People living in the southern suburbs of Atlanta have long coveted this gem of a restaurant in Peachtree City, often raving as much about the lovely hospitality received during meals here as they do about the food. Owned by Hadi Rabai and Fatima Hojaij, the Beirut has served classic Lebanese dishes with fine dining touches for nearly a decade in Peachtree City. Try the foul mudammas (fava and garbanzo bean salad), Kefraya (Lebanese wine)-marinated steak tips, or lamb and beef shish kaftas. Order a grand feast for dinner that includes three mezzes, three kebabs, and dessert or coffee.

The critically acclaimed restaurant, owned by chef Brian So and partner Daniel Crawford, features a tight, seasonally inspired menu of dishes paired with a curated list of natural and biodynamic wines. Start with foie 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 lends itself nicely to both intimate dinners as well as larger groups catching up over bottles of wine and a meal. Reservations are 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 sauteed 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.

Two-decade-old fine dining stalwart Bacchanalia and its epic tasting menu are better than ever. The menu still includes the popular crab fritter, Maine lobster with caviar and brioche, and a rotating array of in-season entrees and desserts. Located next to market and cafe Star Provisions on Ellsworth Industrial Boulevard, reservations are necessary for a table here. Don’t have reservations? Head to the bar for cocktails, a glass of wine, and the a la carte menu.

Twisted Soul Cookhouse & Pours in Westside is where the South’s most loved dishes meet the minds of chef Deborah VanTrece and chef de cuisine Robert Butts. VanTrece brings her extensive travel knowledge along with three decades of professional cooking to drive the menu and the service here, while Butts pushes the boundaries further with his dishes; together the pair strikes 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.

In business since the 1940s, this Vine City soul food institution on Atlanta’s Westside serves some of the city’s best fried chicken, alongside an assortment of other Southern meat-and-three staples. The fried chicken at this James Beard America’s Classics award winner is marinated for 12 hours, hand-breaded, and fried. If that isn’t enticing enough, get the smothered version, which is topped with pan gravy.

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. Located next door to a Chevron station on Cleveland Avenue, the halal 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 often features options like bodega-style breakfast dishes, tacos on Tuesday, lumpia and garlic noodles topped with steak, and a delicious soft-shell crab sandwich during the spring.

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. Maybe try lunch, which finally returned to Miller Union in 2023, three years after the restaurant discontinued the mid-day meal service at the start of the pandemic. And the popular ice cream sandwiches are also back on the lunch menu.

It’s hard to go wrong with any order at this Jamaican restaurant institution, but a great place to start is with one of Jamrock’s curry plates. Try the rich curry shrimp and curry snapper, or maybe opt for a plate of braised oxtails or a hearty Hotty Hotty jerk chicken and turkey bacon sandwich topped with peppers and onions. Breakfast is also available and typically features callaloo and saltfish, dumplings, and saltfish fritters. Keep an eye out for specials like jerk fish fried rice.

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 dishes like the Everything Raw Beef with hatch chile bagel soubise and drinks like the Invasive Species mixed with singani and rum, bitter bianco, and creme de kudzu flower. It’s best to order the entire tight menu here. Tell the server, “Just F*ck Me Up, Fam.”

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. Head here for happy hour specials, fresh oysters, off-menu dishes, and crushable cocktails, including a Thai twist on the pina colada.

After years of serving classic, white-tablecloth fine dining, chef Gerry Klaskala remodeled his Buckhead staple restaurant in 2016 to appeal to a younger generation of diners. Now it’s a bit more relaxed and casual — there’s a walk-in-ready bar and lounge for drinks and snacks for an impromptu night out. The kitchen consistently cranks out Aria favorites, like butter-braised lobster, slow-braised pork, and lump crab cakes. Aria continues to carry one of Atlanta’s most comprehensive wine lists, too. Dine al fresco on Aria’s covered and heated patio. Reservations are required.

In 2020, Kara Hidinger and chef Ryan Smith took over ownership of the restaurant they helped found with nonprofit Giving Kitchen, transforming it from a tasting menu restaurant to a neighborhood market with food served daily from the back counter near the kitchen. The food remains as seasonal, creative, and thoughtfully composed as ever it was. Head to the back counter and order dishes like grilled octopus, eggplant, and peppers tossed in fennel-salami vinaigrette, a crab cake sandwich, or a hearty grain bowl or burrata with 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.

Open since 2013, Italian American restaurant Bocca Lupo has become both a neighborhood favorite in Inman Park and one of Atlanta’s must-go 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 are encouraged and outdoor seating is 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-seasoned onions, capers, and dill.The restaurant also sells fresh breads and pastries daily, as well as whole rotisserie chicken or cauliflower family meals, plus prepared foods such as salads and vegan soba noodles.

La Semilla flexes the flavors of Cuban and Mexican dishes on a menu rooted in veganism and family recipes. And for owners Sophia Marchese and Reid Trapani, La Semilla (or the seed) is just the beginning of a new chapter in their restaurant careers. Forged from a pop-up launched just before the pandemic, La Semilla is a flavor-packed triumph of vegan dishes, like meatless versions of vegan chicken tamals steamed in banana leaves served with a punchy ancho sauce, croquetas de jamon stuffed with seitan ham Tranpani makes himself, and bistec de palomilla made with Lion’s Mane mushrooms. Start off with sikil pak (spicy pumpkin seed and tomato dip) served with fresh tortilla chips. And don’t skip the chochoyotes (masa dumplings filled with corn puree) served atop a thin layer of coconut-corn broth topped with a poblano-corn sofrito and matcha oil and fried tortillas for scooping. A zero food waste policy means unused ingredients are incorporated back into sauces and salsas for dishes at La Semilla or made into tinctures or syrups for riffs on classic cocktails. The couple doesn’t see La Semilla as a vegan restaurant, they see it as a restaurant that happens to serve vegan food that unless you were told, you might not suspect otherwise.

During its original Poncey-Highland location’s first week in business back in 2022, the tiny 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 fish atop his Caesar salad during a visit to Atlanta in 2022. Beyond fish sandwiches, 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, though keep in mind that the Poncey-Highland location is BYOB. The 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 are required and a vegetarian menu is available upon request.

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

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 mains such as oxtail lo mein and fried whole snapper atop a creamy red coconut sauce served with a side of Sichuan-style vegetables. 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 in the cigar lounge. Reservations are 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, beef 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. 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. Reservations for dinner are encouraged on the weekends.

James Beard award-winning chef Terry Koval opened his Decatur restaurant in 2019 and it’s become not only a destination restaurant for Atlantans, but also an ample space for Koval 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 and coffee. Reservations are encouraged and outdoor seating is available.

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. 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.

Owned by Mia Orino and Carlo Gan, Kamayan ATL brings Buford Highway a restaurant offering the vast range of dishes and cuisine styles found throughout the islands comprising the Philippines. This includes traditional Filipino dishes like bistek silog, lechon sisig, and hearty bowls of kaldereta (tomato-based broth beef stew with peppers, potatoes, and olives garnished with jalapenos, chilis, and fresh herbs), as well as elaborate kamayan feasts meant for sharing that cover the whole table. The restaurant tends to be busy any day its open, but especially on the weekends when families and friends gather together for one of its famed kamayan spreads. “We didn’t start Kamayan ATL to make money. It was originally just to share our food and our culture with the Atlanta community,” says Orino. “It became so much bigger than we imagined, and we are excited to represent the Filipino community.”