Omnivore Atlanta

I was the underdog and I knew it. There was no way, on national TV, anyone was expecting much from a young chef from Atlanta. Especially my competitor. At the end, I was sweating. But so was he, in both the literal and street definition. It was a sneak attack. When I went to shake his hand, the superstar celebrity chef, he said “You should be cooking in London or New York.”

Huh?

It was both a compliment and an insult.

This is going to hurt a bit.  And, honestly, I’m a little hesitant to pull the verbal trigger. But Atlanta isn’t thought of very highly as a culinary city.  Yes, we’ve had our share of press and features in national publications. We’ve had a few chefs pop through the atmosphere to show up in the New York Times, or make appearances on TV. We have Food & Wine best new chefs, James Beard award winners and there are some nationally recognized restaurants.  Alton Brown even calls the Atlanta area home, I think.  But I’ve traveled a lot lately.  And more often than not, amidst professionals, chefs and foodies, when Atlanta gets mentioned…. well, what you get back is blank stares. Maybe the occasional mention of Seeger’s (still).  And almost always the odd comment, that “I knew a guy who worked at the Ritz Carlton Buckhead.”

Now, I’m going to rip the band-aid off.  We are a medium sized pond. With medium sized fish. And it’s a loose medium! It’s the perception, regardless of personal opinion. It’s cold fact.  It stings, right? (more…)

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I’ll take Atlanta

By Jessica Goldbogen Harlan

When I told my friends that, after a decade in New York City, I was moving to Atlanta, they were aghast. “But won’t you miss the bagels and pizza?” they asked.

I just marked my two-year anniversary of living here in Atlanta, and I’m happy to report that I miss neither. In fact, there is very little, food-wise, that I do miss from my previous home.

Tasty, cheap ethnic food that my husband and I would eat while waiting for Friday’s paycheck? Now we just take a trip to have awesome pho on Buford Highway (incidentally, my favorite, Pho Hua, has a location in Flushing, NY, though I’ve never been).

A see-and-be-seen hotspot where my girlfriends and I could down large quantities of great wine, accompanied by tapas-style plates of all varieties? When the girls come to visit, I book a table at Rathbun’s. They’re always especially impressed by those $3 desserts, which we usually order way too many of.

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