The Best American Food in Atlanta

Rotating gallery installations line the walls of this fine dining room inside the St. Regis, turning dinner into a mild competition between the food and the art. Chef Freddy Money runs a seasonal New American menu with European leanings, and the kitchen holds a Michelin star, a Forbes Five Star, and AAA Five Diamonds. The cheese cart and zero-proof cocktails signal a team that enjoys the longer format.

1. AAA Five Diamonds
2. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Five Star
3. Michelin Guide 1 Star

Exposed brick and a vaulted dark-wood ceiling set the tone at this Michelin-starred fine dining room in downtown Marietta, where the menu is short by design and the cooking lets ingredients argue for themselves. The chef keeps things deceptively simple, which is harder than it looks. The wine list has real range. A James Beard semifinalist for Best Chef: Southeast, this is the kind of place that makes Marietta a destination, not a detour.

1. Michelin Guide 1 Star
2. Eater 38 Essential Restaurants Around Atlanta
3. James Beard Awards 2025 · Semifinalist · Best Chef: Southeast · Brian So

A converted meatpacking warehouse in the Westside gives Miller Union its bones, and the kitchen fills them out with seasonal Southern cooking that changes with whatever Georgia is growing. The room is casually upscale, the kind of place you'd take someone you're trying to impress without making it obvious that's what you're doing. The New York Times named it among Atlanta's 25 best, and the pastry program drew a James Beard nomination.

1. AAA Three Diamonds
2. James Beard Awards 2022 · Nominee · Outstanding Pastry Chef · Claudia Martinez
3. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

The fried chicken here has been drawing Atlantans to this tiny soul food cafe on MLK Drive since before most of their parents were born. It's takeout only, which doesn't slow anyone down. The menu runs classic Southern, with daily specials and sides like tangy-sweet beans alongside whatever protein you came for. Finish with a cobbler. The Michelin Guide gave it a Bib Gourmand, and the New York Times put it on its Atlanta list.

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand
2. AAA Approved
3. The New York Times The 25 Best Restaurants in Atlanta Right Now

Deborah VanTrece's modern Southern restaurant in a Westside industrial strip is the kind of place where the bar program is as serious as the kitchen, a James Beard semifinalist on both counts. The menu takes the food your grandmother made and runs it somewhere she probably didn't, with collard dip alongside pimento cheese fondue and fried chicken arriving with a collard green roll. The New York Times put it on their Atlanta list, and the room earns the attention.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
2. The Infatuation Where To Eat When You’re Visiting Atlanta
3. The New York Times The 25 Best Restaurants in Atlanta Right Now

Pepperoni butter served by the pint is a solid thesis statement for any restaurant. Banshee is a creative New American spot in East Atlanta where wood floors and whitewashed brick keep things grounded while the kitchen goes in unexpected directions, small plates and pasta sharing the menu with seasonal vegetables that actually pull their weight. The New York Times put it on their Atlanta list, and the crowd that fills it most nights seems to know something you might not yet.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
2. The Infatuation #18 · The 25 Best Restaurants In Atlanta
3. The New York Times The 25 Best Restaurants in Atlanta Right Now

The bread basket alone sets the tone: sheet-pan biscuits and jalapeño johnnycakes before you've even decided anything. This is a sleek Modern Southern restaurant in Summerhill, where the menu keeps one foot in tradition and one somewhere unexpected, think berber-spiced fried chicken or a dish cheekily called lamburger helper. A James Beard semifinalist and a New York Times pick, Southern National reads as a neighborhood spot that just happens to be cooking at a different level.

1. The Infatuation Where To Eat When You’re Visiting Atlanta
2. The Infatuation #11 · The 25 Best Restaurants In Atlanta
3. The New York Times The 25 Best Restaurants in Atlanta Right Now

Half fish market, half seafood counter, Fishmonger seats guests at a communal table or window stools and takes orders from the back. The menu stays compact: oysters, crudos, sandwiches, soups, and whatever the boat brought in that day. The blackened grouper sandwich on a buttered seeded bun with pickled peppers and Florida sauce has become the house staple for good reason. A Michelin Bib Gourmand and a Bon Appétit best new restaurant pick.

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand
2. Esquire #13 · The Best New Restaurants in America
3. Bon Appétit America's Best New Restaurants

1. The Infatuation Potato Salad · The Best Potato Dishes In America

A converted house on Canton Street with a porch and a dining room that feels like someone's well-appointed grandmother let things get a little festive. Table & Main is a Southern restaurant where the kitchen follows the seasons closely, so the menu shifts around what's good rather than what's familiar. The Michelin Guide gave it a Bib Gourmand. Roswell is a quick drive from Atlanta, and the room fills early with people who clearly made a plan to be here.

1. AAA Three Diamonds
2. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand

The biscuits come in jalapeño-cheddar if you want them to, which tells you most of what you need to know. This Southern breakfast and brunch shop in Grant Park earned a Michelin Bib Gourmand turning out the kind of food that started as a pop-up and never got pretentious about it. Baked goods run deep, cinnamon rolls included, but the biscuit sandwiches stacked with hot honey chicken and pickles are the reason the line forms before you've had coffee.

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand
2. The New York Times The 25 Best Restaurants in Atlanta Right Now

A neon sign reading "Bless Your Heart" anchors the bar, which tells you exactly the kind of contemporary Southern restaurant this is. The menu leans hard into local vegetables and whatever the season is doing, with dishes that manage to be creative without being precious about it. The chef earned a James Beard semifinalist nod, and the Michelin Guide has taken notice too. Date-night crowd, candlelit tables, the works.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
2. Eater 38 Essential Restaurants Around Atlanta
3. James Beard Awards 2022 · Semifinalist · Best Chef: Southeast · Joey Ward

Sourdough waffles topped with fried chicken is the move at this cheerful Southern brunch spot in Johns Creek, where the farmhouse aesthetic (blue walls, white benches, wood tables) lands on the right side of kitschy. The menu runs breakfast and lunch, covering avocado toast and quiche before pivoting to BLTs and burgers by midday. Portions run generous, so the table tends to share. The Michelin Guide has it listed among their selected Atlanta restaurants.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
2. Eater 38 Essential Restaurants Around Atlanta

1. AAA Approved
2. The Infatuation Where To Eat When You’re Visiting Atlanta

A compact sandwich counter inside Krog Street Market, Fred's holds a Michelin Bib Gourmand and earns it by committing fully to the mess. The menu moves from burgers to banh mi to cheesesteaks without any identity crisis, and the pimento cheese club, seared bread and all, makes a convincing case that restraint is overrated. Lines form fast and the room doesn't get bigger.

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand

The Southern snack tray arrives on an actual plastic cafeteria tray, the compartments filled with pimento cheese, pickled veg, chow chow, and pork terrine, which tells you everything about the vibe here. Whoopsie's is a casual Southern restaurant with a Michelin Bib Gourmand, a daily-changing protein, a sandwich of the day, and the kind of generous portions that make you want to claim a regular's seat. One dessert is offered, and if it's pecan pie, order it.

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand

The covered patio next to the bar is where Marietta regulars tend to settle in for the long haul. This neighborhood American restaurant runs a seasonal menu built around local and organic sourcing, which in practice means dishes like miso maple-glazed scallops and lavender honey duck breast sharing space with a chicken schnitzel that apparently nobody can leave without ordering. Servers know the menu well enough to actually help. A comfortable, unhurried room without any pretense about it.

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

The elevator opens and wood smoke hits you before the tiki art does, drifting up from the massive open-flame grills below. This Polynesian lounge has been tucked under the Hilton Downtown forever, all bamboo and novelty glassware and rum drinks served in bowls the size of a small birdbath. Staff in Hawaiian shirts keep things unhurried. Order widely and let the table become the buffet it was always meant to be.

1. AAA Three Diamonds

Knotty pine paneling and booth seating give this Reynoldstown breakfast cafe the feel of a diner that's been around forever, but the menu keeps you guessing. Southern country cooking anchors everything, with local sourcing running through the whole operation, and the daily specials can swing from house-made tamales to frog legs without warning. The open-faced buttermilk biscuit buried under pork sausage gravy is the kind of thing people drive across town for.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

Butterscotch leather booths and gas lamps inside what feels like a restored carriage house on the wooded edge of Chastain Park. This is a proper sit-down bistro serving seasonally driven Southern American cooking, the kind of room that makes a Tuesday feel like an occasion. The chef keeps the menu tight and focused, and the chocolate chip cookie with black lava sea salt at the end is not a thing to wave off.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

A light-filled New York-style Jewish deli in Atlanta, which already sets the scene. Black-and-white photos on the walls, display cases lined with cheesecake, and both a market counter and a proper sit-down room. The matzoh ball soup and smoked Nova platters read like they've been on the menu forever. Transplanted New Yorkers tend to show up looking slightly too relieved.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

The name nods to Hemingway's phrase for the blank page, though the room in Decatur's Court Square plays it subtle enough that you'd miss it without context. This is a seasonal New American restaurant where the kitchen mills its own flour and churns its own butter, which tells you roughly how seriously they're taking things. Small plates, house-made pastas, and main dishes move with the seasons. The Michelin Guide has it selected.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

1. The Infatuation Where To Eat When You’re Visiting Atlanta
2. The Infatuation #20 · The 25 Best Restaurants In Atlanta

The name is short for Southern Fox, a nickname for the muscadine grape, which tells you everything about how seriously this fine dining room takes its regional roots. The chef's résumé runs from a Chick-fil-A in Atlanta to Eleven Madison Park, and that arc shows: leather-britches bean dashi, blue crab with bottarga, fermented peaches under marshmallow fluff. A former burger spot with a soft Scandi makeover, it landed on the New York Times Restaurant List for 2026.

1. The New York Times 2026 · The Restaurant List

1. AAA Approved

1. AAA Approved

A neighborhood restaurant in Decatur where the menu drifts happily between lamb shepherd's pie, shrimp and grits, and a roster of signature burgers without feeling like it's having an identity crisis. Small plates and big entrées coexist, much of it gluten-free or adaptable. Craft cocktails, solid beer and wine, and a patio that pulls people into the kind of long, unhurried evening nobody planned to have.

1. AAA Approved

1. AAA Approved

Rows of smokers out front and a cooler stocked with Fanta set the tone at this Grant Park BBQ shop, which leans into Georgia's anything-goes approach to smoked meat. Pork shoulder gets a splash of vinegary Carolina sauce, brisket and turkey come naked or sauced, and the mac and cheese is made with shells and sharp Cheddar. Local beer pours from the taps, cornhole and bocce fill the yard, and Oakland Cemetery is a short walk away if you need to walk it all off.

1. The New York Times The 25 Best Restaurants in Atlanta Right Now

Atlanta takes its lemon pepper wings seriously, and Magic City, the city's most famous strip club, has been quietly central to that argument for decades. The wings are small, seasoned deep into the bone, and come with a blue cheese dressing good enough to make you mourn the missing celery. The crowd runs from music executives to athletes to travelers killing time before a flight. Wings are available to go, for the bashful or the principled.

1. The New York Times The 25 Best Restaurants in Atlanta Right Now

1. The Infatuation Where To Eat When You’re Visiting Atlanta

1. The Infatuation #21 · The 25 Best Restaurants In Atlanta

1. The Infatuation Where To Eat When You’re Visiting Atlanta

Tomato aspic on the menu, and they're not sorry about it. The Colonnade is an old-school Southern supper club on Cheshire Bridge where servers have your order memorized before you sit down and the regulars fill the room like furniture. Fried gizzards share a menu with Gulf shrimp, the yeast rolls demand a second order, and the coconut icebox pie is not optional. The New York Times named it one of Atlanta's 25 best restaurants.

1. The New York Times The 25 Best Restaurants in Atlanta Right Now

1. The Infatuation #4 · Atlanta’s Best New Restaurants

Tartan-print details and jade-green paneling set the tone at Kevin Gillespie's prix-fixe restaurant, where Scottish heritage and Southern cooking share a table without either one apologizing. The menu moves between things like mussels with spicy 'nduja and peach-lacquered duck, then lands on peanut butter chess pie as if to remind you where you are. It's a Michelin Selected pick that reads as personal project first and concept second.

1. The New York Times 2024 · The Restaurant List