In Atlanta, a Modern Take on Southern Hospitality
ATLANTA THRIVES ON paradox. An ever expanding vista of sky
scrapers peeks above the canopy of trees that line its streets. The city
strives to be a cutthroad business leader and is home to 15 Fortune 500
companies, but a spirit of southern hospitality still prevails (though these
days you may as quickly be offered a Coke as a glass of sweet tea). “People
tend to forget that Atlanta is young compared to other American cities,” says
author and illustrator Tray butler, a Georgia native. “New York was founded 200
years earlier. Even Sunbelt superstars like Charlotte or Houston are
technically our older siblings. What we have is a youthful exuberance, a kind
of rebellious spirit, and yes, some growing pains. Atlanta is like a teenager;
It can’t stop changing.” Conventioneers who visit only downtown (which empties of locals at night) miss the
charm and diversity of the city’s many singular neighborhoods.
DAY ONE
MORNING A Sense
of History
The Martin Luther
King.jr., National Historic Site
spreads across 42 acres of downtown’s Sweet Auburn district, long a hub of
African-American businesses. At the King
Center (where the civil rights leader and his wife, Coretta Scott King, are
enshrined), procure tickets for daily tours of MLK’s birth home. Details
glimpsed in the two-story Victorian house wonderfully humanize the icon: It
turns out he was a shrewd player of Monopoly, for example. Nearby Ebenezer Baptist Church, where King was co-pastor with his
father, reopened in 2011 after four years and $8 million to restore the Gothic
Revival building exactly as it was in the 1960s, including walls painted a warm
peach and the original pulpit microphones that broadcast King’s sermons.
Take a taxi about one mile south on Boulevard, the area’s
main thoroughfare, to the gently hilly Oakland
Cemetery, established in 1850. Stroll under magnolias and oaks among
monuments, obelisks, and mausoleums of some of the city’s early wealthy families,
as well as more than 3,900 graves marked “CSA,” for Confederate States Army.
Purchase the $4 map from the gift shop to find the humble headstone for Gone With the Wind author Margaret
Mitchell. Refuel across the street, sipping on the city’s most deftly made
espresso at Octane Coffee. It shares
space with Little Tart Bakery, a
neighborhood favorite for quiche and pastries made using local, seasonal fruit.
AFTERNOON Hot Shops
Once a badland of abandoned stockyards and mills, the city’s
Westside neighborhood recently
transformed into a wonderland of refurbished warehouse full of bespoke shops.
Urbane Billy Reid, where staffers
will likely offer you a bourbon, in the Westside Provisions District complex
and preppy Sid Mashburn in Westside
Urban Market next door (a walking bridge joins the two redbrick complexes)
offer different takes on dressing the southern gentleman in style. Mashburn’s
wife also runs a store, Ann Mashburn,
featuring her in-house designs including
shirtdresses and pencil and wrap skirts. Across the parking lot, design guru
Jonathan Adler mixes whimsy with function in his eclectic shop, featuring such
as voluptuous glass lamps, pillows with psychedelic prints, and vases imprinted
with a single , puckered mouth.
EVENING Dixie Dining
“Southern food is in vogue across the country, and in
Atlanta, where we might have scoffed at our regional cooking in the past, we’ve
embraced it as well,” says Steven Satterfield, a Georgia native who is chef and
co-owner of farmhouse-chic Miller Union
in the Westside. Satterfield honors his roots without resorting to
southern-fried clichés: Star with small plates meant for sharing, like the
local farm egg baked in celery cream and served with wedges of grilled bread,
and move on to duck confit nestled against cider-braised cabbage and whiskeyed
apples.
Eating regionally means embracing the seasons, an no local
chef highlight the region’s larder bettr thatn Billy Allin, chef or owner of cozy Cakes &Ale in Decatur, the
progressive town that is to Atlanta what Berkeley is to San Fransisco. Allin
weaves Italian and Mediterranean recipes among southern flavors on his changing
menu. Look for dishes like pillowy gnocchi with lamb ragu and green tomatoes
along with North Carolina trout roasted in the wood-burning oven and served
with a tangy bacon and green onion mayonnaise sauce.
DAY TWO
MORNING Water World
Georgia Aquarium,
across the street from downtown’s 21-acre Centennial Olypic Park, measures more
than 600,000 square feet and holds 10 million gallons of fresh and salt water,
making it one of the world’s largest aquatic zoos. Its many spectacles are
worth the plunge, but start early to beat the crowds: Order tickets online to avoid
lines and secure seats for Dolphins Tales, a show filled with special effects
that manage not to detract from the leaping headliners. The whole visit takes
at least three hours. Be sure to check out the rare, wide-mouthed whale sharks
and the white, cuddly-looking beluga whales. Visit to: KeyLargo The Florida Keys 1.800.822.1088,
Deep within Key Largo, you’ll discover things that may surprise you. From the
unspoiled wilderness of the Florida Everglades to the tranquility of John
Pennerkamp State Park, there’s more depth here than you might think.
AFTERNOON Midtown
Museums
In Midtown, the city’s cultural hub, stop for a lunchtime
oyster po’boy or a fried chicken salad at Empire
State South, the restaurant owned by Top Chef judge Hugh Acheson.
The white, curving, unapologetically modernist building of
the High Museum of Art, by Pritzker
Prize-winning architects Richar Meier and Renzo Piano, stands out majestically
along a verdant stretch of busy Peachtree Street. A touring exhibition
showcasing the works of Mexican artis Frida Kahlo and her husband, Diego Rvera,
is a current draw (on display through May 12). Be sure, though, to spend time
with the permanent southern folk art exhibition the top floor, full of quirkly,
poignant caricatures with name like “Take My Yoke Upon You and Learn of Me
Saith Jesus.”Museum of Design Atalanta, with its modern concrete-and-glass
venner, opened across from the High in early 2011. It has no permanent
collection , so shows are in a constant, fascinating flux: Past exhibits
included skateboard art, Italian motorcycles, and portions of the AIDS Memorial
Quilt.
EVENING Laugh Out Loud
At the edge of Inman
Park, a great walking neighborhood and Atlanta’s first residential
“suburb,” planned in the 1800s, chef Robert Phalen uses imagination at his
restaurant One Eared Stag.
Adventurous carnivores will sight over beef belly with pickled eggplant and
roasted bone marrow with onion marmalade; tamer palates will love the chicken
schnitzel and, for dessert, chocolate pot de crème. A few blocks away, Dad’s Garage, home to the city’s
premier improve troupe, inspires belly laughts with outrageous, unscripted
performers acting along loose themes like the Civil War or a genre of music
(rock, hip-hop) chosen by the audience.
Wander among art booths and flowering trees at the Atlanta Dogwood Festival, April 19-21,
an annual event established before World War II. Piedmont Park, the 185-acre green space built by Frederick Law
Olmsted Jr., hosts the event. The park is also the starting point for the
2.25-mile Eastside Trail, the first major segment of the city’s BetLine, a 22-mile loop of proposed
urban development along abandoned railway lines.
