Omnivore Atlanta

UPDATE (July 20): The video which appeared below was posted in the same spirit I post all kinds of other lunacy I encounter on the Internet — for amusement. The 50-odd comments that follow demonstrate that my effort bombed. It’s not the first time. Cliff Bostock.

The video that appeared here has been removed as a courtesy to Shaun Doty, who was concerned about the incendiary nature of its contents.  It can be found on YouTube.

Girls go wild at the Vortex:

The Shumacher Group is listing Mitra for sale. The attractive restaurant is on Juniper Street in Midtown. …

Headline from ThePacker.com: “Despite Atlanta being a city with many dining opportunities, produce sales to the restaurant segment have slipped” …

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More from Chris Lopez at the Bureau:

Acclaimed chef Shaun Doty is making a guest appearance for the evening and will be cooking holiday menu items including a Corned Beef Sandwich on Rye with Sauerkraut ($5); Corned Beef and Cabbage with Boiled Potatoes ($6); Irish Shepard’s Pie with Mashed Potatoes and Braised Beef ($6); Guinness Lamb Stew ($8.50); and Chipped Beef with Gravy Toast ($5). Start the festivities with Belfast Bombers, Irish Car Bombs, pints of Guinness, and shots of “Irish Courage” (whiskey).

Located at 327 Edgewood Ave SE, Atlanta Georgia 30312, The Bureau can be easily spotted under the flashing red arrow. For more information, please visit www.thebureaubar.com or call (678) 732-0067. Free valet parking is located directly across the street.

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The Bureau is offering new weekly “stimulus specials,” including $3.50 organic vodka martinis and $3.50 glasses of the sommelier’s choice of wine. Guests can also nosh on 50-cent raw or smoked oysters on the half shell. The specials run daily, 4-7 p.m.

If you’ve been wondering about the menu created by Shaun Doty, here’s a highly capitalized announcement from the restaurant:

The menu, created by Consulting Chef Shaun Doty and executed by Executive Chef Jarman Gray, offers upscale pub-grub choices. Appetizer favorites include: San Marzano Tomato Soup with Garden Sour Dough Grilled Cheese; White Pimento Cheese with Poblano Peppers and Crudité; and Lamb Chops with Indian Yogurt Sauce. Popular Entrée choices include: the Hand Packed Angus Burger with Pimento Cheese; Chicken Sliders on Hawaiian Rolls with Sweet & Sour Sauce; Shaun’s Pork Bangers and Mustard Mashed Potatoes; Lamb Pie with Homemade Puff Pastry; and Grilled Marinated Flatiron Steak Marinated in Chili Arbol and served with Onion Marmalade.

The Bureau is located at 327 Edgewood Ave. Free valet parking is located directly across the street. For more information, visit the Bureau’s website or call 678-732-0067.

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Woo hoo! Shaun Doty has taken pity upon us poor folks and is making a very affordable offer on Sundays — “Family-Style Pasta Night,” starting March 1. Garlic bread, salad, pasta and homemade gelato will cost you $12.

The planned revolving menu of pasta dishes includes spaghetti with Brooklyn gravy and meatballs; penne with roasted cauliflower and ricotta; and orchiette with broccoli rabe and homemade sausage.

Shaun’s is open 5-9 p.m. Sundays for dinner. The regular menu will also be available for spoiled members of your family.

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Chris Lopez, one of the owners of The Bureau (327 Edgewood Ave., 678-732-0067), writes to say that Chef Jay Clark has left the restaurant:

We have decided to go in another direction. Mainly, the menu was a little too high in price for guests (and for us). So we are now working with one of Atlanta’s favorite chefs – drum roll – Shaun Doty! Shaun will be staffing our kitchen and creating the new menu. We have done some renovations in the kitchen to prepare for Shaun and the new menu with start on January 15.

The second big news I have: we are doing a Bureau Bailout Brunch every Sunday. The buffet is only 25 cents, with Bloody Marys and Mimosas for $3.75. It starts at 12:30 p.m. every Sunday during the month of January.

I hope Doty’s participation helps the spot. The popular chef-owner of Shaun’s also consulted on the Originial El Taco, which Besha reviewed this week. She raises some questions about Doty’s work there. Personally, I liked Jay Clark’s food; he actually worked under Doty at the defunct Midcity Cuisine. But I do understand the need for a more affordable menu.

I think every restaurant in town should charge only 25 cents for brunch, don’t you?

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THE THE: A selection of tacos at the Original El Taco

“Consulting chef” is a slightly confusing term. Generally, it means that the chef in question has designed the menu and perhaps spent some time training the kitchen staff on how to execute his dishes. It rarely means that the consulting chef is actually spending any time in the kitchen during service. But the question is, if a good chef consults, can we expect the food to be on par with what that chef would deliver in his own restaurant?

Shaun Doty, arguably one of the city’s best chefs, is making a cottage industry out of consulting at other people’s restaurants. Last year he put his name on the menu at Midtown’s now defunct Spotted Dog. I stopped in there one afternoon and had a somewhat sad version of Doty’s East Village-style chicken livers, which resembled the original in concept but not execution. He is currently acting as consulting chef at the Original El Taco, Fifth Group’s new Tex-Mex restaurant in Virginia Highland (although the restaurant’s website lists him as Executive Chef), and there’s talk of other consulting gigs in the works.

The Original El Taco (roughly translated to “The Original The Taco”) has been an instant hit — there’s a wait for tables almost any time of the night on any night of the week. The crowds bring a party atmosphere, ramped up with large, well-made margaritas. There’s also a colorful mural painted by SCAD students that depicts, among other things, somebody who looks an awful lot like Hitler carrying a giant taco on his back.

You can see Doty’s touch on the menu of tacos, “Mexican pizzas” and Tex-Mex entrees: a pork belly taco here, a fried egg atop a stack of tortillas and chili there. But can you taste his influence? (more…)

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Sounds odd, yet, fantastic. Cheese is awesome. So why not have four courses of it?

Shaun Doty agrees, so on Sunday, Dec. 7th, he’s throwing a Sweet Grass Dairy dinner for the masses at Shaun’s. Well, not for everyone (reservations guys, come on!).

Cost is $55-$75.

Menu includes:

Soft polenta with pulled pork, SGD Green Hill fonduta, wild mushrooms

Beer cheese soup, SGD Thomasville Tomme, Well Bombadier beer, rye croutons

Maple-marinated duck breast, SGD goat cheese and onion tart

SGD lumiere goat cheese with fresh chestnuts and chestnut honey

Um. Yay.

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A beer dinner…yet again. (But they are oh so delicious!)

This time the dinner is at Shaun’s on Thurs., Dec. 18th; holiday themed and fabulous. Supper is four courses paired with pints for the season.

Cost is $45 for non-drinkers (psh) and $65 for the dinner and brew.

Here’s a sneak peak at the grub:

First Course: Benton’s sixteen month prosciutto, local spaghetti squash salad, honey paired with Weinstephan Fest.

Second Course: Heirloom lentil soup, guanciale and marjoram with Sweetwater Festive Ale.

Third Course: Duck choucroute, homemade pretzel, sauerkraut, endive and apples paired with Anchor Christmas Ale.

Dessert: Sweet potato pie chestnut honey, vanilla bean ice cream, with Harpoon Winter Warmer.

To make your reservation, call 404-577-4358 or visit www.shaunsrestaurant.com.

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Now it can be told – the true story of my feelings about Shaun Doty’s cooking.

Don’t worry, there’s nothing really negative about it. I have enjoyed Doty’s work ever since he was chef at Mumbo Jumbo. That restaurant, you’ll recall, had Guenter Seeger on board as consulting chef. Doty had worked for Seeger when he was chef of the Dining Room at the Ritz-Carlton Buckhead.

After Doty left the Dining Room, he landed at restaurants in France and Belgium, then returned to the States. After two gigs elsewhere, he returned to run the kitchen at Mumbo Jumbo at Seeger’s behest. He then went on to open MidCity Cuisine, then Table 1280, and in 2006, Shaun’s (1029 Edgewood Ave., 404-577-4358) in Inman Park. I believe he has shared ownership in all of these restaurants except Table 1280.

So, Doty has a resume nearly as giddy as Richard Blais’, and I used to make the same complaint about him as others currently lodge against Blais — that he never stayed anywhere long enough to get really focused. Doty has a rep as something of a society dude, often showing up in pictures of convocations of the beautiful people. His restaurants have always seemed to attract that crowd and, knowing their insatiable taste for the nouveau, I’ve wondered if Doty’s peripatetic resume is a reflection of that.

Read the rest of this article here.

(Photo by James Camp)

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Shaun Doty, owner-chef of Shaun’s in Inman Park, has enjoyed loads of favorable reviews from local critics.

Creative Loafing’s Besha Rodell gave the restaurant four stars after it opened in 2007 and Cliff Bostock writes glowingly of Doty’s cooking in this week’s CL. Similar kind words came from Atlanta Magazine.

But the AJC’s Meridith Ford (now Meridith Ford Goldman) may have been the most effusive of all. She declared in her January 2007 review that “there is no other restaurant of this caliber in Atlanta.” And it seems, at least, that a week has seldom gone by since without Goldman offering the restaurant plaudits in a blog post, a “best” this-or-that listing or even in reviews for other restaurants.

That’s why a few eyebrows were raised last month when foodies started hearing that Doty would cater at the AJC critic’s wedding party. Then, on Sept. 25, I practically choked on my chicken livers when the daily ran Goldman’s article gushing about the chefs at her reception, held at South Fulton’s elegant Serenbe community. Ice cream, she said, was provided by Doty, “who was nice enough to make my favorite appetizer from his menu, Sardinian flatbread, as well.”

In the same article, titled “Feast fit for a bride,” Goldman offered kind words (read: favorable, free publicity) for three other chefs with whom the wedding couple did business.

Read the rest of this story here.

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There’s good news about the beleagured location of the defunct Sala:

The owners of Fifth Group Restaurants have joined forces with Executive Chef Shaun Doty, owner of Shaun’s, to create The Original El Taco in the former Sala space in Virginia-Highland. The new restaurant will open in mid-October. Doty is developing recipes for creative Mexican fare like tacos, tortas and salsas, and the Fifth Group Restaurants team is working with William Peace, Peace Design, to change the look and feel of the restaurant.

“The Original El Taco will be lively, bright, open, and – most of all – fun,” said Robby Kukler, co-owner of Fifth Group Restaurants. “We have known Shaun for years and when we found out he had been thinking about doing Mexican too, we knew it was a great partnership.”

“I love Mexican food and have wanted to do a restaurant like this for a while,” said Doty. “To have this opportunity to work with the pros at Fifth Group Restaurants is great.”

“We are going to create an easy, approachable destination for great Mexican food,” added Kukler.

Doty will work with a chef de cuisine at El Taco when the restaurant opens, while remaining executive chef at Shaun’s.

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