For someone who has never opened a restaurant before, businessman Barry Mills is sitting pretty right now. Burrowed into the weirdness that makes up the stretch of Howell Mill Road between I- 75 and the Atlanta Waterworks, his mod house of burgers, Flip, has a bar packed three- to four-deep, and the dining room is turning tables faster than the cooks can flip the burgers onto their buttery brioche buns.
A smallish room, as square as a to-go box, is highlighted by blond-wood tables and aluminum chairs, hipster music, splashes of red and white, and a custom graphic on the back wall that conjures the fleeting feeling of Warhol’s Exploding Plastic Inevitable mutimedia events. But Flip is hardly a nihilistic showdown of any sort.
No, everything here, from the name to the playful faux-French frames around the flat screen TVs is fun. Especially the burgers.
Well, that is save for one thing: The title “creative director” for chef Richard Blais seems a bit stuffy for the guy who introduced Atlanta to liquid nitrogen and frozen Coca-Cola rocks.
Finally, after years of wandering nomadic in Atlanta’s restaurant scene — from his own failed Blais five years ago to his star-maker stint last year on Bravo’s “Top Chef” — Blais has arrived.
And with what? Burgers.
Read the whole review here.
No comments:
Post a Comment