Resy’s Guide to Off Menu Week Atlanta

Fresh from a trip to France, chef Gerry Klaskala is seeing Off Menu Week through rose-tinted glasses. For one week only, a Frenchified Aria will whip up bistro icons like crispy duck confit and chicken liver mousse with strawberry gastrique, alongside two seafaring twists on meaty classics: a pepper steak of Atlantic salmon and a pot au feu brimming with lobster, scallop, and mussels.

Get ready for dishes steeped in nostalgia: Boxcar chef Brian Carson is looking to the recipes he learned to cook as a child with his grandfather for Off Menu Week, alongside a touch of seasonality. Boxcar will be serving smoked cornish hen with English peas and corn succotash; wild mushroom and spinach lasagna; and roasted garlic and herbs grits with spicy collard greens and crispy pork belly.

Chef Nathan Bramlett’s neighborly gem is putting its kitchen crew in the spotlight. The Off Menu Week dishes will be a true collaborative effort, and diners can expect potato tarts topped with housemade crème fraîche; braised lamb shanks with orzo, black garlic, and smoked tomato; and a coconut cake finished with candied kumquat.

For Off Menu Week, Local Republic is taking diners on a spin around the globe. The cooks are looking to their worldwide travels for the one-week specials, which feature the likes of banh xeo (Vietnamese rice flour crepes stuffed with sautéed vegetables and ground pork), paella de pollo, salmon buns with honey-garlic sauce, and homemade falafel with a side of tabbouleh.

The chef who championed and popularized Cajun and Creole cuisines is getting a well-deserved tribute. Louisiana Bistreaux is honoring the late, great Paul Prudhomme with specials that range from a New York strip à la Nola (that’s a prime steak topped with crawfish and lump crab meat) to Maine lobster tail crusted with Zapp’s Crawtator chips.

Lyla Lila chefs Craig Richards and Chris Hughes are pulling from the dishes of their culinary past, from college town dinners to fine dining restaurants in Europe. Get ready for smoked mountain trout rillette, rigatoni with wild mushrooms and house guanciale, veal scallopini with prosciutto, and a chocolate chip gelato with Zucca amaro and espresso.

Owner Blaiss Nowak and his team are getting personal: Off Menu Week dishes will be family favorites only. You’re in for fried calamari, salmon couscous, and sausage and peppers — that one is a tribute to Nowak’s Creole-Italian heritage. Also on offer are a crab cake salad, an upgrade on the steakhouse’s best seller, and a hefty cowboy ribeye.

Redbird’s talented chef de cuisine Christian Perez is taking the reins during Off Menu Week. Her specials will highlight her Mexican heritage, which means there’s no better time to visit and sample scallop aguachile; smoked mushrooms with mole blanco and hoja santa (Mexican pepperleaf); duck carnitas enveloped in fresh tortillas; and a nopales (cactus) tostada.

This is one pasta party you don’t want to miss. Restaurant Holmes will be doling out four flavor-packed, made-from-scratch pasta dishes for the week. Think black pepper noodles with white asparagus and roasted oyster mushrooms; burrata caramelle topped with a tomato gravy and basil chimichurri; hand-cut pappardelle laced with pork sugo and house-made ricotta; and pork belly raviolini with pickled fresno chile.

For Off Menu Week, chef-partner Virgil Harper will look back on his culinary career. Among other specials, he’ll be doing the first dish he made as a professional chef: braised beef short ribs with creamy, mascarpone polenta, asparagus, and baby carrots.

Chef Deborah Van Treece is unleashing exciting new dishes starting Mar. 23, continuing Twisted Soul’s mission to revamp Southern food to delicious and unexpected effect. We’re talking maple mustard-smoked pork cheeks; a mushroom crudo topped with candied kumquats, pea shoots, and pecan oil; berbere-spiced fried chicken with a lentil jambalaya; and salt-and-pepper smelts with a fried potato pancake.

The dishes of Whiskey Bird past and future will be making a run come Off Menu Week, such as the bygone 72-hour ribeye, an OG favorite from the opening menu, three years ago. And from the future, all hail Whiskey Bird’s New American twists, like spicy tuna pressed sushi and a cacio e pepe dish made with ramen noodles and Szechuan peppercorns.