Here’s how it works: The hostess gives each table one menu with general descriptions of the night’s selections. A server fills beer and wine orders. (At some point the team will build a bar and begin serving cocktails.) When the chefs finish, say, six to ten portions of a dish, they dash to customers and, carrying a tray or wheeling a cart, entice with detailed descriptions, perhaps telling a story behind the recipe, and diners decide if they want what’s being pitched. A staffer trails behind the chefs, making a check mark on your menu for each item chosen. When a chef’s food is gone, he hustles back behind the counter to compose his next offering. A choreographed ebb and flow develops between who’s stirring the pots and who’s circulating in the dining room. Some may feel the near-steady barrage of options to be intrusive or disorienting; I find it enthralling. (And this manner of service may soon be a national trend. State Bird Provisions in San Francisco opened last year adopting a similar format, with cooks swerving dim sum–style carts through the dining room. Bon Appétit magazine named it their 2012 restaurant of the year.)

Snacks arrive first, usually potent little bites like Swedish meatballs with sliced green strawberries or deep-fried headcheese coated in crunchy panko and dotted with mustard seeds and slivered pickles for acidic pop. A salad may careen by, perhaps lightly cured trout with sweet corn niblets, ribbons of shaved carrot, and chopped green beans in a limey vinaigrette. As more substantial plates come into rotation, and you grow accustomed to looking the chefs in the eye to accept or reject their labors, you start to discern their individual styles—and even detect a subtle competition among them. Gillespie is Mister Meat. Expect him to be sawing off the barbecued ribs or delivering bowls of pork-skin risotto, which tastes like the rich, distilled essence of eastern North Carolina whole-hog barbecue. Gillespie is also relaxed enough in his own joint to let his inner food dork shine through: He confessed one night that a batch of gargantuan smoked duck legs, with foil wrapped at their bases so we could eat them by hand, was inspired by Renaissance festivals.

Joseph Ward and Andreas Müller, Gillespie’s kitchen comrades, both worked as sous chefs at Woodfire Grill. Ward veers toward modernism: He’ll bring out octopus sidled up to squid-ink risotto veneered with cured lardo, surrounded by drips and dots of sauces. But he’s also the most playful with Americana: Beyond the Wellington, I hope his “West Coast burger”—a variation of In-N-Out Burger’s “Double-Double, Animal Style,” two griddled patties with cheese, grilled onions, and pickles—soon reappears. I may or may not have eaten two in one sitting. Among these antics, Müller plays the straight man. Count on him to hand out a universal favorite like catfish surrounded by Lowcountry boil staples (potatoes, sausage, a chunk of corn on the cob). He hails from Sweden, and I’m anxious for him to ramp up his output of Scandinavian flavors, which are next to nonexistent in our dining scene.

Gillespie’s rule of thumb for the menu lineup is this: If the chefs get bored with any one thing, or if the dish proves overwhelming to continually reproduce, it gets bumped. That certainly takes the “chef-driven” cliche into fresh territory. I don’t want him to grow jaded with his grandmother’s warm, custardy banana pudding with a cap of toasted meringue, but I do wish he’d bring it back more often. It’s not as seasonal as a fried peach pie (that appeared over multiple weeks and more than once needed extra time in the fryer to turn golden and crisp), but it’s a much more gratifying end to a meal.

Gunshow thrills and throws diners off balance in the best possible way, but it is also an evolving experiment. A few tweaks on the top of my list: There’s talk of adding a fourth chef to the mix, and I’d encourage this person to be particularly strong at vegetable cookery, which is woefully underrepresented among the surfeit of meat. Also, the prices can be high, and it’s not easy to keep track of costs during the meal’s flow. I gladly paid $19 for the Wellington; not so much for a crock of mac and cheese studded with beef sausage that cost $13. There also seems an opportunity for the right sommelier to come in and rock the beverage program, which in the restaurant’s early days feels haphazard (though affordable, with the majority of by-the-bottle wines priced in the $35 range, and there’s no corkage fee to bring your own).

Don’t let any of that discourage you from going. Call ahead for reservations, particularly on weekends. Gillespie’s reputation and the restaurant’s game-changing formula make Gunshow the culinary conversation piece of the year, and the curious are showing up in droves.

Gunshow
RATING ** (very good)
924 Garrett Street, Suite C
404-380-1886
gunshowatl.com
HOURS Tuesday–Saturday 6–9:30 p.m.

This article originally appeared in our August 2013 issue.

Taste of Atlanta is only a couple of weeks away. This year’s food fest, held October 25 through 27 at Tech Square, features samples from more than ninety local restaurants, four stages of cooking demonstrations, a barcraft competition, and a “Taste Revival” kickoff event hosted by Ron Eyester of Rosebud, the Family Dog, and Timone’s.

Friday night kickoff
Titled “Local Chefs, Smokin’ Jams,” Taste Revival tickets cost $70 (or $95 for a V.I.P. ticket) and include live music by Parker Smith and the Bandwith, as well as musically inspired eats created by chefs like Ford Fry, Drew Belline, and Shaun Doty. The evening begins at 7:30 p.m. (or 6:30 p.m. for V.I.P.), and the proceeds benefit Georgia Organics. Read on for a glimpse at what they’ll be serving and why.

Steven Satterfield of Miller Union
• Grilled Hakurei turnips, cippolini onions, Benton’s bacon, and wilted turnip greens
• Inspired by “Smoke on the Water” by Deep Purple


Adam Evans of the Optimist
• Octopus and smoked chicken thigh skewers
• Inspired by “Free Bird” by Lynyrd Skynyrd


Kevin Gillespie of Gunshow
• Tandoori chicken with coconut braised collards
• Inspired by “I’m No Angel” by Gregg Allman


Keith Schroeder of High Road Craft
• Smoked sugar sweet potato, vanilla fleur de sel ice cream, mascarpone mousse, candied bacon, and thyme brittle
• Inspired by “Johnny Appleseed” by Joe Strummer & the Mescaleros


The main event
Saturday and Sunday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. (or 12:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. for V.I.P) Tech Square will be filled with booths offering samples from restaurants like Ocean Prime, Chai Pani, and the Spence. These “tastes” can be purchased for one to three tickets, depending on the offering. The $30 (or $40 at the door) admission cost includes ten tickets, and additional tickets are available for $1 each. The $75 (or $85 at the door) V.I.P. ticket price includes access to beer, wine, and cocktail tastings. Tastes served will include:

1 Kept
• Grilled pork tenderloin, Logan Turnpike Mills grits, broccolini, cherry orange compote, and garlic jus
• Deviled quail eggs with bacon jam

Buttermilk Kitchen
• Fried Egg BLT with pickled green onions and lemon mayonnaise

The Family Dog
• Braised Springer Mountain chicken chili

King Duke
• Merguez sausage, cheese curd, roasted chiles, and dates
• Smoked Cotechino, fall squash and spicy greens

One Flew South
• Seared lamb sausage with German-style potato salad and shallots

Rosebud
• Tempura eggplant chips with curry ketchup and feta

Leave everything you know about traditional restaurant service at the door of Kevin Gillespie’s new Glenwood Park funhouse. For starters, you don’t order from a menu. Seating in the open, clamorous space is often communal. Cutting out middlemen waiters, the Top Chef alum and two other cooks—Joseph Ward and Andreas Müller, both former sous chefs during Gillespie’s tenure at Woodfire Grill—peddle the weekly changing dishes they prepare themselves. When one is finished making, say, sliced duck breast with chanterelles or Jamaican curried goat or South Indian cashew chicken, they dash to customers. Carrying a tray or wheeling a cart, they entice with detailed descriptions, and you decide right then if you want the dish or not. In a style similar to dim sum service, a staffer then marks a box on your menu, which is tallied at the end of the night. Another server fills beer and wine orders and checks in on your general contentment.

This experimental setup, which can sometimes feel like the pilot for a reality show/cooking series hybrid, doesn’t encourage intimate table conversation. But it does make for the most enjoyably interactive and wholly original dining experience in the city. One big hint: Thursday and Friday are the ideal days to visit, when the three chefs have finely tuned the week’s dishes and food circulates through the dining room at a pleasing, even rhythm. The outside-the-box format—and the name, actually a sentimental homage to Gillespie’s favorite childhood pastime with his father—has made Gunshow the year’s most provocative restaurant. I love it; I know others who don’t. Check it out and draw your own conclusions.

This story originally appeared in our September 2013 issue.

As the saying goes, you win some, and you lose some. This year we saw famed mixologists leave their longtime outposts, award-winning chefs open new “it” spots, and the restaurant community band together to help one of their own. As we welcome in the new year, we pause to take a look back at what happened in 2013.

January
The team behind West Egg Café opens the General Muir in Emory Pointe. Crowds flock to try Todd Ginsberg’s Jewish-style deli’s bagels, schmears, and house-cured and smoked meats. Our own Bill Addison later names it Atlanta’s Restaurant of the Year.

February
Kevin Rathbun’s fourth restaurant, KR SteakBar, becomes the first to open in Peachtree Hills’ Atlanta Decorative Arts Center (ADAC). Led by executive chef Chris McDade, it broadens Rathbun’s focus from steaks and seafood to pastas and shared plates.

March
After three decades in Brookwood, Café Intermezzo moves to Midtown. While the new space lacks historic charm, a prime location and patio visibility are big improvements.

Everybody’s Pizza—in business since 1971—and adjacent Steady Hand Pour House shut their doors, making way for Slice & Pint. Carver’s Country Kitchen closes with plans to reopen in a new location on the Westside. Owner Sharon Carver later changes her mind and decides to sell the property.

Meanwhile, Chai Pani brings Indian street food from Asheville to Decatur, and Tyler Williams begins serving creative combinations at Woodfire Grill.

April
Atlanta’s only rotating restaurant, the Sun Dial closes for renovations. It reopens in August with a new menu and updated interior.

May
Later named one of Atlanta’s Best New Restaurant, Kevin Gillespie opens Gunshow in Glenwood Park, proving that the churrascaria-dim sum method of serving can work in other types of restaurants. Ford Fry outdoes himself yet again with King + Duke’s wood-roasted meats and fish; and Fuyuhiko Ito (formerly of MF Buckhead) brings high-end sushi back to the area with the opening of Umi.

Despite an outpouring of social media support to keep it open, Aurora Coffee closes in Virginia-Highland. The Little Five Points location remains open.

June
The bottom level of the Brookwood building facing Peachtree Street is finally full, thanks to the opening of Saltyard. Here Atlantans congregate for small plates and wine, spilling out onto the restaurant patio when the weather is nice.

July
A kitchen fire breaks out at Rathbun’s, temporarily closing the restaurant. In another stroke of bad luck, an accident while investigating fire damage takes chef and proprietor Kevin Rathbun off of his feet for a few weeks.

After a 4th of July bash, the original Victory Sandwich Bar in Inman Park closes to make way for a mixed-use development. It will reopen in the old Park’s Edge location by April 2014.

In Athens, Five & Ten moves from Lumpkin Street to Milledge Avenue, making way for a Mexican spot called Cinco y Diez.

August
Ryan Smith leaves Empire State South to focus his attention on the much-anticipated Staplehouse, where he’ll work alongside Ryan and Jen Hidinger as a partner.

HD1 closes with plans to turn the Poncey-Highland space into yet another Richard Blais concept, Flip Burger Boutique.

September
Widely attributed for jumpstarting Atlanta’s cocktail culture, Greg Best and Regan Smith leave Holeman & Finch Public House after five years to work on a new, undisclosed project. Carvel Gould vacates her executive chef position at Canoe sixteen years after she joined the restaurant’s team. David Sweeney, too, relinquishes his post at Cakes & Ale—rumor has it he’s penning a cookbook.

Helmed by executive chef Stephen Sharp, Ink & Elm brings fine dining to Emory Village. To cater to the masses, the restaurant is divided into a dining room, tavern, lounge, and raw bar.

October
One year after Ford Fry’s the Optimist wins 2012 Restaurant of the Year by Esquire Magazine, Fry’s newest spot, King + Duke, is named one of Esquire’s Best New Restaurants of 2013.

Bocado’s Italian sister restaurant STG Trattoria closes after only eighteen months in business.

November
Live jazz and fondue spot Dante’s Down the Hatch is demolished after closing July 31. The pirate ship-shaped restaurant had been open through four decades, multiple locations, and thousands of special occasion celebrations.

Athens soul food institution Weaver D’s shutters. The restaurant had been “rescued” by its fans once before, but this time nothing could solve the twenty-seven-year-old restaurant’s financial problems.

The Georgia Restaurant Association celebrates Steve Nygren and Ford Fry for their commitment to local foods at the 2013 GRACE Awards.

Legendary chef Ria Pell, owner of Ria’s Bluebird, passes away. Chefs and diners alike mourn the loss while celebrating her impact on the Grant Park community.

December
Better Half, the restaurant from PushStart Kitchen supper club founders Zach and Cristina Meloy, opens in Home Park.

Tickets are still available for next Monday’s four-course dinner at Gunshow with Kevin Gillespie, Angie Mosier, and South Carolina barbecue fiend Rodney Scott.

Scott is currently touring cities in the Southeast to raise money for the Fatback Fund, which was founded by the Fatback Collective and created in December of 2013 to support restaurants in crisis. Scott’s pit house in Hemingway, S.C., burned down two days before Thanksgiving, and he hopes to raise $120,000 for his barbecue shop rebuild and other businesses and organizations in need.

During the day from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., Scott will be selling $5 barbecue sandwiches and $10 lunch boxes. Later that night at 7 p.m., the trio will host the four-course dinner for $100 per person, plus tax. Proceeds will benefit the Fatback Fund.

Forks up, y’all: We’ll soon witness an unprecedented surge of restaurant openings in Atlanta. It’s about time. After a stagnant spell at the decade’s start, when only a smattering of standouts launched each year, 2013 changed course: Buckhead regained its groove with Kevin Rathbun’s KR SteakBar and Ford Fry’s King + Duke (followed by Fry’s Italian seafood blockbuster St. Cecilia eight months later), and marquee chefs Kevin Gillespie and Todd Ginsberg took winning chances with unconventional menus at their respective restaurants, Gunshow and the General Muir.

What’s driving the upcoming rush of new arrivals? In true Atlanta tradition, massive mixed-use developments—five, to be exact, each devoting serious thought to ambitious restaurants. These projects have been in planning for years, but they’re coming on line in close succession, an onslaught of buzz and calories.

First up is Inman Park’s Krog Street Market, the project most strictly focused on food. Located in a 1920s warehouse, Krog Street will spotlight the Luminary, an American brasserie from Top Chef alum Eli Kirshtein; Superica, Ford Fry’s first foray into the “Mex-Tex” cuisine of his native Texas; and the Cockentrice, a “charcuterie saloon” from Kevin Ouzts of Kirkwood’s Spotted Trotter shop. The space will also include around two dozen stalls where you’ll be able to grab, say, a burger designed by Todd Ginsberg, or dumplings from the family that runs Sichuan darling Gu’s Bistro. Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams and beer emporium Hop City Market have signed on for their second Atlanta-area locations.

Three developments will follow sometime between this fall and early 2015. The most exciting culinary news for Buckhead Atlanta, the retail project on the eight acres originally slated for the ill-fated Streets of Buckhead, is that developer OliverMcMillan snagged the city its first Shake Shack, star restaurateur Danny Meyer’s burger sensation. I’ve relished a double cheeseburger and root beer float in New York: They do push the Americana happy button.

Avalon, Alpharetta’s $600 million live-work-play development, aims to compete with nearby Roswell’s booming dining scene. Look for suburban outposts of Antico Pizza Napoletana, a Bocado burger bar, and Ford Fry’s Tex-Mex-themed El Felix. Fry the Unstoppable will likewise put his stamp on the Inman Park development at 280 Elizabeth Street, though this location will flaunt seafood. 280 Elizabeth is also where brothers Chris and Alex Kinjo, who decamped to Houston a couple of years ago, will return to Atlanta with a redo of their MF Sushibar.

Lastly, Jamestown Properties’ Ponce City Market—the 1.1 million-square-foot office-retail-residential behemoth in the former Sears Roebuck distribution center—will open a central food hall in spring 2015 with a meticulously curated mix of restaurants and kiosks. Confirmed cornerstones include Dub’s Fish Camp from Anne Quatrano and Clifford Harrison of Bacchanalia and Star Provisions; H&F Burger, a spin-off of the famous late-night burger offered at Linton Hopkins’s Holeman and Finch Public House; and Jia, a Sichuan restaurant from Dahe Yang, owner of Marietta’s Tasty China. Jamestown is keeping quiet on other possible tenants, but expect a surfeit of top-notch talent.

I’m incredibly heartened by all the activity, yet the timing is somewhat ironic for me: After five years, I’m leaving my position as Atlanta magazine’s food editor and restaurant critic. When this issue hits newsstands and mailboxes, I’ll already be roving the country as the national food critic for the online publication Eater. I feel lucky to have been front and center to an astounding revolution in Atlanta restaurants. Our finest chefs have embraced the regional bounty—which grows ever better, thanks to the state’s committed small- production farmers and community fervor for our proliferating markets—and made it the foundation of their cooking. Sometimes they compose their menus by taking cues from traditional Southern cuisine; often they weave in global inspirations with equal skill. Before the blitz of forthcoming restaurants, I’ll leave you with a rundown of my favorites right now. (This list admittedly skews upscale; if you’re looking for a bargain bite, try Yet Tuh in Doraville for homey Korean food or Taqueria la Oaxaqueña in Jonesboro for the taco-pizza hybrid known as the tlayuda.) I’ll be traveling much of the time, but I’ll remain based in Atlanta. These are the touchstones I’ll dream about when I crave a taste of home.

1. Bacchanalia
Atlanta’s fine-dining monarch continues its reign after twenty-one years in business. What’s the secret? A gracious sense of hospitality unmatched anywhere else in the city. The prix-fixe dinner—with five to seven choices for each of five courses (two starters, meat, cheese, dessert; vegetarians happily accommodated)—comes with an array of extra sweet and savory nibbles and service from impeccable staffers. They’ll help you compose a comforting meal (crab fritter, a gorgeous hunk of New York strip, Valrhona chocolate cake) or an adventurous one (Georgia shrimp with pork belly and trout roe, sweetbreads in brown butter, a tasting of vegetable sorbets).

2. Cakes & Ale
Where do I eat most frequently when I’m off the clock as a critic? Billy Allin’s buttery-lit boîte on the southeast corner of Decatur Square. No one vegetable-whispers like Allin, who accents the loveliest of-the-moment produce with flavors that unite the South, Italy, and the Middle East. His menu never stays still, but if you spy gnocchi or lamb shoulder with minted yogurt, pounce on them. The beverage program is in the best possible hands with Jordan Smelt, who has turned the short but deftly edited wine list into a Francophile’s fever dream.

3. Restaurant Eugene
No other restaurant in town explores the relationship between Southern ingredients and the flavors of the world with more refinement and intellectual rigor. Chef de cuisine Jason Paolini oversees the kitchen of Gina and Linton Hopkins’s flagship, and a recent meal was one of the finest I’ve had there in years: Ham broth lent Dixie smokiness to a silky sliver of foie gras; a witty spoonbread puree anchored rosy slices of lacquered duck; and a dramatic staging of sturgeon caviar and parsnip cream with grated egg and herbs was pure, borderless luxury. Gifted pastry chef Aaron Russell crafted desserts—such as lush sliced strawberries with vanilla ice cream and candied celery—that were heady but also more lighthearted than in the past.

4. Miller Union
In an age when so many chefs go ballistic with fat and salt and walloping flavors, Steven Satterfield stands confident in his love of the understated. So many of his dishes are edible essays on the season. Rhubarb chutney with confit rabbit; fava beans and green garlic with sauteed shrimp; snapper fillet with English peas, pickled onion, and radishes—hello, spring! Look out for Satterfield’s Savannah red rice with smoked sausage and shrimp, which nods to his South Georgia childhood. Co-owner and front-of-house maestro Neal McCarthy assembles a suave wine list heavy on Old World varietals.

5. Five & Ten
Among Hugh Acheson’s expanding stable of restaurants—including the Florence, an Italian Southern concept scheduled to have opened in Savannah by the end of May—his first-born is my current weakness and well worth the drive to Athens. Nearly a year ago he relocated Five & Ten to a restored Colonial Revival–style house that oozes Southern gentility. Executive chef Jason Zygmont collaborates with Acheson and remains faithful to his aesthetic: I love touches like roast chicken consommé and butter-suffused potato puree, paired with a farm egg, that allude to Acheson’s French culinary background. Come summer, save room for pastry chef Mike Sutton’s swoon-worthy fruit pies.

6. The General Muir
The towering pastrami sandwich slathered with grainy mustard; the Swiss chard fritters at dinner, barely visible under a blizzard of Parmesan; the poutine, available noon and night, tangled with cheese curds and just enough gravy (frizzled bits of pastrami optional): So many dishes tempt at the General Muir. Executive chef Todd Ginsberg uses the classic Jewish deli as a template for the restaurant but doesn’t limit his repertoire—particularly in the evening, when his small plates dazzle. Brave the crush at brunch for the city’s fluffiest omelet.

7. Gunshow
Kevin Gillespie and his brigade of spark-plug chefs broke the rules of traditional restaurant service and created a hit. The cooks—each following his own muse—prepare a weekly rotating roster of dishes in the open kitchen and then bring them into the dining room to entice the diners personally. I want my name on some sort of call list to alert me when chef de cuisine Joseph Ward makes his West Coast Burger—a messy and sublime homage to In-N-Out Burger’s Double-Double, Animal Style creation—or his re-envisioned beef Wellington, the meat blushing under a taffeta swath of pastry.

8. Tomo
The marvels at chef-owner Tomohiro Naito’s glittery Buckhead digs are twofold. First, indulge in East-West lookers like uni tempura wrapped in seaweed and minty shiso with tomato-shallot salsa: They gratify both the eye and palate. Then savor the simplicity of exquisite nigiri sushi and sashimi crafted from pristine seafood. Hint: Tuesday and Thursday are when Naito receives his biggest shipments of prized fish.

9. Aria
For birthdays and anniversaries, I celebrate at Aria. Gerry Klaskala may not change his New American menu as frequently or radically as other chefs, but I’m comforted to know that dishes like butter-braised lobster “cocktail” with broccoli mousseline and black truffle potatoes will be prepared with the same finesse year after year. Ditto pastry chef Kathryn King’s warm cheesecake, made lately with mild goat cheese. Charming general manager Andrés Loaiza leads one of the city’s most polished service staffs.

10. BoccaLupo
Bruce Logue turns the notion of Italian American cooking on its head: He conceives of pasta dishes grounded in the Boot’s regional culinary techniques but then spins them off in his own fanciful directions. Kale kimchi adds odd but winning spice to tagliatelle with wild mushrooms. Those crisp bits around the edge of a pan of lasagna that we all adore? Logue achieves the same texture by searing the top of a wedge of white lasagna until it’s nearly blackened, then serves it in a pool of fontina fonduta for smooth contrast.

11. The Optimist
Ford Fry’s Westside seafood palace lures me more than the rest of his brood (which also includes JCT Kitchen and Decatur’s No. 246). Temptation Exhibit A: the lobster roll piled with fleshy lumps of sweet meat, no mayo in sight. Order it in the main dining room during lunch and at the adjoining oyster bar during dinner. Executive chef Adam Evans impresses with dishes like crisp halibut collar given an Asian edge with a garlic-ginger sauce.

12. One Eared Stag
Like every other food writer in town, I’m enamored with chef-owner Robert Phalen’s ability to surprise with unorthodox unions of ingredients. I’m still mooning over a brilliant plate of pan-fried dates with pine nuts, white anchovies, olives, and mint I devoured at a lunch early this year. Why isn’t One Eared Stag higher on the list, then? Occasionally Phalen’s whimsies stumble, and they stumble hard (seafood experiments can be the worst letdowns). Want a sure bet? Order the “meatstick,” Phalen’s name for his better-than-the-rest double cheeseburger.

13. Rumi’s Kitchen
Buford Highway and Duluth hog the attention as the metro area’s hotbeds of global cuisines, but I’d like to submit Sandy Springs for inclusion on the map. It’s home to a wealth of Persian restaurants, the crown jewel among them being this insanely popular stunner, whose swank atmosphere matches its savvy kitchen. Start with dips—herbaceous yogurt, sultry smoked eggplant—with hot, crackery bread, and segue to juicy marinated kebabs.

Restaurant kitchens used to be cramped, windowless hellholes invisible to the dining public. That changed in the early nineties when restaurants like Azalea and Canoe ushered in a new era of luxurious open kitchens, where cooks moved gracefully under the spotlight before a hungry audience.
Now the cooks have moved into the dining room—literally. Breaking down the fourth wall between chef and customer, these restaurants represent the newest movement in kitchen design. In turn, kitchen stars now face their guests, who hope for hospitality as first-rate as their meals.

Here’s what you’ll find in a few of ATL’s open kitchens. (And yes, we actually took a tape measure and a thermometer into the restaurants.)

Gunshow
Distance from chefs: 1′ 9″
Within reach: Kevin Gillespie’s beard
Temperature: 73 degrees
Last spring Top Chef alum Kevin Gillespie opened Gunshow, which blurs the lines between kitchen and dining room unlike any other. Chefs deliver their works on carts, assembling plates and carving meats tableside. Their own best advocates, chefs don’t take rejection easily; decline a dish, and they’ll probably convince you otherwise.

Better Half
Distance from chefs: 4′ 6″
Within reach: knives
Temperature: 77 degrees
Zach Meloy’s shoebox kitchen fits snugly behind a three-sided bar that pits you as close to the food as the chefs. Watch the tuna steak searing in the pan, grab a container of sweet onion relish, and hear chefs belt Cher songs. You can even hear Meloy instruct his servers: “Push the chicken as the most amazing thing in your whole life.”

The Spence
Distance from seat to chefs: 5′ 3″
Within reach: squeeze bottles filled with ketchup
Temperature: 78 degrees
Designed more like a television studio, the Spence’s kitchen is a fitting setup for a concept built around celebrity chef Richard Blais. From a square high-top table, feel the flames off the hulking wood-fired grill as servers slip behind you to grab orders from the counter. Kitchen chatter is kept to a minimum, but chefs say that their conversations tend to carry to the restrooms.

King + Duke
Distance from seat to chefs: 4′ 2″
Within reach: cutting boards
Temperature: 79 degrees
Cutting boards Glowing coals, burning logs of wood, and a massive hearth heat Ford Fry’s medieval kitchen at King Duke. From a seat at the chef’s counter, watch the sweat beading down faces as the grills burn at 700 degrees Fahrenheit. Just over a marble ledge sits a spread of garnishes, while two arms away, executive chef Joe Schafer and his servers expedite orders.

Photo credits: King + Duke and Better Half: Caroline C. Kilgore; Gunshow: Greg Dupree: The Spence: Austin Holt

At a recent restaurant development conference in Buckhead, a number of chefs were asked for their predictions on the next big food trend. The consensus? Healthy, fast-casual, and superfood-focused restaurants. That may make sense given the popularity of kale this year, but then again, bacon is held in pretty high esteem these days, too.

We turned to the experts to learn more.

The rise in health consciousness
“People are starting to care more about more about their health and how they feel on a daily basis,” says Jenny Levison, owner of fast-casual spots Souper Jenny, Café Jonah, and Juicy Jenny.

“Absolutely it’s the big trend in restaurants,” agrees Mitchell Anderson of MetroFresh. “Focus on healthy eating, even from the White House, has begun a big incursion into fast-casual and traditional sit-down restaurants. Even national chains are getting in on the act.”

He says he’s seen an increase in business at Metrofresh over the last couple of years, including a 40 to 60 percent rise in customers.

Likewise, Pierre Panos, founder of Fresh To Order, says he’s seen double-digit increases in sales for the last four years—profits he attributes to the changing consumer.

“They’re wizening up,” he says. “People perceived fast-casual as healthy and fresh because they could see it in front of them. They’re not duped by that anymore. They want to see actual proteins being cooked to order.”

The trend, Panos explains, will lean toward what he calls “fast fine” rather than “fast casual,” meaning more elevated environment, service, and food preparation methods.

Whether casual or fine, Ryan Pernice, owner and operator of Table & Main and Osteria Mattone, believes the consumers will demand food fast. “People have always been stretched for time, and now there’s this move toward mobility and greater awareness of food,” he says. “Consumers are going to look for concepts that cater to both.”

Origin is important
“Healthy” often means different things to different people. To some, it’s all about origin.

“People are really starting to care about where their food comes from,” Levison says. “Healthy is not just eating more vegetables. It’s about not eating processed and genetically modified foods.”

She says she’s started to notice her customers eating more vegetarian and dairy-free options. Anderson agrees, noting that diets have changed over the years but many of his customers are interested in eating Paleo now. He says quinoa and raw vegetable salads seem to attract the most attention from customers, particularly an item he calls Veggie Trail Mix (raw chopped carrots, cauliflower, broccoli, and cranberries with honey Dijon dressing).

“In my mind, healthy eating means everything natural (whole) and nothing processed, higher in protein, fruits and vegetables, and watch the carbs,” he says.

Gunshow owner and chef Kevin Gillespie has a slightly different take. “People are more aware about what is healthy because of the sheer amount of information available. But, people will want the food they’ve always wanted, just with more transparency about how it’s prepared,” he says.

“We say healthy to mean brown rice, broccoli, and steamed fish. No one wants that stuff. They eat it because they feel like they have to in order to eat a cheeseburger later,” he continues. “So what we’re seeing more of is people saying ‘Yes, this is a fried chicken sandwich, but it’s all-natural, farm-raised chicken on whole grain house-made bread.”

A liquid diet
Juicing, too, has grown in popularity. “I think people are catching on to the fact that if you start to juice (the green stuff), you can get a lot of the nutrients your body needs every day,” says Levison, whose Juicy Jenny business grows every day.

“Juicing is healthy, fast, and fresh, but I don’t think stand-alone juicing concepts will survive. It has to be combined with something,” says Panos, who is 80 percent sure Fresh To Order will add a juice component to its stores in the future.

Anderson believes that even those who aren’t as educated about the nutritional benefits may be attracted to juicing because it “tastes like health.”

However, juicing can be quite expensive for both customers and business owners. “If anything kills the trend, it will be the price,” Anderson says.

The superfood revolution
And then there are superfoods. “The [health] trend is really two-fold,” says Federico Castellucci, president of Castellucci Hospitality Group, which owns full-service restaurants Sugo, the Iberian Pig, Double Zero Napoletana, and the soon-to-open Cooks & Soldiers. “On one side, you have healthier dining options at restaurants in both the full-service and fast-casual segments. On the other, you have superfoods, which are high nutrient density, low-calorie foods. People have never even heard of most superfoods like maca, camu, lucuma, and maqui berries.”

He points out that these unique superfoods are very expensive and therefore are skipped over by most restaurateurs. “In most of these places, it is more of a marketing slogan than anything else, but it is a good start to having more healthy options out there.”

Having it all
The millennial generation “wants to eat healthy and look good, but also not deprive themselves of delicious foods,” Castellucci says.

That’s why he thinks healthy eating is more important to consumers earlier in the day.

“By dinner, people’s will power reserves have declined and they are going to choose the more delicious and desirable options,” he says, noting that although his restaurants offer healthy options, they are often passed over in favor of more decadent dishes.

Plus, “people will always want to cheat,” he says.

Gillespie, who is opening Terminus City BBQ next year, feels similarly. “Any time you drive the industry in one direction, you also see the emergence of the opposite,” he says. “So if a lot of people open these super healthy places where you get a bean sprout wrap, you’ll see a hole open up for the traditional places serving food that your grandmother made.”

“Humans seek the foods that make them feel well physically and emotionally. Regardless of which way the industry goes, there will always be people seeking those soulful foods of yesteryear. I hope we don’t let our traditional food disappear on us.”

Panos believes restaurants will adapt accordingly. “You’ll start to find Italian and Indian restaurants that will go fast fine,” he says.

But Pernice doesn’t think the trend will affect his business. “We don’t compete on either of those two things [speed or health]; our best seller is fried chicken,” he says. “What people look for is a return to the authentic gracious hospitality—that’s where we’d rather play.”

“I don’t know when people think, ‘Man, I want to go to a sit down dinner and have a nice meal and it needs to be healthy. Eating out, in some ways, is more about indulgence. It should be transportive.”

Looking to the future
There is one thing the chefs and restaurateurs seem to agree on.

“I hope people become more healthy,” says Gillespie, who recently lost thirty pounds. “That’s been a big push of mine in the past year.”

“I hope the evolution of healthy just becomes more mainstream where it’s not really a choice,” Anderson adds.

Atlantans already know our food scene shines, but recognition on a national scale is always a nice bonus. This week three Atlanta restaurants—Lusca, Gunshow, and Sobban—were included on Bon Appétit’s annual “50 Nominees for America’s Best New Restaurant 2014” list.

Bon Appétit’s restaurant and drink’s editor, Andrew Knowlton, scoured new restaurants across the country to compile his list, of which, ten finalists will be announced on August 19.

Lusca

This seafood-centric brainchild of Octopus Bar’s Angus Brown and Nhan Le opened in South Buckhead this past March. Open for lunch, dinner, and Sunday brunch, Lusca features Octopus-themed décor and murals, in keeping with the theme of Le and Brown’s first restaurant.

Gunshow

Opening in the spring of 2013, Top Chef alum Kevin Gillespie has been pushing the envelope of traditional kitchen/restaurant layout ever since, with his inventive open-kitchen concept that puts the chefs front and center and invites diners to sit at communal tables and receive (or pass on) dishes delivered by chefs, about which Knowlton notes it’s “tough to say no.” Gunshow was originally featured in our September 2013 issue as one of Atlanta’s “Best New Restaurant.”

Sobban

Though one might not think to pair Southern down-home cooking with tradition Korean soul food, it’s clearly working for husband and wife team Cody Taylor and Jiyeon Lee, who first made their mark with their similarly themed Korean/southern Heirloom Market BBQ. Knowlton calls their inventive dishes like the kimchi deviled eggs, shrimp and rice grits, and Korean fire wings “fiery, funky, but above all delicious.”

Courtesy of Jenny Levison

At a recent restaurant development conference in Buckhead, several chefs were asked to predict the next big food trend. The consensus? Healthy, fast-casual, and superfood-focused restaurants.

Look at Jenny Levison, for example. In May, Levison opened a second location of Souper Jenny—a fast-casual breakfast and lunch spot that serves soups, salads, and sandwiches—to cater to the growing demand. She also launched Juicy Jenny juice bar (with vegan lunch offerings) next door to the original Souper Jenny in Buckhead. Business is rocking at both.

“I think people are catching on to the fact that if you start to juice (the green stuff), you can get a lot of the nutrients your body needs every day,” Levison says.

Pierre Panos, founder of Fresh To Order, also says he’s seen double-digit increases in sales in the last four years, profits he attributes to a changing clientele.

“They’re wizening up,” he says. “People perceived fast-casual as healthy and fresh because they could see it in front of them. They’re not duped by that anymore. They want to see actual proteins being cooked to order.”

Down the road, Panos is confident Fresh to Order will add a juice component to its stores.

Healthy, of course, means different things to different people. To some, it’s all about preparation.

“Healthy is not just eating more vegetables. It’s about not eating processed and genetically modified foods,” Levison says, noting that her customers are eating more vegetarian and dairy-free options

At Metrofresh, owner Mitchell Anderson says many of his customers are interested in eating Paleo, a meat and veggie-centric caveman-like diet. Over the last couple of years, he’s seen a forty to sixty percent increase in customers. Quinoa and raw vegetable salads, Anderson says, attract the most attention from customers, particularly an item he calls Veggie Trail Mix (raw chopped carrots, cauliflower, broccoli, and cranberries with honey Dijon dressing).

Other restaurants, like the Arizona-based True Food Kitchen, which opened at Lenox Mall in June, concentrate on nutrient-rich dishes often derived from superfoods. Here, menu items include Tuscan kale salad, Inside Out quinoa burger, and spaghetti squash casserole.

But can we really eat healthy, fast-casual food all day? Federico Castellucci—president of Castellucci Hospitality Group, which owns Sugo, the Iberian Pig, Double Zero Napoletana, and the soon-to-open Cooks & Soldiers—doesn’t think so.

“By dinner, people’s will power reserves have declined, and they are going to choose the more delicious and desirable options,” he says, noting that although his restaurants offer healthy options, they are often passed over in favor of more decadent dishes. Plus, “people will always want to cheat.”

We also live in the South, a region known for caloric, high-fat foods. Kevin Gillespie, owner-chef of Gunshow, thinks that a focus on health will also cause a resurgence in demand for comfort food. “Humans seek the foods that make them feel well physically and emotionally. Regardless of which way the industry goes, there will always be people seeking those soulful foods of yesteryear,” he says.

Ryan Pernice, owner and operator of Table & Main and Osteria Mattone, says he’s added a few lighter sides and vegetable offerings to his restaurants’ menus, but doesn’t believe the health trend will really affect his business.

“I don’t know when people think, ‘Man, I want to go to a sit down dinner and have a nice meal, and it needs to be healthy.’ Eating out, in some ways, is more about indulgence. It should be transportive,” he says.

For those looking to break from the usual restaurant ritual, Kevin Gillespie’s corner in Glenwood Park is the answer. Customers forgo ordering in lieu of chefs who cook what they want and present directly to the table. Expect culinary whims like chicken-fried lobster and old-school favorites like red wine risotto with white truffles and a must-order beef Wellington. 924 Garrett Street, gunshowatl.com

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This article originally appeared in our December 2014 issue.

Don’t want to cook? Here are 23 restaurants open on Christmas Eve and/or Christmas this year. From quick and casual to prix fixe and reservations-only, here’s where to eat as you celebrate the holidays.

Christmas Eve and Christmas Day

Atlanta Grill at the Ritz-Carlton, Downtown

Not far from the holiday lights at Centennial Olympic Park, Atlanta Grill is serving a three-course special with optional wine pairings on Christmas Eve. The menu includes roasted pheasant and chestnut soup with poached pheasant breast and black truffle, and hickory-smoked bone-in short rib with sweet and sour shallots and horseradish. A la carte offerings will also be available. On Christmas Day, the 100-plus-item brunch menu will focus on rich, Italian flavors in addition to traditional holiday favorites. There will be an omelet station, pasta station, and “Willy Wonka Christmas” dessert table. $80 per adult, $35 per child. Call 404-221-6550 for reservations.

Diesel

For those who want a more casual celebration, Diesel is open on Christmas Eve for business as usual. On Christmas Day, it opens at 6 p.m. and will offer its usual menu of burgers and hot dogs while showing movies like Bad Santa and the Star Wars holiday special all night long. No reservations necessary.

Eleven at the Loews Hotel

For Christmas Eve, chef Olivier Gaupin has created a three-course prix fixe menu with a choice of fried turkey, Porterhouse, or sea bass, and decadent sides including lobster mac ‘n’ cheese and sweet potato soufflé. $65 for adults, $30 for kids. 

Christmas Day brunch is a more casual, a la carte affair. Offerings include white chocolate French toast, duck confit, and smoked salmon benedict. Call 404-745-5745 for reservations.

Fuji Hana Thai Peppers

This OTP Asian spot is open until 10 p.m. on Christmas Eve and from 4 p.m. to 9 p.m. on Christmas Day.  be serving signature dishes like pad Thai, red curry chicken, and Langosta rolls (hibachi lobster tail with cucumber, scallions, mango, avocado, tobiko, and wasabi aioli). Call 770-419-9500 for reservations.

G’s Midtown

On Christmas Eve, G’s is serving its regular menu which includes fish tacos, a Caribbean burger, and blackened mahi-mahi. On Christmas Day, options are limited to the bar menu. Reservations are available but not required. Call 404-872-8012.

Livingston Restaurant + Bar

This classic spot in the Georgian Terrace isn’t doing anything different for Christmas (Eve or Day), but offerings include tasso and corn chowder and carrot cake “Twinkies.” Reservations are recommended. Call 404-897-5000.

Sway

Located in the Hyatt Regency, Sway’s menu includes buttermilk fried chicken with whipped potatoes, Georgia white shrimp and grits with Logan Turnpike stone ground grits and Andouille sausage, and deviled eggs topped with Benton’s bacon, crab or micro greens. There’s even an unlimited pie bar. Reservations are not necessary for Christmas or Christmas Eve.

Christmas Eve only

Better Half

PushStart supperclub founders Zach and Christina Meloy are serving Christmas Eve dinner with five courses (with wine pairings) for $75. The menu includes roasted lamb with caramelized winter vegetables, carrot sorbet with black cocoa, and more. Call 404-695-4547 for reservations.

Canoe

Open for business as usual. Reservations are required. Call 404-432-2663.

Cibo e Beve

Seafood lovers can celebrate the holiday with the Feast of the Seven Fishes. Served a la carte, options include the seafood pan roast (lobster, scallops, oysters, and shrimp in a lobster tomato cream), branzino with truffle butter and creamy leek and potato pan roast, and spicy clam and bean stew. Reservations are required. Call 404-250-8988.

Davio’s

In addition to serving the regular a la carte menu, Davio’s is celebrating the Feast of the Seven Fishes with a prix fixe menu for $48 per person. The menu includes lobster bisque with brandy cream, and braised branzino with scallops, leeks, and sunchokes in clam broth. Reservations are required. Call 404-844-4810.

Food 101

Serving the regular menu until 10 p.m., Food 101 offers Georges Bank scallops, smoked ham hoc, fried chicken, and more. Reservations are not required but can be made by calling 404-497-9700.

Gunshow

Kevin Gillespie is hosting an exclusive feast for $75 per person (including one drink). Limited to forty guests, reservations are required. Call 404-380-1886.

Horseradish Grill

Serving its usual Southern fare, Horseradish Grill offers pimento cheese and grit fritters, wood-grilled pork chop, blackened shrimp, and more. Reservations are recommended. Call 404-255-7277.

Republic Social House

If Oakland Cemetery is your holiday spot, you can grab a table or stool at Republic Social House but only until 4 p.m. There won’t be any holiday specials, and reservations aren’t necessary.

Southbound

Located in a former Masonic lodge, this Chamblee spot will serve its regular menu from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. Reservations are recommended. Call 678-580-65579.

South City Kitchen

This Southern spot will offer a special three-course menu for $45 per person (half-off for children). Expect she-crab soup with cream and sherry, pan-seared scallops with boiled peanut puree, roasted turkey breast with cornbread dressing, pan-roasted hake with lady pea hoppin’ John, and Southern chocolate pecan pie. Call 404-873-7358 for reservations in Midtown and 770-435-0700 to reserve a table in Vinings.

10th & Piedmont

Serving its normal menu, 10th & Piedmont offers lamb sliders, tomato bisque, pork tenderloin, and more. Reservations are available but not required. Call 404-602-5510.

Christmas Day only

Atkins Park

This Virginia-Highland restaurant and bar opens at 6 p.m. for a Christmas dinner complete with smoked turkey breast, caramelized apple and sage stuffing, green bean casserole, roasted garlic mashed potatoes, sweet potato biscuits, and more. Cost is $28 for adults, $18 for age 11 to 16 and $10 for ages 10 and under, plus tax and gratuity. Wine pairings will also available. Reservations are recommended. Call 404-876-7249.

Southern Art

Executive chef Art Smith’s sit-down Buckhead spot is going buffet-style for Christmas brunch. Offerings will include Holeman & Finch breads, charcuterie and cheese boards, seafood, baked turkey with cranberry jam, butternut squash, and duck fat fried fingerling potatoes. Cost is $67 for adults and $32 for children. Call 404-946-9070 for reservations.

The Cafe at the Ritz-Carlton, Buckhead

Dig into 100+ brunch selections (plus a separate kids’ buffet) while listening to caroling by the Dickens Singers. Children will enjoy a visit from Santa, too. Cost is $109 per adult and $59 per child. Call 404-237-2700 for reservations.

Twelve Hotels (Lobby and Room)

Lobby at Twelve in Atlantic Station and Room at Twelve Centennial Park are both offering buffets from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Both restaurants charge $55 for adults, $22 for children 12 and under, and will feed children 5 and under for free. At Lobby, the menu includes pumpkin bisque, oven-roasted ham with Coca-Cola glaze, and pistachio-crusted cod. At Room, options range from sushi and ginger salad to charcuterie and cheeses, plus spiced and poached shrimp and Caesar salad. Call 404-961-7370 for reservations at Lobby and 404-418-1250 for reservations at Room.

Courtesy of Raftermen Photography

It was the year of the city center. With the opening of Buckhead Atlanta, Inman Park’s Krog Street Market, and Alpharetta’s Avalon, restaurants opened in droves. Local chefs got a nod from the James Beard Foundation, a lime shortage caused momentary panic, and one popular pop-up signed on its first brick-and-mortar location. Read on as we remember when.

January

Ryan Hidinger, a chef known for his supper club A Prelude to Staplehouse, passes away after a fight with gallbladder cancer. The community comes together to support his wife Jen, who founds the Giving Kitchen, a nonprofit that helps restaurant workers in need. Jen signs a lease to build their dream restaurant, Staplehouse, on Edgewood Avenue.

February

Eleven local restaurants, restaurateurs, and chefs are named James Beard Award semifinalists. The list include Anne Quatrano (Outstanding Chef), Kimball House (Outstanding Bar Program), and Billy Allin (Best Chef Southeast).

Fast-casual health restaurateur Jenny Levison opens a second location of Souper Jenny, this one in Decatur. By the end of the year, she’ll have a third, a temporary spot in Brookhaven, and plans for a fourth on the Westside.

March

Award-winning Atlanta magazine food editor and dining critic Bill Addison announces his departure. He’s accepted a new role reviewing food nationwide for Eater.

April

A lime shortage hits the city, causing a surge in prices. Some restaurants change their policies to only offer limes on request, while others tweak their recipes to use less of the precious fruit.

May

Octopus Bar’s Angus Brown and Nhan Le open Lusca in Brookwood, offering Atlantans a chance to enjoy their exotic eats and creative cocktails before 10:30 p.m. Atlanta magazine contributing critic Susan Rebecca White awards it two stars.

June

Illegal Food, the pop-up known for “the Hank” burger, is given notice that it must vacate from Joystick Gamebar in 60 days. The founders later take over the Bar Meatball space in Virginia-Highland to open a full-service restaurant.

Justin Amick (an advanced sommelier and son of Concentrics restaurateur Bob Amick) opens boutique bowling alley and entertainment center the Painted Pin. Thomas Collins, formerly of Parish, leads the kitchen, while Trip Sandifer, formerly of the Spence, prepares the cocktails.

July

Cardamom Hill, a 2013 James Beard Best New Restaurant semifinalist, closes on the Westside. Owner/chef Asha Gomez says the space couldn’t accommodate the crowds, and later opens Spice to Table, a more casual Indian spot in Studioplex.

Executive chef Tyler Williams leaves his post at Woodfire Grill. He’ll go on to do a series of pop-ups around the city.

August

After a series of short-lived positions at Seven Lamps, Article 14, and Parish, mixologist Arianne Fielder signs on to lead the bar program at Bellwoods Social House, the new Westside spot by the owner of Bite in Alpharetta. By October, Fielder has moved on to work at Craft Izakaya.

Top Chef alumni Eli Kirstein opens his French-American brasserie the Luminary, the first restaurant to open in Inman Park’s Krog Street Market. Atlanta magazine contributing critic Susan Rebecca White awards it two stars.

Could beef soon become as expensive as lobster? It’s a question our dining intern, Emily Schneider-Green, explored in light of the rising cost of beef. High-profile cattle farmers like Will Harris of White Oak Pastures and Steve Whitmire of Brasstown Beef predict “a real change in the fundamentals of the beef business in this country.”

September

After years of delays, Buckhead Atlanta (formerly called the Streets of Buckhead) opens. Restaurants include Shake Shack, Le Bibloquet, Thirteen Pies, and Gypsy Kitchen.

October

Hugh Acheson’s upscale Mexican restaurant Cinco y Diez closes, just ten months after taking over the old Five & Ten space. Acheson attributes no fault to executive chef Whitney Otawka, noting the “business side was lacking.”

Avalon, Alpharetta’s first major mixed-used development, opens boasting fourteen restaurants including the El Felix, a Mex-Tex spot by celebrated restaurateur Ford Fry.

Holeman & Finch makes its famous burgers—previously only sold after 10 p.m. and at weekend brunch—available on (gasp) the regular menu. A fast-casual spot dedicated to it, H&F Burger, will open in Ponce City Market in the spring.

November

After writing about Atlanta’s restaurant scene for seventeen years, John Kessler announces his departure from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. In late spring, he’ll be moving to Chicago, where his wife has accepted a job. No word on where he’ll land yet.

Cooks & Soldiers, a Spanish restaurant by Castellucci Hospitality Group (Sugo, the Iberian Pig, and Double Zero Napoletana), opens on the Westside.

December

A fire at OK Cafe on West Paces Ferry Road causes patrons to evacuate and the restaurant to close for an undetermined period.

Fred’s Meat & Bread, Yalla, and Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams are the first “market stalls” to open in Krog Street Market.

The fifth annual Atlanta Food & Wine Festival (AFWF) will be held May 28-31, and early bird ticket sales begin Friday, February 13. Founders Dominique Love and Elizabeth Feichter say this year’s guests should expect the unexpected with a bevy of new programming.

What are the programs you’re most excited about this year?

Dominique Love: Seafood continues to be something that’s very important to a lot of the talent. This year, we’re talking about invasive species. There’s a great class called “Malicious but Delicious.” Think tiger prawns that are delicious, but they are invading our waterways and doing some pretty serious damage. How as chefs and restaurateurs do you address these environmental issues by creating demand in your restaurant for these products?

We’re also looking at boutique oysters in the gulf coast and going a little bit deeper. We’ve done oyster pairings before, but this year we’re looking at boutique oysters and a new breed that rival even the most high end Northeast beauties.

We’ve had a lot of people talking about health and wellness, and some people say Southern food is so unhealthy, but our chefs beg to differ. A huge part of Southern food is cooking out of the garden and using fresh ingredients. Sure, we have fried foods and fattier foods that we all adore, but there’s another dimension to that. There’s a couple chefs talking about how that’s evolved. We even have a fun class called “Medicine and Moonshine,” so we’re talking about the health effects and how food plays a role in healthy living.

We also have a new partnership with Southern Living this year and have changed the technique lab into a Southern Living Test Kitchen Experience, where guests will be able to have a more interactive, hands-on experience and participate. Robby Melvin, the test kitchen director at Southern Living, will kick off the weekend with an academy. Steven Satterfield will host a class on summer harvests, and Michael Gulotta from New Orleans is teaming up with Matt McCallister from Texas to talk about approaching sustainability in a different way.

What else is new this year that guests can expect?

DL: It is our fifth anniversary, so we are embracing our motto of go big or go home in an even bigger way. We’re doing a Sunday brunch this year. By the time Sunday comes around after three days of a lot of eating, guests typically don’t want to do as many classes, they just want to have brunch to wrap up the weekend. We were inspired by Kevin Gillespie, so the brunch will have Gunshow-style service. We’ll still have classes on Sunday, but not as many.

We also have a new connoisseur dinner series for our connoisseur pass holders, which will be more intimate dinners. Our annual pig-out event this year is a market style theme and the venue will be Ponce City Market.

Elizabeth Feichter: We’re pairing some chefs who are already in Ponce City Market with some out of town talent and giving guests a first glimpse into the market. We’re also continuing to evolve the tasting tent set-up, so those will be more spread out and allow guests to journey through the tasting trails.

How has your vision for the festival changed since the first event in 2011?

EF: Our programming continues to evolve each year. We’ve stayed true to our vision and the mission for the festival, which is shining that international spotlight on Southern food and beverage traditions. We’ve found that the way our advisory council of chefs, mixologists, and sommeliers think about our three key themes has evolved. Those themes are new traditions, old traditions, and imports and inspirations. They influence our programming every year and allow us to take the vision of creating the festival that focuses exclusively on one region and honors Southern food and beverage traditions.

What are some of the challenges you’ve faced in the last five years?

DL: Our biggest obstacle was that we set out this lofty goal of shining an international spotlight on our region, and there’s so much depth to our food and beverage history here in the South, and that alone is very much a challenge. How do you pack what’s going on in the South into three days, and how do you position it in a way that is entertaining and engaging but people are also learning?

That leads to the second challenge of people understanding what we’re doing. People have this perception that we’re just a street festival, and actually the tasting tents are only one component of our weekend. Our learning experiences, the dinners, and events are a major part of the weekend. They all mesh together to tell the story of what’s going on. Year one, we were talking a lot about barbecue and bourbon. The next year, we got deeper into African American influences, the role of women, agriculture, and products from the farm. The next year we got deeper into Latin influences and the colonial south from the foodways. It’s just an evolution from year to year.

Today, there are Food & Wine festivals all over the country. What makes Atlanta’s event unique?

EF: That goes back to the core of our mission and who we are: we focus exclusively on the South. We are the only event in the country that focuses exclusively on one region. You won’t find wine from California at our event or cheese from Wisconsin.

DL: We aren’t just about the party; we really have a deeper mission. This year, one of the supporting goals of our mission is to entice people to the region to eat, drink, and explore. Tourism is big for us. We have now gone to the state level so that they can showcase the culinary happenings of their state. We also are focused on artisans and the smaller groups that are integral to the fabric of our culinary community. We have created an entrepreneur program for those people; we give them so much exposure and allow them to take advantage of social media to connect with guests.