CITY GUIDES | ATLANTA
Atlanta’s Best Restaurants Right Now: From Michelin Stars to Viral Biscuit Joints
By Eric Barton
Updated Aug. 29, 2026
Avize
AUTHOR BIO: Eric Barton is editor of The Adventurist and a freelance journalist who has reviewed restaurants for more than two decades. Email him here.
The peach trees were heavy with fruit when I returned to Atlanta, but I spent most of the trip looking down at plates. I crossed the city for lemon-pepper-wet frog legs, binchōtan-grilled wagyu, plant-based Latin cooking, and a biscuit sandwich that required both hands and most of my attention. I’ve been eating across metro Atlanta for years, and after returning recently to scope out newcomers, these are my picks for the 15 best restaurants in Atlanta right now.
Aria
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Aria spent 25 years under chef Gerry Klaskala, long enough that regulars came to regard certain dishes as personal property. New owner Andrés Loaiza and executive chef Austin Goetzman added new items to the menu, like roasted beets over whipped labneh and pickled golden raisins, poached salmon with stuffed morels and citrus beurre blanc and a Thai lime tres leches cake with mango-ginger sorbet. The warm wood dining room remains one of Buckhead’s most handsome places for dinner.
Best for: Graceful fine dining with service to match
Avize
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A white mountain goat watches over the dining room at Avize, one of several clues that chef Karl Gorline has the Alps on his mind. Gorline cooks the food of the Alps with ingredients from Georgia, including vegetables, grains, and herbs grown on a partner farm in Bremen. The lemon-pepper-wet frog legs arrive in lemon beurre blanc with roasted garlic and yuzu togarashi, an Atlanta bar-food reference wearing considerably nicer clothes. Rabbit-heart boudin and North Georgia trout also turn up on the menu. Sommelier Taurean Philpott has assembled a wine list that wanders through the same stretch of Europe.
Best for: Atlanta cooking with an Alpine accent
Blackjack Bar Tapas
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From chef Niki Pattharakositkul and the 26 Thai crew, Blackjack in Midtown puts out Asian-fusion small plates in a low-lit, brick-lined space. Highlights include tuna tataki slicked with yuzu ponzu and topped with crispy garlic; miso-glazed eggplant with sesame brittle; pork belly bao laced with hoisin aioli; and spring rolls stuffed with Thai basil. Drink director Sean Gleason leans into citrus-heavy cocktails and Mediterranean reds. It’s a quietly buzzy spot for shareable food without overthinking.
Best for: Cocktails and Asian-inspired plates after dark
Bomb Biscuit Co.
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Erika Council comes from formidable biscuit stock: Her paternal grandmother founded Mama Dip’s Kitchen in Chapel Hill, while her maternal grandmother sold baked goods to support the civil rights movement. At Bomb, those family lessons show up in buttermilk biscuits carrying bacon, egg, and cheese or fried chicken brushed with hot honey. The cinnamon roll still has cream-cheese icing, as the breakfast gods intended.
Best for: Biscuit sandwiches that require both hands
CT Cantina & Taqueria
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Chef Rafael Jaime’s multi-location cantina hits all day long with standout dishes: barbacoa breakfast tacos topped with pico and crema; churro‑dust‑covered French toast with dulce de leche drizzle; and a loaded Street Skillet brimmed with steak, chicken, shrimp, avocado, pico, and over-easy eggs. Margaritas blend fresh citrus with salt-foamed rims, and the open dining room feels sunlit, welcoming, and downright cheery.
Best for: Margaritas and a lively weekend brunch
Fawn Wine & Amaro Bar
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Terry and Jenn Koval opened Fawn a few steps from their Decatur restaurant, The Deer and the Dove. Terry Koval, the 2023 James Beard Award winner for Best Chef: Southeast, built the menu around dry-aged seafood and the flavors of old European port towns. The wines come largely from volcanic soils, and the bar keeps enough amaro to turn choosing one into a small research project. A separate tasting menu runs through multiple courses with pairings, while the bar works for a glass and a plate.
Best for: Volcanic wines, amaro, and late-night conversation
Heritage
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Before Heritage had a dining room in Summerhill, it was a supper club that Demetrius Brown kept returning to and expanding. The permanent restaurant gives him considerably more space to explore the cooking of West Africa, the Caribbean, and the American South. His multi-course menu has included waakye, djon djon rice made with Haitian mushrooms, cassava frites with black-garlic aioli and caviar, and jerk chicken cooked over a yakitori grill. There is also a cocktail lounge where the menu includes a Caribbean-spiced chicken burger.
Best for: Following the foodways of the African diaspora
Ikara
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Chef Yugal Sharma surveys India widely at Ikara, moving from the mustard and yogurt of a Bengali fish curry to a Goan crab xec xec built on dry-roasted spices. Nihari brings mutton shank slow-cooked with the flavors of Lucknow, while dal Ikara spends the night simmering with tomato, butter, and cream. Sharma previously cooked at the Royal Afghan inside New Delhi’s ITC Grand Bharat, which helps explain the formality of the place. Even the cocktails travel, carrying saffron, tamarind, kokum, and rose to the bar.
Best for: Exploring India without ordering another butter chicken
Koshu Club
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There are just 46 seats at Koshu Club, where the lights are low, the bar glows, and much of dinner passes over hot binchōtan charcoal. Chef J. Trent Harris, who also runs the Michelin-starred omakase counter at Mujō, draws from washoku, traditional Japanese cooking, and yōshoku, Japan’s take on Western food. Wagyu, seafood, and vegetables come off the grill carrying a thin edge of smoke. Sake and cocktails replace some of the ceremony of an omakase counter. Harris was a 2026 James Beard Award nominee for Best Chef: Southeast.
Best for: Japanese grilling and a long night at the bar
La Semilla
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Sophia Marchese and Reid Trapani began La Semilla as a vegan pop-up before settling in Reynoldstown. The menu draws mostly from Cuba and Mexico, with corn chochoyotes, mushroom al pastor tacos, rotating sopes, and a guava flan that has survived many promises to order only one dessert for the table. Rum, agave spirits, natural wines, and aguas frescas handle the drinking side. Eater named La Semilla one of America’s best new restaurants in 2023 and returned in 2026 to remind Atlanta that it was still there.
Best for: Plant-based Latin cooking without compromise
Lazy Betty
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Lazy Betty moved from Candler Park to Midtown and grew considerably, although dinner remains an exacting affair. Chef-owner Ron Hsu and chef de cuisine Graham Rooks serve an eight-course tasting menu shaped by whatever looks best at the market, with a separate vegetarian version available by request. The bar offers four-course savory and dessert tastings without requiring the full evening or its $285 commitment. Teal banquettes, terracotta walls, and brass details soften the precision. Michelin has awarded the restaurant one star.
Best for: A Michelin-starred tasting menu without the stiffness
NoriFish Sushi & Izakaya
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Chef-owner Sean Park turned the former Prefecture into a second NoriFish, adding an à la carte izakaya menu to the restaurant’s two omakase options. The nigiri receives individual attention: golden-eye snapper gets lime and yuzu, while lightly charred chu toro comes with tomato and lemon aioli. The hotate aburi roll combines crab and scallop, and wagyu appears as tartare, sliders, tacos, and steak. Dark walls and starry ceiling lights make the Buckhead dining room feel considerably farther from Peachtree Road.
Best for: Precise sushi in a decidedly handsome setting
O by Brush
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This Michelin-starred Buckhead omakase—helmed by chef Jason Liang—serves a lean, refined experience in an 18-seat room. Through 20 courses ranging from dry-aged kanpachi sashimi to seared goldeneye snapper nigiri to a seasonal dessert, every course feels considered. A tamago tasting spans custardy to cake-like. Wine, sake, and umami-forward pairings round out the menu. The sleek black-and-white interior and hushed ambiance feel like a Tokyo train car—and your ticket is every bit worth it.
Best for: An intimate, splurge-worthy omakase
Southern National
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Chef Duane Nutter grew up in Louisiana, made his name at One Flew South, and now cooks in Summerhill with the map spread open. Cornmeal-dusted trout comes with brown-butter miso aioli, jerk chicken meets potato dumplings and rasta sauce, and NOLA-style barbecue shrimp sits on a sesame rice cake. Even the bread service wanders around a bit: jalapeño johnny cake, sheet-pan biscuits, sweet-potato cane-syrup butter, and pepper jelly. The food remains rooted in the South while taking a liberal view of its borders.
Best for: Southern cooking shaped by a wider world
Twisted Soul
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Deborah VanTrece pulls from the Black diaspora at Twisted Soul, where Southern marinated fried chicken, turkey-leg osso buco, and catfish with red Gullah Geechee grits share a menu without needing an introduction. Brunch brings the Dirty South omelet, stuffed with fried chicken and finished with honey-picante sauce. VanTrece was a 2023 James Beard Award semifinalist for Best Chef: Southeast, and Michelin recommends the restaurant. The dining room feels warm and celebratory, which explains the steady parade of birthday dinners.
Best for: Soul food that travels well beyond tradition
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