The critically acclaimed restaurant, owned by chef Brian So and partner Daniel Crawford, features a tight, seasonally-inspired menu of dishes paired with a carefully curated list of natural and biodynamic wines. Start with fois gras terrine and sockeye salmon crudo before moving on to entrees like grilled wagyu flatiron steak and braised short rib or a whole fish course. Never skip the desserts at Spring, which change often and incorporate herbs, fruits, and other ingredients of the season. The small dining room here lends itself nicely to intimate dinner dates for two or foursomes of friends meeting to catch up over bottles of wine and a meal. Reservations highly encouraged.

The Gullah and Lowcountry dishes at Virgil’s, owned by Gee and Juan Smalls, are not to be missed. Order the she-crab soup or Gullah egg rolls stuffed with red rice, cabbage, and shrimp; the crab rice mixed with sautéed bacon, onions, and peppers; a side of greens; and the brownie-based Chucktown Chewie sundae for dessert. A second location is now open along the Marietta Street Artery near Georgia Tech.

This Cobb County barbecue spot has limited seating, but chefs and owners Cody Taylor and Jiyeon Lee bring more than enough flavor to compensate for the cramped quarters or a ride home with a to-go box. Taylor and Lee’s Southern-Korean barbecue restaurant offers a must-try spicy Korean pork sandwich on its menu with chopped rib meat marinated in fermented chili paste, topped with kimchi coleslaw, black sesame seeds, and a sliced scallion. Order the sandwich with a side of Brunswick stew or collards.

Twisted Soul Cookhouse and Pours in Westside is where the South’s most loved dishes meet chef and owner Deborah VanTrece and chef de cuisine Robert Butts. VanTrece’s world travels and her three decades of professional cooking experience drive the menu and the service here, with Butts pushing the boundaries further with his dishes — striking a balance between casual and fine dining with ease. Expect dishes like mole sous vide short ribs, a smoked salmon croquette sandwich, cornmeal-crusted catfish goujonnette, and crispy confit duck with chevre scallion Johnny cakes. Reservations encouraged. Outdoor seating available.

A restaurant institution in West End, Tassili’s is a haven for people seeking raw and vegetarian food dishes that not only taste good, but are filling and completely satisfying in every way. Owned by Tassili Ma’at, the menu offers a variety of wraps and salads, including a wrap boasting Southwestern flavors made from chilis stuffed with black-eyed pea puree, couscous, tomatoes, and avocado. The Tassili original kale salad comes with red onions, sun-dried tomatoes, and spices paired with freshly pressed carrot juice. Vegan.

Occupy the Hood activist Malik Rhasaan and Detric Fox-Quinlan opened a permanent location of their popular food truck, Che Butter Jonez, as a restaurant in 2021. And they never looked back. Located next door to a Chevron station on Cleveland Avenue, the restaurant continues to serve one of the food truck’s most popular menu items: the That Sh!T Slambing burger. The menu here changes daily to keep things fresh, but has included bodega-style breakfast dishes, tacos on Tuesday, lumpia and garlic noodles topped with steak, and a delicious soft-shell crab sandwich during the spring. Halal.

James Beard award-winning chef Steven Satterfield’s fresh Southern cooking is simple, elegant, and includes a lot of seasonal, locally grown vegetables. The farm egg baked in celery cream with grilled bread is a must-try Atlanta dish. The restaurant also has one of the best vegetable plates in town and offers a killer wine list, too. Getting a reservation at this west side Atlanta restaurant can be challenging on busy dining days, so opt to sit at the bar or head in on a Monday for a quieter meal. Reservations encouraged. Outdoor seating available.

Built around an intimate and highly personalized dining experience between guests of the restaurant and the sushi chef, 2022 Eater award winner Mujo is a splurge-worthy destination for omakase. Reservations go fast when released each month, but for those who secure a seat at the sushi bar at Mujo, patience (and the hefty price tag) pay off with the attention to detail and personalized touches experienced throughout the meal. Led by chef J. Trent Harris, who trained under master sushi chefs at at Michelin star establishments Sushi Ginza Onodera and Shuko in New York and Tokyo, this 15-seat omakase restaurant gives a nightly master class in hospitality and the nuanced art of edomae-style sushi. A meal at Mujo begins with cocktails at the small bar reserved for guests of the restaurant. Then, during dinner, Harris and his team wow with exquisite course after exquisite course of nigiri prepared in the edomae style, beautifully presented dishes like hakurei turnip tartlets, and nods to other Japanese culinary traditions, including tamagoyaki (Japanese shrimp and egg cake similar to an omelette) and konacha green tea served with dessert. Reservations required.

Former pop-up chef Jarrett Stieber opened Little Bear in Summerhill right before the start of the pandemic in 2020. Despite the challenges brought on by the health crisis, Stieber never wavered from what made his pop-up, and now his restaurant, so popular with regulars. The chef’s mischievous sense of humor and creativity continue to be on full display in the dishes and in the cocktails at Little Bear. It’s best to order the entire tight menu here. Tell the server “Just F*ck Me Up, Fam.” Reservations encouraged.

Summerhill Thai restaurant Talat Market opened in spring 2020 inside an old neighborhood market on Ormond Street. Each week, chefs Parnass Lim Savang and Rod Lassiter create around a dozen or so Thai and Thai-influenced dishes for the menu, featuring soups, salads, relishes, curries, stir-fries, and desserts, along with a couple of larger entrees, like yum khao thawt (crispy rice salad) and whole fish preparations. This is where to head for happy hour specials, fresh oysters, off-menu dishes, and crushable cocktails, including a Thai-inspired twist on the pina colada. Outdoor seating available via patio and parklet.

Owners Katie Barringer and Jordan Smelt merge their love for books, wine, food, and London at bookshop and wine bar Lucian. Located at Modera Buckhead, Lucian specializes in titles centered around art, design, food, and culture and carries nearly 400 wines by the bottle and 15 wines by the glass, curated by Smelt. Food here is approached with the same thoughtfulness and care as Barringer does with books and Smelt with wine. Nothing is an afterthought, right down to the sauces composed for each dish. Standouts on the menu are the raw hamachi with seasonal fruits, the gnudi, and duck. Be sure to order a bowl of crispy fries, too, which comes served with a chef’s choice aioli, like horseradish or spiced with chilis. Pair with a glass of champagne. Reservations highly encouraged.

In 2020, Kara Hidinger and chef Ryan Smith took over ownership of the restaurant they helped found with non-profit Giving Kitchen, transforming it from tasting menu restaurant to a neighborhood market with a daily food menu served from the back counter near the kitchen. The food now is as seasonal, creative, and thoughtfully composed as it was when Staplehouse offered coursed-out tastings before the pandemic. Head to the back counter and order dishes like grilled octopus, eggplant, and peppers tossed in fennel salami vinaigrette, a crab cake sando, or a hearty grain bowl or burrata surrounded by fresh vegetables. If it’s on the menu, don’t skip the Italian grinder — a meaty and mighty sandwich easily shared between two people. Then, grab wine and beer by the glass or bottle or a cocktail and find a seat outside in the sunny garden patio or on the covered porch behind the building.

Blink and one might miss this Filipino restaurant gem tucked away along Woodward Avenue in Grant Park. Opened in 2020, owners Hope Webb and chef Walter Cortado are putting in the work to shine the spotlight on the many regional cuisines that make up the thousands of islands comprising the Philippines. Grab a seat in the cozy dining room or at one of the street-side tables out front for bite-sized lumpia stuffed with aromatic ground beef and shrimp or crispy chicharron-style chicken skins, followed by slow-simmered pork adobo, bistek (Angus beef sauteed in a citrus soy marinade), or a comforting bowl of pancit noodles. Try a dessert lumpia filled with ube ice cream for dessert, and be sure to pair the meal with a cocktail, such as the Lychee Collins made with gin, lemon juice, lychee puree, and cucumber topped with soda water. Estrellita often opens its doors to Atlanta Filipino food pop-ups and chefs in a continuing mission to raise awareness of the vast foodways found throughout the Philippines.

To be a member of this Krog Street Market New England-style tavern, one simply has to walk in, grab a seat, and order a drink or a meal. Try popular menu mainstays like the Ipswich clam roll, the seasonal vegan noodle bowl, or the Club’s iconic veal sweetbreads or Poh’s eggplant tossed with Thai basil, mint, Thai chilis, toasted coconut, and Bali sauce with a side of jasmine rice. Cocktails at Ticonderoga Club are always top notch, as the restaurant is owned by three trailblazers of Atlanta’s cocktail movement: Greg Best, Paul Calvert, and Regan Smith. Cocktails rotate regularly here, but T-Club’s mint julep riff, the Ticonderoga Cup, and an Irish coffee are always on the menu. Reservations highly encouraged.

Opened in 2013, Italian-American restaurant BoccaLupo has become both a neighborhood favorite in Inman Park for local residents and one of Atlanta’s must destination restaurants. Order any of the fresh pasta dishes on the menu — the black spaghetti and the 20-yolk tagliatelle are now Atlanta classics. Make sure to check out the tight wine list and cocktails here, too. Reservations encouraged. Outdoor seating available.

This small cafe from Julia Kesler Imerman features coffee, protein breakfast bowls, and shakshuka in the morning, followed by rotisserie chicken pitas and grain bowls in the afternoon all leaning into Imerman’s Jewish and South African roots. Try the lemon ricotta hotcakes, the carrot and potato latke stack, or the smoked salmon pita stuffed with lemon labneh, greens, sumac onions, capers, and dill. Food at Daily Chew is fresh, healthful, and hearty and totally packed with flavor. The restaurant also sells fresh breads and pastries daily as well as whole rotisserie chicken or cauliflower family meals and prepared foods like vegan soba noodles, and salads. Outdoor seating available. Cocktails, beer, wine available.

The wild success this Atlanta seafood restaurant now enjoys started back in 2022 at its original location in Poncey-Highland. During the first week in business, the tiny little seafood market and cafe sold nearly 700 pounds of fresh fish and close to 60 blackened grouper sandwiches each day. Six months later owners Skip Engelbrecht, Nhan Le, and chef Bradford Forsblom opened a second, larger location at the Pratt Pullman District in Kirkwood, followed by a third location on Howell Mill Road in June 2023. That aforementioned grouper became an instant classic for Fishmonger when it hit the menu, even grabbing the attention of former President Barack Obama, who ordered the grouper atop his Caesar salad during a visit to Atlanta. Beyond fish sandwiches like the grouper, hot catfish, and the Frankenstein roll with chunks of hot buttered crab and lobster, look for daily oyster and crudo specials, fish dinners, and seafood salads and chowders from Forsblom at all three locations. Pair it with sparkling wine, a boozy cocktail, or a frozen drink. Poncey-Highland location is BYOB. Howell Mill and Kirkwood locations feature full bars.

Owned by chefs Ron Hsu and Aaron Phillips, Lazy Betty in Candler Park offers sophisticated fine dining wrapped in a warm and inviting neighborhood restaurant. Here, people choose between two reservation-only tasting menus of six to eight courses with optional wine pairings and a vegetarian meal upon request. There’s also champagne and caviar service, which comes with steamed milk buns and scallion pancakes, too. Reservations required. Vegetarian menu available upon request. Outdoor seating available.

Chefs Eric Brooks and Jacob Armando transformed their weekly pop-up in Candler Park into a permanent restaurant in August 2022, transforming the former Gato space into a cozy Italian bistro with tables draped in red checkered linens set off by candlelight and flowers. It’s now an award-winning restaurant serving a menu of traditional red sauce classics made with in-season produce and fresh-made pastas, expect dishes like rigatoni fazool with cowpeas replacing cannellini beans and chicken marsala served with fresh focaccia. Dessert features Gigi’s popular tiramisu. A tight list of cocktails, wine, beer, and amaro round out the beverage list, which includes the Dirty Gigi martini and a rye Old Fashioned punched up with espresso and coffee bitters. Reservations limited and encouraged on Friday and Saturday evenings.

After departing 5Church in Midtown, chef Scotley Innis opened this Afro-Caribbean restaurant and cigar lounge in 2021. Inspired by his travels and love for the diaspora of African cuisine, Continent provides Innis the opportunity to showcase his global vision for food from these regions at his own restaurant, and on his own terms. Dishes range from starters like Yardman oysters (similar to oysters Rockefeller) layered with the leafy Jamaican vegetable callaloo, duck bacon, garlic butter, and parmesan cheese to oxtail lo mein and fried whole snapper atop a creamy red coconut sauce served with a side of Szechuan-style vegetables. Continent’s cigar lounge is where to relax and indulge in cigars and cocktails or Macallan scotch flights and rare spirits, like the pricey Remy Martin Louis XIII cognac, while dining on small plates. Reservations highly encouraged. 

This little French restaurant in the heart of downtown Decatur is one of the city’s most charming dining gems, offering a quiet escape from bustling East Ponce and beyond. As the name implies, Cafe Alsace serves both traditional French and Alsatian cuisine — the latter coming from a region in northeastern France bordering Germany and Switzerland along the Rhine River blending the cultures, languages, and foods of the three countries together. (Think cassoulets, boeuf bourguignon, creamy egg noodle-laden spaetzle, tarte flambee, and coq au Riesling.) The wine list here is a lovely mix of French and Alsatian vintages. It’s no secret to longtime patrons of Cafe Alsace that the restaurant is doing more to promote the food and hospitality of this unique region of France than most French restaurants in Atlanta. And owner and Alsatian native Benedicte Ulsas Cooper, who often works the dining room of the tiny three-decade-old restaurant, is the greatest ambassador of Alsace and its cuisine. Open for lunch and dinner. Reservations for dinner encouraged on the weekends.

James Beard award-winning chef Terry Koval opened his Decatur restaurant in 2019 and its become not only a destination restaurant for Atlantans, but provides Koval ample space to really shine as a chef. Expect skillfully composed dishes of in-season vegetables, beef and pork from nearby cattle and pig farms, and game meat entrees, like crispy rabbit legs fried in fermented buttermilk, duck sausage roulade, and plates of venison. The restaurant’s bar offers a handful of classic cocktails, beer, and cider, as well as a selection of mainly French and Italian wines. In the mornings, head next door to Koval’s B-Side Cafe for Montreal-style bagels, bagel sandwiches, and coffee. Reservations encouraged. Outdoor seating available.

Thai restaurant Tum Pok Pok opened on Buford Highway in 2021 and has since become one of the hottest spots to dine on Buford Highway. Owned by Adidsara Weerasin of Bangkok Thyme in Sandy Springs, Tum Pok Pok specializes in Isan street foods found throughout northeast Thailand bordering the Mekong River. Dishes and ingredients from this region of Thailand are similar to those found in the neighboring country of Laos. The menu includes dishes like papaya salad, larb, crab and pork dumplings, green curry, Isan sour sausage, and mango sticky rice, along with Thai iced milk tea and a Thai Shirley Temple.

Since opening in 2018 at the H Mart plaza in Doraville, Lao restaurant Snackboxe Bistro has gained an avid following — and for good reason. Chef Thip Athakhanh mixes traditional Lao dishes and street foods with beloved home recipes passed down from her family on the menu at Snackboxe. Expect plates of larb (meat salad), khao poon (spicy rice noodle soup), and the popular mok pha (steamed fish) with street foods such as fried garlic-pepper wings, lemongrass spare ribs, and tapioca pearl dumplings here. There’s a second location in Duluth, which will soon offer a Lao brunch on the weekends.