City Winery Changes Directions; Don Cherry Is IN as Executive Chef

City Winery, the restaurant/wine bar/music venue that opened adjacent to Ponce City Market last June, is undertaking a bit of a revamp. Opening executive chef Jeffrey McGar is out, and Don Cherry — not that Don Cherry, Canadian hockey fans — is now running the kitchen.

With a new chef comes a new menu concept. City Winery had been serving upscale Southern fare, but it will now offer “an approachable culinary tour of the world’s wine regions,” according to a Tuesday announcement. New dishes include Prince Edward Island mussels with City Winery Chardonnay, lemon-white wine butter, toasted baguette, and fresh herbs and a Maple Leaf Farms duck cassoulet with white bean stew, confit duck leg, and housemade duck sausage. However, some Southern holdovers, such as buttermilk fried chicken and shrimp and grits, will remain.

Cherry, whose resume includes time at Gunshow and Southern Art, sees his new gig as unique. “At City Winery, I have the opportunity to do something no other chef in Atlanta can do — pair our dishes with wine we make in-house,” the chef said in a prepared statement. “That really sets us apart.”

The change comes three months after Atlanta Journal-Constitution food editor Ligaya Figueras penned a review of City Winery and determined the food was the weak link in the venture.

In addition to the Atlanta outpost, City Winery operates venues in New York City, Chicago, Nashville, and Boston. A Napa Valley location closed at the beginning of 2016.

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