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REPAST
620 North Glen Iris Drive
404-870-8707
www.repastrestaurant.com
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HOME > COMMUNITY > DINING
By: SALLY HANSELL
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The Ponce de Leon-North Avenue corridor is home to a number of venerable dining institutions, from the Varsity, Mary Mac’s Tea Room and Krispe Kreme Doughnuts on the west side to the Majestic Diner and Manuel’s Tavern in Poncey-Highlands.
Now a new breed of eatery is taking root in the area. Repast, which opened a month ago across from City Hall East, offers a big-city feel and internationally influenced cuisine that pays tribute to the New Atlanta. Conceived as an elegant yet casual environment, Repast combines expansive windows, wood beams and concrete in a two-level space in the Ponce Springs Loft condo complex.
The 54-seat main dining room includes a bright, open kitchen and a curved bar separated by a dramatic column. Up a flight of stairs, a more intimate room seats 20 with niches looking into the main room.
The talk in gay Midtown is all about this place.
The creation of Joe Truex and Mihoko Obunai, who are husband and wife, the dinner-only restaurant serves new American cuisine with Japanese, French, Spanish and Italian influences. The pair honed their skills in some of New York’s finest culinary schools and restaurants.
Repast means a meal or feast, often used in the expression "a simple repast." But this is not-so-simple cooking with ingredients that will be new to many.
A superb appetizer of fritto misto ($9) pairs the Italian fried seafood classic with shiso salt and a vibrant remoulade of capers and yuzu, a Japanese citrus hybrid. A generous plateful of shrimp, oysters and merluza (a cod-like fish) arrives with slivered onions and banana peppers, all encrusted in a corn grit batter and served atop mixed greens.
Other delicious appetizers include the gougeres (French cheese puffs) with house-cured duck ham and manchego cheese ($5), as well as a trio of crispy fried oysters with bacon, leeks and a sweet wine reduction ($8).
Two dinners in the restaurant’s second week reveal the stand-outs and the shortcomings of a kitchen that is still getting its act together.
The perfectly trimmed and braised lamb shank ($19) is served on the bone with a rich broth and worth a rave. The best dessert is the banana pecan bread pudding, accompanied by house-made vanilla ice cream laced with dark rum sauce ($6).
For an earthy Mediterranean dish, try the merluza, a white fish wrapped in Spanish country ham and served with cannelloni beans, sliced artichoke hearts and olives ($19). It’s surrounded by a pretty green and white barigoule, a French emulsion made with artichokes.
One of the dishes that needs improvement is the roasted baby beet salad with arugula, chevre and truffle oil. A sprinkling of fried ginger on top makes a brilliant accent, but the arugula is grainy one night and mediocre-tasting the next.
The crema catalana ($6), a Spanish-style creme brulee, also offers a grainy texture. Revealing some timing problems, dates wrapped in bacon arrive too hot to eat, and an after-dinner cappuccino isn’t hot enough.
A pleasing environment and friendly wait staff is likely to make diners want to linger in Repast’s tranquil color scheme of ebony, moss green and beige.
On recent visits, there is no overhead music competing with adult conversation.
For an added touch of interest, visit the restrooms to check out the Mitsubishi dryers that jet-dry hands in seconds. Call them a definite sign of gentrification on Ponce.
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