The January Hit List: Juniper Cafe, The Chastain, Octopus Kitchen, and More

Bringing serious credibility to the Westside Village development, this Vietnamese café and bakery may seem unassuming at first approach but has the chefs behind Atlanta’s highly esteemed restaurant Lazy Betty as owners, so consider it a must-try. The café kicks off breakfast at 8 a.m. with several worldly pastries including Turkish egg bread, a Portuguese egg tart, and French-ness in the form of plain, chocolate, or almond croissants, and even a brioche muffin, any of which can be matched with hot tea such as matcha gyokuro or Patagonia wild guava, or Vietnamese coffee. Dinner brings out the pho, bun, and banh mi on crisp housemade baguettes, along with chef specialties like Vietnamese hot fried chicken in Thai chile oil. Don’t sweat the heat; that’s what cocktails like the fruited-up vodka concoction “Thunder Punch” are there to handle.

Hugh Acheson is no longer involved with By George, but the arrival of this Montreal-style steakhouse in Buckhead’s Hyatt Centric shows he’s not leaving Atlanta’s hotel dining scene anytime soon. The James Beard Award-winning celebrity chef went with a gilded age theme, from the archways at both the hotel lobby entry point and behind the stretched marble bar to the patchwork of angular gold, bronze, and tan shapes in the design of the cloth ceiling and carpet, not to mention floor-to-ceiling windows that surround the dining room.

Check in for dinner and enjoy a simplified selection of meaty main courses, including Portuguese brown butter-sauced roast chicken, king salmon, and prime steaks in filet, New York strip, and rib-eye cuts, although cowboys and other larger-format steaks also can be requested. French toast and other breakfast items also are served (that includes room service), and the wine menu leans into French pours, from Sancerre to Beaujolais, Bordeaux and Champagne by the glass.

Call 470-763-4399 for reservations.

Chef Christopher Grossman’s new American reimagining of the restaurant space where Horseradish Grill once operated made several end-of-year lists for best dining in the city. That makes it a great place to set the tone for how you’ll dine in 2022, and there’s no shortage of good options.

One of the best things about the bistro is the simplicity, which allows the kitchen to wow you with something as generally unpretentious as a turkey wing on the starter menu (it’s exceptional), or the Georgia mountain trout, which comes crusted in Marcona almonds. Aside from the visual appeal of the dining room, whose full-length back windows peer out into the restaurant’s herb and veggie garden, another nice detail in these testy times is their tented courtyard near the entry, which is well-appointed with patio space heaters, and the seating area surrounding the fire pit in front. Both give plenty of room for alfresco dining, if desired.

Erika Council has been Atlanta’s queen of biscuits for years, holding popular weekend pop-ups at barbecue restaurants B’s Cracklin’ and Lake & Oak prior to having a stall inside Irwin Street Market right on the BeltLine’s Eastside Trail. At Bomb, her fluffy, buttery, and perfectly browned buttermilk biscuits are available Thursday through Sunday, from morning to afternoon. You can build your own by adding pimento or American cheese or egg a la carte, or order them as sandwiches (bacon, egg, and cheese, sausage, or country ham), or have the “glori-fried” chicken biscuit, which comes topped with bread and butter pickles and can also be tossed in spicy honey. It’s a great way to blow up your day.

Order online for pickup here.

A new year is a new beginning worth celebrating, and brunch at Virgil “Roc” Harper’s Buford Highway restaurant understands and accomplishes the assignment with fancified Southern comfort cuisine. Sunday is when brunch happens, with popular items like the seafood egg rolls (lobster, crab, shrimp, and salmon tossed in lemon butter), and seafood gumbo accented with chicken, smoked beef sausage, and jasmine rice. Grits-lovers will appreciate the fact that Roc’s are made with smoked Gouda, and have fried lobster, catfish, or shrimp as options for surf protein. Don’t ever forget to add honey butter biscuits on the side, and adult refreshments like candy apple mimosas or housemade French lemonade with Cognac will also uplift your new year energy.

Transitioning from delivery-only to a walk-up window and an inside-seating café as of mid-January, the holistic meal prep company Stop Think Chew is turning its headquarters into a space where you can eat, work, chill, or pick up orders of the specialty farm-fresh Mediterranean and South African meals inspired by founder Julia Kesler Imerman’s South African and Jewish heritage. Give yourself a healthy start to the year by ordering quinoa bowls with cauliflower tabbouleh, overnight oats with superfood mix-ins (turmeric, chia seeds, goji berries, etc.), truffle chicken salad in a whole wheat wrap, or kelp noodle pad thai.

Call 404-600-4155 or order online.

This seafood restaurant opened quietly in September, taking over the space of the short-lived Lazy Llama Cantina across from Ansley Mall. The menu features familiar-yet-unique items like egg rolls filled with octopus, red onion, and avocado, and entrees like fettuccine Alfredo with tiger shrimp, and a whole Mediterranean sea bass that’s roasted and butterflied. It’s also got a great covered patio for anyone wanting the added comfort of outdoor air.

Though it was originally scheduled to open months ago, EAV food hall Southern Feed Store slid into the former space of Graveyard Tavern (RIP) in the final week of 2021. Though there are six food stalls within the 6,000-square-foot space, it will open with four, including a new location for Brazilian coffee shop Buteco, whose original location is in Summerhill, and whose owner is a managing partner at the food hall. Dining options include a breakfast stall called Waffle Bar, Greek restaurant Gyro Gyro, and a third location of landmark ATL hoagie spot Woody’s CheeseSteaks, which will serve customers well into the late-night hours. Show up ready to dance on weekends; the owner reportedly will bring Buteca’s live jazz, soul, and funk music vibes.

Find more information here.

With an all-day menu of baked goods, charcuterie, and other snacks, along with a prix fixe menu where you can mix and match three courses, there’s no need to add an additional step of figuring out where to eat before or after your evening of entertainment at Woodruff. Dinner at Twelve Eighty, formerly known as Table 1280, starts with first bites like crisped brussels sprouts with whipped ricotta and local honey, entrees like cornmeal-crusted catfish pappardelle pasta and braised lamb ragout, or a vegan pad thai bowl topped with smoked peanut sauce, ending with sweet options like a s’mores creme brulee.

All three of the venues at Woodruff remain open, with new programming in January such as the production of the stage show “Dream House” beginning January 22 at Alliance. FYI, masks are mandated throughout the Center, and while The High doesn’t require vaccinations both the Alliance Theatre and Atlanta Symphony Orchestra do — likely because you’ll sit for extended periods of time with others during live performances.

Celebrate this new year with a bit of Italian American deliciousness in the form of BoccaLupo’s reliably divine handmade pasta and seasonal menu specialties. Chef-owner Bruce Logue and the kitchen crew have received heavy local and national praise for consistently wowing guests with a modernized and constantly morphing menu, where secondis such as squid-inked spaghetti with hot Calabrese sausage and red shrimp can mix and mingle with antipastis like mussels in cherry tomato brodo spiked with garlic grown just north of Atlanta in Ellijay. It’s also nice that the deceptively low-key neighborhood restaurant, built into an old Inman Park bungalow, has a spacious covered patio for those wishing to keep their dining outdoors at the moment.