Cuisine gets imaginative spin at Rathbun's in Atlanta

By Jan Shepherd, Globe Correspondent  |  February 9, 2005

ATLANTA -- The culinary scene here is simmerin' with a slew of restaurants that national, regional, and local press single out for "best this and that" lists. Last fall, two Atlanta Journal-Constitution reviewers updated their Top 50 restaurants guide. Among those cited were Seeger's, Woodfire Grill, Rathbun's, Soto Japanese Restaurant, Joel, Bacchanalia, and the dining room at the Ritz-Carlton, Buckhead. Tough to choose, but my Atlanta friends steered us to Rathbun's, a new kid on the block. Months later I'm still dreaming of a return; once is not enough at Rathbun's.

Housed in the Stove Works, an old factory complex that produced potbelly stoves and cast-iron cookware in its heyday, Rathbun's is a marvel of modern style and cuisine. The excitement begins with the setting, a contemporary transformation of cavernous space into a place with pizzazz. The architects, Johnson Studio, turned 23-foot-high ceilings, brick walls, and old floors into assets. Open since last May, the restaurant has a main dining room for 110, a striking bar for 27, and a patio for 52. A 40-seat wine room opened in December.

Owner Kevin Rathbun, an acclaimed chef on the Atlanta scene for more than a decade after sharpening his culinary skills in his native Kansas and in Dallas and New Orleans, looked for more than five years for a place of his own in the Victorian neighborhood of Inman Park. His business partners are pastry chef Kirk Parks and general manager Cliff Bramble, with whom he has teamed in the past.

Rathbun fashions dishes from fresh, simple ingredients using local products and organics as much as possible, and he organizes the menu into Small Plates, Raw Plates, Soup Bowls, Side Plates, Big Plates, and Second Mortgage Plates. That last category offers hefty choices, among them a 20-ounce rib-eye and a 14-ounce veal chop. "Seasonally, I change the menu four times a year, though I can and do make daily changes -- depending on what's good in the organics for the day," Rathbun said in a telephone interview last month.

The distinct flavor combos are drawn from his experiences with Southwestern, Asian, New Orleans, and Southern cuisine. "I'm grown up now and look for what I can hook the taste with," he said. "I try not to be overzealous with too many things. We try to keep it to three flavors. A great oyster with a great sauce, for example."

Our party chose from among a dozen Small Plates, settling on Blue Point oysters two ways: cornmeal-fried and lemongrass stewed; garlic shrimp and local okra with spiced tomatoes; lamb scaloppine, pancetta, and goat cheese; and eggplant steak fries with confectioners sugar. Don't skip the eggplant dipping sauce; the Tabasco and powdered sugar combo is dynamite.

The Big Plates also have enticing tastes, among them Prince William Sound wild sockeye salmon, toasted orzo and Vidalia onions, and sauteed snapper on a bed of fennel and onions.

The restaurant offers samplers to show off Parks's imaginative creations. We swooned over the sampler's chocolate cube, banana peanut-butter cream pie, banana-bread ice cream sandwich, and orange and chili brulee.

So what's the advantage of one's own place? "I can do anything I want," Rathbun said with a laugh. "I can close when I want, open when I want. And I can pay the staff what they deserve."

He's also high on the location: "This neighborhood was Atlanta's first suburb with homes for some of the city's wealthiest families, but it had gotten run-down. It's now on a growth curve, and yet it's less than a half-mile from downtown."