After dining at Repast, it struck me how well I’ve been eating as of late. As much as I may whine and pout about the occasionally chewy texture and the less-than-masterful meal, there is a lot of good food to be found in Atlanta. Repast’s performance can be uneven, and won’t necessarily transport you to a new ethereal plane of foodie elation, but it does have brilliant moments and it will certainly serve a good meal.
Let’s take it from the top.
The Repast kitchen
Main dining area
Repast is another restaurant in the Old Fourth Ward, practically across the street from 4th & Swift, forming an intersection of fine dining on North and Glen Iris. It was the advent of Spring weather, so we took our review outdoors. Frequent readers know that a casual, relaxed atmosphere is essential to my enjoyment of a meal; stiffness of any kind, no matter how exceptional the food, invariably detracts from my experience. I suppose that in a parallel universe, my ideal restaurant would serve The French Laundry’s food and let me show up in flip-flops and eat on the patio. The interior of Repast is pleasant and far from stuffy but it also has a small area for outside eating, next to a courtyard, that practically begs you to relax, have a bottle of red and take entirely too long to eat. This was our experience.
Repast also has shockingly good prices on certain bottles of wine. Enthused, we promptly decided on a bottle of The Prisoner, and ventured on with two small plates. The first entrant was a seared foie gras with chorizo crumbles and a cherry compote sitting on a red wine and cherry gastrique. The second was a japanese octopus carpaccio with shaved onion and fennel salad and a ponzu dressing.
Foie gras, chorizo, cherry gastrique and compote
Octopus carpaccio, shaved onion & fennel salad, pozu dressing
The foie gras dish was outrageously good. Easily the best dish of the evening, it was a slab of foie gras, not your usual shy, demure sliver of fatty goodness, but a slab. Unctuous and obnoxious the way that only foie gras knows how to be, it was perfectly seared. On top, the chorizo was crumbled and its fat crisped with equal mastery, adding beautiful texture. Finally, the cherry components were bright and sinful, the acidity and the sweetness rounding out what may have been a perfect appetizer.
Our second dish was very good, but paled in comparison. The octopus was thinly sliced lengthwise, making for a great presentation and nullifying the chewy nature of octopus. It was assertive and incredibly light and refreshing, but perhaps reaching too high. For textural contrast, it added toasted wakami, but left me unconvinced. The dish also lacked a bit of color, and it felt a bit monotonous towards the end.
No matter, we were happy campers at this point and plowed ahead. Two more plates were requested: the Spring pea soup with whipped goat cheese and truffle oil, and the wild Burgundian escargot tart with smoked tomato compote. Both solid, competent and satisfying without being able to sustain the magic of the foreplay we had with the foie gras. I do have to note that the escargot was very nicely cooked within the tart. It would have been all too easy to overcook it into a rubbery fiasco, but the kitchen flew a tight pattern and succeeded.
Spring pea soup, whipped goast cheese, truffle oil
Burgundian escargot tart, smoked tomato compote
Our eyes obviously bigger than our stomachs, we decided to share one entrée and one side. The entrée was a seared scallop and pork belly dish with spring pea purée, pea shoots, glazed cipollini onions and a black garlic jus. The side, a black truffle agnolotti with marscapone cheese, black truffles, parmesan cheese and a wild mushroom fricassée.
Here the wheels came off. This entrée was a trainwreck. It may sound like I have a vendetta against scallops, but once again, the scallops were woefully mis-seared. The pork belly was also improperly seared and dull. Dulling pork belly actually takes some work. Adding to our tale of woe, whereas the pea soup was lively and worked beautifully in its simplicity, it felt dramatically out of place in the dish.
The dish simply didn’t work.
This serious misstep aside, the truffle agnolotti was delightful, delivering deep umami goodness that perhaps should have been featured rather than being relegated to the side.
Seared scallop, pork belly, spring pea puree, cipollini onions
Black truffle agnolotti, marscapone cheese, wild mushroom fricasée
Overall Repast is a solid choice for dinner and the very definition of a 3.5/5 knife restaurant under our new rating. A place that is good with bouts with greatness. A place to be patronized, but ultimately falling short on a few key areas that thwart its progress. Who knows? With a stellar entrée, the fourth knife might have made an appearance.
3.5 out of 5 knives
