2 years ago today Jes and I were sitting in our room at Hotel Indigo basking in the “we seriously just got married” early morning glow. I honestly can’t believe that it’s been 2 years already, but today I write to you from the comfort of our sunroom, basking in the “we just ate at Bacchanalia” early morning glow. For you out of towners, a brief Atlanta history lesson is probably in order. In the mid 90’s, the Atlanta food scene was non-existent. To be fair, outside of New York, Los Angeles, and Las Vegas, I have to imagine that everyone’s food scene was pretty bare. Nonetheless, a couple of local Atlanta chefs set out to change that in 1996 and created Bacchanalia. Bacchanalia is undisputed in beginning the amazing surge in the quality of Atlanta restaurants, and has been rated the #1 restaurant in Atlanta every year since it opened. Having said all of that, even though I’d been in Atlanta since 2002, I had never been. Last night, to celebrate our anniversary, Jes and I wanted to change that.
We started the evening off with a anniversary photo shoot, which isn’t the easiest thing in the world to do when the photographer is also a subject. I think I’m getting a little bit better at it with each attempt, and the best 4 or 5 are up on the Family Photos page, along with a couple of just Jes. After the photo shoot we hopped in a car from our favorite black car service, Uber, and headed down to midtown. We arrived about 30 minutes early for our reservation, so we got a drink at the nearby JCT Bar, which was a very unique take on a bourbon and tea drink. If JCT was closer, I could definitely see us going there on a more regular basis, but we spent most of that 30 minutes trying to think about what it will be like when we can have “our” Brookhaven watering hole.
With the 30 minutes passed, we headed over to start the main event. I honestly won’t be able to do it justice, but let’s just say that if I have to wait 12 more years before going back to Bacchanalia, something has gone horribly wrong. Remember how we raved about the food at Etch on New Year’s Eve? This blew Etch out of the water. The menu is a 5-course prix fixe complete with wine pairings for each course, and I think I got 4 of my absolute favorite foods in one dinner. I could say a million good things about how good each of my dishes was, but I will just say that every course was one of the best dishes I have ever head. I started with a Bluefin Tuna Toro, then moved onto a Fried Crab Fritter, main course was a Wood Grilled Prime NY Strip, followed by the softest Goat Cheese I’ve ever had, and finally a Fried Dough with Chocolate Creme and Toffee Ice Cream for desert. In between the service was outstanding and they kept dropping off little gifts, such as a fried cheese ball when we first sat down, and a small cup of asparagus soup in between the first and second course, both of which were just as good as the food we actually ordered. Jes’ dinner consisted of Kumamoto Oysters, Grilled Halibut, Local Berkshire Pork, a sharp Gouda cheese, and Persimmon with Crispy Brioche, Buttermilk Benne Seeds, and Honey Ice Cream for desert. To top everything off, I was casually speaking with the waiter afterward and mentioned that it was our 2nd anniversary, and within 5 minutes they had brought us out a special cake with a bride and groom topper and “Happy Anniversary” written on the plate. It was such a simple gesture, but it really did put the icing on the cake of the evening. Not a single thing was ever out of place, my water glass was never less than half full, it could not have been a better experience and will gladly recommend it to anyone who wants to enjoy that kind of evening.
The fun doesn’t stop there though, today we will be putting the final touches on our prep for a meeting with our builder on Tuesday. This is when we get to finally meet with the architect and designer and start crafting our vision. It will be three weeks before we get a concept back, but I’m hoping we can at least get a “napkin sketch” while we are there on Tuesday. Jes has been putting everything together for a week, so they should have plenty of information to go on when we meet. We also took Monday (our actual anniversary) off so that we could relax and spend the day together. Afterwards I have a long trip to Santa Monica planned, so we will be taking every second of this weekend to enjoy our amazing marriage, and to get year three started off the right way. At this time next year, I hope t be writing you from our new sunroom.