Home Grown
Tattooed college students, police officers, farmers and the occasional suited businessman occupy the restaurant's wood-panelled booths and chrome bar stools. The breakfast and lunch menus appeal for their honest southern cooking, low on frills but high on quality. Fans flock for "Comfy Chicken", an open-faced "biscuit" topped with boneless fried chicken and a downpour of sausage-cream gravy. Lunch features regional fare such as fried pork chops, cornmeal-battered catfish, and a pimento cheese sandwich, served with a revolving selection of vegetable sides such as fried green tomatoes and lady peas (a tiny and surprisingly delectable type of field pea). The custardy grits pie makes for a gently sweet and unmistakably southern finale.
968 Memorial Drive, +1 404 222 0455, homegrownga.com. Open Mon-Fri 7am-3pm, Sat-Sun 8am-2pm, mains from $10
Antico Pizza Napoletana
Atlanta may not be the first city to come to mind as a destination for margherita pies but so many serious-minded pizzerias have opened over the past few years that the local media dubbed it the "pizza wars". The conqueror among them is owned by Giovanni di Palma, a New Jersey transplant who created a phenomenon with his puffy-lipped beauties baked in ovens imported from Naples. Much of the dining room, all of which is communal seating, extends into the restaurant's bustling industrial-style kitchen. Settle in among the crowds for the signature San Gennaro pizza, topped with buffalo mozzarella, hunks of sausage, spicy-sweet peppers, and cipolline (small onions). Too full for dessert? Take one of the Italian pastries - including sfogliatelle, flaky half-shells filled with sweetened ricotta and lemon zest – to go.
1093 Hemphill Avenue, +1 404 724 2333, anticoatl.com. Open Mon-Sat 11.30am-till out of dough, pizzas from $18
Busy Bee Cafe
This south-west Atlanta landmark, near downtown, opened in 1947 and is remembered as a gathering place for civil rights leaders in the 1960s. The cafe remains a source of pride for locals, with its welcoming staff and a kitchen that puts a little extra effort into timeless southern classics. The city's best fried chicken always arrives hot and flaunts a crackly crust. It's juicy and salty and greasy in all the right ways. Pair it (or the oxtails, their luscious meat tumbling off the bones) with a daily changing cycle of side dishes: creamy black-eyed peas, for example, on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Happily, the silky collards and a soulful broccoli-cheese casserole are available every day.
810 Martin Luther King, Jr Drive, +1 404 525 9212, thebusybeecafe.com. Open Mon-Fri 11am-7pm, Sun midday-7pm, mains from $9.99
Porter Beer Bar
Husband-and-wife owners Nick Rutherford and Molly Gunn tend the city's widest selection of beer at their handsomely scruffy bar in Little Five Points, a section of the city full of graffiti-covered buildings and counterculture throwbacks. The 800-strong list includes nearly 50 beers on draft and a magnificent roster of American stouts, Danish lambics, and other wonders of brewing that mature gracefully in the bar's ageing room. While the regular menu consists of gastropub standards (fish and chips, say, or mussels in beer and tomato broth), the list of specials best frames Rutherford's skills as a chef. Look for dishes with regional flavour, like ham hock terrine, or compositions that reflect the season, like sugar snap pea salad with strawberries, ginger and yoghurt.
1156 Euclid Avenue, +1 404 233 0393, theporterbeerbar.com. Open Mon-Thurs 11.30am-midnight, Fri 11.30am-2.30am, Sat 11am-2.30am, Sun 11am-midnight, mains from $9.75
Community Q BBQ
Chef David Roberts hung up his fine-dining cap in 2009 to focus on pulled pork, beef brisket and sausage smoked over hickory embers. His is the finest barbecue joint inside Atlanta's beltway, Interstate 285, which unofficially demarcates the city from the suburbs. Pork spare ribs exude a campfire aroma but the beef short rib, borrowed from Texas's barbecue culture, is a sight to behold: a hunk of meat on a bone large enough to be dangerous in a pub brawl. Roberts sets himself apart with starters and sides that, for a barbecue restaurant, show unusual care. His "kitchen sink" salad showcases a panoply of seasonal vegetables, and he crafts complex yet soothing soups like pureed swede with spinach, apple and garlic. Roberts' most famous side dish is his macaroni and cheese, a caloric wonder of rigatoni baked with cheddar, Monterey Jack, Parmesan, and heavy cream.
1361 Clairmont Road, Decatur, +1 404 633 2080, communityqbbq.com. Open Mon-Thurs 11am-8.30pm, Fri-Sat 11am-9.30pm, Sun 11am-7pm, plates from $11
The General Muir
The menu takes its cues from a New York-style Jewish deli but encompasses much more. For breakfast and weekend brunch, the Maven platter ($18) arrives with velvety swaths of lox (cured salmon), nova (smoked salmon), squares of sable (delicately smoked black cod), and creamy salmon salad. It comes with just one bagel, so order extras – and request them toasted. Lunch means sandwiches such as a Reuben (thickly sliced corned beef, sinus-tingling sauerkraut, nutty gruyère cheese and rye bread, $11.95) and a pastrami sandwich piled high with peppery smoked beef that wins the respect of Manhattanites. Chef Todd Ginsberg also makes the city's most decadent burger, crowned with gruyère, caramelised onions, Russian dressing, pickles and, subbing for bacon, crisp-fried pastrami.
1540 Avenue Place, +1 678 927 9131, thegeneralmuir.com. Open Mon-Fri 7am-10.30am, 11.30am-2.30pm, plus Sun-Thurs 5.30pm-9pm, Fri-Sat 5.30pm-10pm, Sat-Sun 8am-3pm, dinner mains from $14
Greenwood's on Green Street
Locals and visitors alike trek to the northern suburbs to bask in Bill Greenwood's quirky converted bungalow – complete with a 1790's log cabin he uprooted and added to the dining room as an expansion – and to feast on his Americana comfort foods. His fried chicken is justifiably famous, a massive portion of thickly battered, pepper-flecked bird drizzled with both hot pepper vinegar and honey. But he's equally deft with seafood specials such as pink-hued rainbow trout in a butter-lemon sauce or crab cakes rich with meat and piquant spices. Mains come with two sides, including creamy broccoli casserole or mashed sweet potatoes.
1087 Green Street, Roswell, +1 770 992 5383, greenwoodsongreenstreet.com. Open Sun, Wed-Thurs 11.30am-9pm, Fri-Sat 11.30am-10pm, mains from $13.95
Gu's Bistro
Buford Highway is one of the unique culinary highlights of Atlanta, a corridor (rather than a defined neighbourhood) that's home to restaurants serving foods from all over the world. On one block, for example, a Mexican sandwich shop sits near a Malaysian spot that serves beef rendang and fried noodle dishes, and across a car park from a place that excels in Vietnamese tofu specialities. But along BuHi (as the locals call it), the city's hardcore food lovers flock to chef-owner Yiquan Gu's restaurant for chilli-ignited dishes from China's Szechuan province. Spice enthusiasts can deliciously scorch their tastebuds on cumin lamb, dumplings flecked with pepper flakes, and fish fillets bathed in chilli oil. Those less inclined toward palate arson should steer toward the tea-smoked duck, served on the bone or shredded and stir-fried with spring onions and ginger.
5750 Buford Highway, Doraville, +1 770 451 8118, gusbistro.com. Open Sun, Tues-Thurs 11am-3.30 pm and 4.30pm-10pm, Fri-Sat 11am-3.30pm and 4.30pm-10.30pm, mains from $10.95
Little Tart Bakeshop/Octane Coffee
Two businesses under one roof combine Atlanta's finest bakery with the city's most sophisticated coffee makers. First, peer into baking whiz Sarah O'Brien's display case: flaky croissants, apple-cheddar turnovers, an unusually light creme fraiche quiche, and galettes filled with local fruit, among many temptations. Then decide between a coffee pour-over steeped with floral Ethiopian beans, a balanced espresso, or a frothy cappuccino. The room is full of distracted faces glowing in the light of their laptops but rarely is the place so mobbed that you can't find a table. At night, the bakery closes but Octane stays open for smart cocktails fuelled by bourbon and gin.
437 Memorial Drive, +1 404 348 4797, littletartatl.com, octanecoffee.com. Little Tart open Mon-Fri 7am-6pm, Sat-Sun 8am-6pm. Octane open Monday 7am-6pm, Tues-Thurs 7am-11pm, Fri 7am-midnight, Sat 8am-midnight, Sun 8am-10pm
Sobban
Korean food is all the rage in Atlanta but chefs Jiyeon Lee and Cody Taylor take the boom one step further by merging Korean and southern flavours. They first opened Heirloom Market BBQ, offering cultural collisions like a barbecued pork sandwich capped with a handful of kimchi. Lee and Taylor call their second business a "Korean-southern diner" and take their explorations further. Its most-winning experiment is pork chop dontaksu, a breaded cutlet that sidles up to sweet potato-carrot mousse, pickled vegetables, and peach hot mustard sauce for dipping. Fried chicken wings with a chilli-ginger glaze are downright narcotic. The restaurant inhabits a wacky former fast food joint vaguely in the shape of a pioneer wagon: it adds surreal fun to the dining experience.
1788 Clairmont Road, Decatur, +1 678 705 4233, sobban.com. Open Tues-Thurs 11.30am-2.30pm and 5pm-9.30pm, Fri-Sat 11.30am-2.30pm and 5pm-10.30pm, mains from $10
Bill Addison is the restaurant critic and food editor for Atlanta magazine