Table Talk: It’s Michelin Season Again
Oct. 15 — Happy Tuesday, and welcome to the table!
In today’s “Family Meal,” I ponder what Michelin’s new regional dining guide to the American South will mean for Metro Atlanta restaurants this year. The ceremony takes place on Nov. 3 in Greenville, SC.
➕ Plus, I tell you why you need to hop off the Eastside Beltline at Ponce City Market to order the patatas bravas at Chef Hector Santiago’s newest restaurant, La Metro.
Lastly, Rough Draft Dining Reporter Sarra Sedghi shares a recipe for Swedish Dream cookies with seasonal jam from Evergreen Butcher + Baker in Kirkwood. These cookies are also gluten free!
Cheers!
🍸 Beth
🍽️ Grand Tasting Midtown returns this Thursday, Oct. 16 at Epicurean Hotel! Sample top Midtown eats, cocktails, and meet local chefs – all under one roof. VIP is sold out, but GA tickets remain. 21+ only. Don’t miss this flavor-packed night! SPONSOR MESSAGE
It’s Michelin Season Again, With Changes Afoot
⭐ This year’s Michelin ceremony takes place on Nov. 3 in Greenville, SC, home to the French tire company’s North American headquarters. And with 2025 comes big changes for the guide, rebranded as the Michelin Guide to the American South.
The new regional guide to the southern United States now includes restaurants in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, North and South Carolina, and Tennessee, along with the previously released Atlanta guide.
But the 2025 guide to the South does not include Georgia restaurants outside of Metro Atlanta, an especially glaring omission for the state’s other celebrated dining scenes in Athens and Savannah (cough, coughThe Grey in Savannah, Puma Yu’s in Athens). Not to mention the thousands of mom-and-pop restaurants scattered throughout Georgia in cities like Macon, Columbus, Augusta, Albany, Brunswick, and Valdosta.
🤔 What’s up with that?
It comes down to partnerships between Michelin and boards of tourism and tourism organizations.
For 2025, Michelin partnered with tourism marketing organization Travel South USA, which absorbed the Atlanta guide and took on the financial responsibilities associated with production. The Atlanta Convention and Visitors Bureau footed part of the bill with Michelin in 2023 and 2024.
When the news dropped that this year’s guide would exclude restaurants in other Georgia cities, like you, I was curious about the decision.
“This is only the beginning of our story with the American South region, and as the MICHELIN Guide looks to the future, we observe very often the extension of its geographical scope within a state or a region over time,” a Michelin representative told me. They declined to comment further on the exact reason for capping the boundaries for Georgia at Metro Atlanta.
🤞 I suspect the omission came down to partnership restrictions between Michelin and Travel South. So, it sounds like there’s a chance the guide will continue to expand over time. We saw this in 2024 with the Michelin Guide to Atlanta and the inclusion of restaurants outside the Perimeter.
Still, the broader exclusion of Georgia restaurants in 2025 is a head-scratcher.
And I should point out that a regional guide to the South means much more competition for Metro Atlanta restaurants this year, and the chance a few currently listed restaurants might either drop in ranking or out of the guide entirely for 2025.
I am fairly confident we will see many of the same Metro Atlanta restaurants from last year’s guide in the 2025 Michelin Guide to the American South. Whether those restaurants maintain, lose, or gain status this year, however, remains to be seen.
🍽️ According to the Georgia Restaurant Association, there are more than 12,000 restaurants in Metro Atlanta, a region comprising 6.3 million people across 11 counties.
Michelin’s dining inspectors have a lot of ground to cover in the South, much of which is rural and dotted with farms and small towns. Georgia is no exception.
My hope for this year’s guide is that Michelin inspectors took a deeper dive into the Metro Atlanta food scene, including venturing to the south side, an area extremely underrepresented in the 2023 and 2024 guides. I would also like to see at least another Green Star given out here and more emphasis placed on Metro Atlanta’s culinary diversity and small, independent restaurants, and less on fine dining and restaurants with multiple locations.
All will be revealed on Nov. 3, sparking the yearly debate and scores of hot takes on what Michelin got right and wrong in the guide.
🧑💻Rough Draft will be reporting live from the Michelin Guide to the American South ceremony on Nov. 3. You can watch the ceremony unfold live on Michelin’s YouTube channel, starting at 7:15 p.m. ET.
Taste the World in Chamblee
SPONSORED BY DISCOVER DEKALB
📣 Calling all food lovers, families, and adventurers: A Taste of Chamblee returns Oct. 18, your official date with taste.
Downtown Chamblee is transforming into a festival of tastes, beats, & surprises. Try international and comfort staples, cheer on junior chefs in a taco-inspired cookoff, relax at the Wine Down Tent, catch big games, or let the kids roam free in the Kidzone.
✔️ Admission is free, only pay for what you taste. Join us from 3 p.m. to 8 p.m., make room for your stomach and your sense of adventure.
The Move: Patatas Bravas at La Metro
🍟 Put the patatas bravas (aka Spanish-style fries) from Chef Hector Santiago’s new Ponce City Market restaurant, La Metro, on your list.
Resembling thinly sliced steak fries, La Metro’s patatas bravas ($8) are seasoned with garlic, salt, smoked paprika, and fresh parsley. The potatoes are parboiled and then hit the fryer just long enough to crisp the outside, leaving the flesh inside tender and fluffy.
While the patatas bravas are good on their own, it’s the addition of a spicy tomato dipping sauce that gives these Spanish fries an edge. If you’re not a fan of ketchup but dig romesco or gochujang, La Metro’s spicy tomato dipping sauce has your back.
🍗 Pro tip: A whole bucket of rotisserie chicken from La Metro’s online takeout and delivery sibling, Chicken & Papas, includes fries with dipping sauce, one side (get the dirty green beans), and focaccia. It costs around $36.
Recipe: Swedish Dream Cookies
From Evergreen Butcher + Baker
🇸🇪 This week, we’re sharing Evergreen Butcher + Baker’s recipe for Swedish Dream cookies.
Also known as drömmar, Swedish Dream cookies are known for the characteristic cracked tops and airy texture. While drömmar are not always made with jam, the extra ingredient adds flavor depth and a textural contrast. Evergreen co-owner and baker Emma Schacke recommends raspberry or apricot jam. If you’d like a more seasonal jam, try spiced pear and persimmon, fig and vanilla bean, or apple butter, all of which are available at Evergreen in Kirkwood.
🍪 “The simple flavors using rich natural ingredients might make it a perfect cookie for an afternoon Fika, a quick coffee break to connect with others,” Schacke said.
In addition to being entirely gluten-free, these cookies maintain a satisfyingly chewy texture, thanks to the use of almond and pistachio flour. If you don’t have pistachio flour, however, you can use 450 grams of almond flour (5 1/4 cups) instead. Schacke recommends sourcing nut flours at specialty markets, like Sevanada Natural Foods Market on Moreland Avenue in Little Five Points.
‼️ Allergy warning: This recipe was not written for people with tree nut allergies and prioritizes those with gluten intolerances. If you have a tree nut allergy, try a recipe that utilizes all-purpose flour.
Yields about 30 cookies
📋 Ingredients
- 225 grams sugar (1 cup, 2 Tbsp)
- 60 grams maple syrup (3 Tbsp)
- 400 grams almond flour (3 3/4 cups)
- 50 grams pistachio flour (1/2 cup)
- 4 egg whites (120 grams)
- 12 grams vanilla extract (1 tsp)
- 9 grams salt (2 tsp)
- Zest of 1/2 lemon or orange
- Optional: jam of choice
🥣 Directions
The cookies will feel soft right out of the oven, but should firm up once cooled. Cookies should be easy to pick up off the baking sheet, but very chewy internally
Prepare the dough: Whisk sugar, egg whites, and maple syrup together in a large bowl until frothy. Add nut flours, salt, and zest and mix with a wooden spoon or spatula until a loose dough forms.
Chill dough for 1 to 2 hours in refrigerator. (You can also keep dough in the fridge for about a week and bake off as many cookies as you’d like at a time.)
Using a small cookie scoop, scoop small cookies (about 20 grams of dough) from the batch.
Roll in sugar and make an indentation on top with your thumb. Scoop jam into the divot.
Bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 12 to 15 minutes.
🍽️ Grand Tasting Midtown returns this Thursday, Oct. 16 at Epicurean Hotel! Sample top Midtown eats, cocktails, and meet local chefs – all under one roof. VIP is sold out, but GA tickets remain. 21+ only. Don’t miss this flavor-packed night! SPONSOR MESSAGE
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