Omnivore - Gossip from Buckhead, Midtown and the Old Fourth Ward

New restaurants coming to Buckhead and Midtown

Savor, the popular gourmet grocery and sandwich shop, has added panini to its menu, according to Brad Lapin, my perennial Friday lunch companion. ...

Cafe Lapin (no relation to Brad) has opened in the same shopping center. You can order breakfast, lunch or dinner there (no dinner on Sunday). ...

AJC critic Meredith Ford Goldman’s review of La Pietra Cucina is due out this week. Brad and I lunched there Friday (surprise!) on arancini (below) suffused with marjoram and a seafood risotto (above) turned velvety black with squid ink. It contained snapper, rock shrimp, mussels and calamari.

Members of the Atlanta chapter of the Accademia della Cucina Italiana ate at La Pietra recently and grilled Chef Bruce Logue within an inch of his life, since his cuisine neither complies with usual notions of authenticity nor regionality. He calls his cooking “progressive Italian,” since he must depend on locally available ingredients. ...

Serpas has begun serving Sunday brunch, 11 a.m.-2 p.m.: “Menu items include New Orleans beignets with confectioner dust, house made granola with yogurt and fresh fruit, cast-iron sunny-side up eggs with hashbrowns and andouille, raspberry marscapone-stuffed French toast with crispy bacon, slow-roasted pork loin with smoked cheddar grits and creamy collards and fried oysters-eggs benedict with Tabasco hollandaise.”