![]() What will Atlanta’s dining scene look like in the years to come? No doubt it will include the minds currently at work at Bacchanalia and Restaurant Eugene.Ītlanta’s restaurant scene has long benefited from the wealth of culinary diversity that runs along Buford Highway. ![]() As aspirational restaurants, they foster the next generation of chefs, sommeliers, servers. Contributed by Brian Woodcockīut these restaurants do far more than make us feel like kings and queens for one night. Kumamoto oysters with caviar and champagne gelee from Baccahanalia's Anne Quatrano. It’s why we go there to celebrate anniversaries and birthdays. Their gift to us is the special memories they help to create. They are reminders that dining is an experience. Through ambitious tasting menus that champion local flavors, highly curated wine lists and remarkably informed waitstaff, these restaurants display a commitment to excellence. With the rise of fast-casual concepts, long-standing, high-end gastronomic destinations like Restaurant Eugene and Bacchanalia might seem dated and irrelevant. The meal was a celebration of the bounty from near here, capped with Bacchanalia’s parting gift: a loaf of bread that you select as you pass through sister store Star Provisions on your way out the door. There were odes to springtime - delicate fennel fronds over flounder crudo, gorgeous red-and-white striped cross-sections of Chioggia beets on local Capra Gia goat cheese atop a spring onion pancake. The four-course prix fixe saw the appearance of Anne Quatrano classics, like crab fritter and coddled egg. ![]() Then there was that visit to Bacchanalia in late March, the last week of service before it closed to move to its new home on Ellsworth Industrial Boulevard. And how did the car just magically appear when we stepped outside at the end of the night? The dishes were decadent, rising to art form in presentation. On it went: sweetbreads with a mustard jus, truffle-crusted flounder with a sweat garlic cream, rib-eye with bordelaise. There was that ephemeral first-run, soft-shell crab, brought in from the Georgia coast only hours before, fried to an airy crispness and napped in sauce Louis. Next came cornbread with the airiest of house-churned butter. The night at Restaurant Eugene began with amuses of pimento cheese sandwiched between itty-bitty black pepper macarons and a demitasse filled with grapefruit agua fresca seasoned with olive oil and sea salt.
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