Foodie Atlanta

I have to admit it, Abattoir is my favorite place to have dinner in Atlanta. You’ve been warned that the rest of this review will be the meandering gushing of a fanboy. It’s hard not to get worked up over Anne Quatrano’s and Cliff Harrison’s latest pean to farm-to-table, nose-to-tail cooking. In a sea of restaurants having to make brutal compromises, sneaking in the occasional interesting appetizer in between bland renditions of fried calamari and something cheesy, Abattoir impresses with bold offerings in almost every section of the menu.

It’s also an unwritten rule that a restaurant’s quality is inversely proportional to the amount of choice given to the diner (or sometimes, menu length.)  Abattoir is then the exception that proves the rule: they have an expansive menu filled with interesting, many times unique, occasionally ballsy, choices.

Abattoir’s ambiance is minimalist and temple-like, without being frigid. It’s not cozy, but it  does feel comfortable. Simple tables and chairs surrounding a large table in the middle of the restaurant with napkins, silverware and other waiter’s necessities. The napkins themselves are more kitchen side towels than dinner napkins. The menu is paper, used as a place mat. The space is large and the restaurant feels like it’s designed to focus you on the food and your company.

The menu is curiously divided into the following categories: Snacks, Salted / Cured, Food in a Jar, Local Produce, From the Wood Grill, Offal, Plates / Bowls, Cheese and Sweet. Each section has 5-6 items, making the process of choosing intimidating. So I’ll try to simplify this for you: ignore the “From the wood grill” section. The food there is excellent, but largely targeted at the pickier eaters in the bunch that are horrified by the offal section, indifferent to charcuterie, mystified by jarred food and skeptical of the plate/bowl section.

Appetizers

The food is uniformly fabulous, but there are a few things worth noting. The fried chickpeas are the perfect appetizer. I’ve actually gone to some lengths to try and recreate them at home with varying levels of success. They’re soaked, boiled, blanched and fried and the result is a little bowl of crispy, puffy, almost popcorny, nutty madness that may be the best bargain in the city at $2.50. Try getting an interesting appetizer at Chili’s for $2.50. The house made beef jerky is good, but not earth-moving. The chicharrones are very airy and if all the pork rinds you’ve ever tried are the ones that come in a bag, this is a must-order. They also have pommes frites for the designated tag-along and ham & cheese gougères that although I wish were a bit fluffier and flakier, they’re a sure-thing for the picky eater.

Salt | Cured

The menu becomes bewildering after tasting the appetizers as you realize that there’s something very exciting going on at Abattoir and one is compelled to order anything and everything. This next section is full of terrines, charcuterie, rotating offerings in sausages and galatines, etc. If anything, keeping up with the ever-changing menu (I’ve been 8-9 times and have already had the menu change a few times on me) is difficult. During this particular visit, we enjoyed a terrine good enough to make me forget my camera and destroy the rest of what was supposed to be a detailed pictorial account of this particular visit. Also worth noting is that the steak tartare had soy and a quail egg in it, giving it tremendously nuanced flavor and character. Finally, the house-made charcuterie is very solid, including a smoked trout with lemon preserves that stands boldly alongside the traditional pork and beef choices.

Food in a Jar

The section “Things in a Jar” has two fantastic items worth noting: rabbit rillettes served with grilled baguette and the pickled Georgia white shrimp. The pickled shrimp are particularly good as a refreshing item to have between what are very heavy courses.

Local Produce

The salad section, still handled with care at a placed named after a slaughterhouse and never treated as an afterthought. My favorite is the duck confit, local greens and butternut squash for $9 (the butternut squash has since changed to sweet potato.)

From the Wood Grill

Like I said above, I’ve largely avoided this section. During most of my visits it seems like this is the section likeliest to see compromise and targeted towards those that really want some unoffending plate of beef + potatoes. Fair enough. However, I do have to say that they’ve recently added a duck leg with white beans that’s very, very good. Also, the Abattoir burger is a mixture of beef and cured pork that’s good, but don’t order the ‘bacon’ unless you are seriously hard-core about your salt. Don’t get me wrong, I love salt. The friend with whom I was dining loves salt even more. But we both agreed that it rendered the burger inedible and thus proceeded to remove it. Maybe this is a secret in-joke played on people that come to a lovely place like Abattoir and go ahead and order the burger? Now that’s my kind of humor!

Offal

The word itself inspires crippling fear in the hearts of those that frequent the Cheesecake Factory. In reality, this section is simply delightful. My favorite dish is the lamb liver fritters. Wow. I wished that I could get this at a drive-thru in one of those little cups meant for fries. The tripe stew is also very good and the sweetbreads are awesome.

Plates | Bowls

Here we get to my section. I simply love their slow-cooked rabbit with turnips and escarole. It’s served with a little rabbit sausage and the rabbit itself is expertly seasoned and cooked to perfection. If I had to decide on a last meal, this would make the short list. I also can highly recommend the duck meatballs and the pork tasting (pork three ways.)

Cheese

Rotates quickly enough that all I can say is that it follows the traditional goat, cow, blue, sheep  structure with the appropriate pairings: marcona almonds tossed in olive oil, honey, preserves,  all the good stuff.

Sweet

I’m not really a dessert person. I’d rather spend my calories on savory concoctions, but I have tried two of their offerings: the cookies and malted ice cream and the superb maple bacon beignets. I went once with 3 of my best foodie friends and we came close to a physical altercation over the last piece of beignet.

Needless to repeat, I love Abattoir. For a while it was open for lunch with the full menu available, making it the best lunch in Atlanta at its price point. Which brings me to the following fact: although it’s not an inexpensive restaurant, there are many inexpensive choices. It is possible to go for lunch, have the chickpeas and salad, tip 20% and come out at around $18. You could go for dinner, have a $5 appetizer, a plate of the rabbit $19, a glass of wine $10 and be looking at $41 including tip. For a restaurant of this caliber, I think that it’s a bargain.

I suppose that I could nitpick for a while. The service is normally excellent, but there have been moments where they’ve been very busy and it’s shown. Anything that comes within a 10 foot radius of the wood grill tastes like it, which isn’t bad, but it does overwhelm other flavors. The grilled bread served with the rabbit rillettes and the steak tartare has this very flavor but it overpowers the nuances of the more delicate ones. The steak tartare is the best example: the delicate flavor of soy, which I think  makes this dish, is completely shot if you eat it with the bread. Also, be aware that the wine list is very, very short and there is no valet parking available.

It’s not hard to spend $40 for dinner at The Cheesecake Factory, Brio or even Outback. What is really hard to do is find a place that doesn’t have a menu loaded with cheese sticks, bruschetta, calamari, a chicken salad, a steak, a bland chicken dish and a creamy pasta for $40. My friends call me difficult. That may very well be, but its restaurants like Abattoir that make it so by raising the bar of expectations and delivering something that renders the traditional upscale casual restaurant pointless.