Four Stars for Tyler Williams and Woodfire Grill

In this week's Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Woodfire Grill is awarded four stars. Jenny Turknett says the best dishes are the wild boar sugo, cage-roasted quail, croque monsieur, and the egg custards, and she recommends the five- or seven-course tasting menus as a way to sample your way through the menu. The review ends:

Welcome to Woodfire Grill version 3.0, combining the best of earlier editions with a new, more modern and playful approach. As owner Nicolas Quiñones said, Williams' cooking "is not intimidating even though it is thorough and precise. It is pleasing to look at, ingest and recall.

At Creative Loafing, Brad Kaplan revisits Abattoir, which now has chef Hector Santiago at its helm. He nails the menu's "quirk," that "descriptions are often woefully lacking in detail," but goes on to say:

After the shock of having Santiago at the helm at Abattoir subsides, what's left is a sense of excitement. The new chef's Latin American leanings are clearly present, but never overpowering. And, with this new emerging identity, Abattoir is once again worthy of being one of the most buzzed-about restaurants in town. Best of all, Santiago has a prominent stage to show off his heart and, ahem, his balls.

In the latest issue of Knife & Fork, Yum Bunz gets two out of four stars. Christiane Lauterbach starts off, "As long as you understand that you aren't dealing with an artisanal product made by hand in small batches, you will have a ton of fun exploring the main specialty— steamed Chinese stuffed buns, known as bao— at this high-energy new Westside restaurant." She calls the grain bowls "credible," with excellent sauces, but recommends that diners skip the potstickers and the sesame noodle salad at the "eat-and-go" restaurant.

Also in Knife & Fork, these restaurants also get two stars: Chick-a-Biddy (get the "brilliant" sides), Tostones Latin Cafe (try the $9 paisita or the weekend-only chicken soup, or ajiaco), Kale Me Crazy (try the Nopales, Recharge, Tropical Trippin', Grounded, or Acai Bowl), and Tex-Mex restaurant Senor Patron.