Photographed by Martha Williams
In 1967, a progressive Episcopal priest named Austin Ford transformed a Peoplestown Victorian with a coveted status right into a community-building establishment generally known as Emmaus Home. The neighborhood might have been tough, however the bachelor’s minster’s upstairs lair was stocked with antiques, leather-bound books, high-quality china and artwork. At Father Austin’s legendary Christmas Eve soirée, the champagne flowed and the caviar was compulsory.
Though the classy and vivacious DeKalb County native died in 2018 on the age of 89, he’s remembered as a tireless social advocate, flock tender, gardener and epicurean. Due to his friendship with Serenbe founders Steve and Mary Nygren and their three daughters, this bourbon-loving bon vivant now owns the namesake watering gap and restaurant within the bucolic 20-year-old South Fulton neighborhood.
Austin’s cocktail and kitchen patron Saint Sadhu could also be an Anglophile with impeccable speech, however Serenbe’s new meals and beverage useful resource is hardly buttoned up. Push by a mighty entrance door 11 toes tall and weighing 1,000 kilos, harking back to the portal of a European cathedral, albeit a really trendy one — and also you arrive on the interior sanctum: a curved, green-throated orb like banquette and a jaw. -Dropping lengthy bars. With each element, it is clear this is not Steve Nygren’s first time on the rodeo. He has constructed 41 eating places so far, when you depend the 5 at Serenbe and the 36 that made up his influential Peasant Restaurant model (1972-1994).
A playground for Serene residents and vacation spot diners, Austin is searching for a purpose to celebration: oyster comfortable hours, Saturday jazz. It presents cleverly named authentic cocktails (Frankly, My Pricey, The Absinthe Minded) and a principal record of classics (Tom Collins, Gimlet). Nearly all the things touched by co-chefs Jesse Sherwood (previously at The Hill at Serenbe) and Tyler Brown (Staplehouse) showcases dazzling method, from their subtle bar snacks to their dinner entrees. Specifically, their greens are glazed, which is simply proper and correct, since Serenbe is roofed in farmland.
Photographed by Martha Williams
For me, Austin actually clicks as a spot for drinks and nibbles, adopted by bigger programs when you’re nonetheless hungry. I cherished the snack tray of roasted olives, home made potato chips thinned with malt vinegar powder and cheese nuggets dabbed with spices or olive oil and sea salt. I had the savory, lobster-studded Japanese egg custard (chowanmushi) and salmon: uncommon fish marinated in citrus and fermented chiles, mounted on compressed discs of crispy rice and sprinkled with chives.
I used to be much less taken with the meat tartare – an unconventional deal with through which the meat is dressed with salsa verde and spooned into finger-sized rectangles of toasted hash browns. Seemingly a riff on field sushi (substituting spuds for rice), it is an fascinating technique to style tartare as a pre-assembled cocktail nosh, although purists won’t be so delighted.
No have to pore over tireless tasting notes about oysters from East and West how nice they’re. Austin’s single alternative was elegant and on the cash: tiny however highly effective gems, freshly picked from the beds of Alabama’s Homicide Level Farm. Slurp them with a glass of Muscadet.
Photographed by Martha Williams
Austin payments itself as a Jazz Age hideaway, and beverage director Cedar Meyers’s period-referencing Tropic of Most cancers (a vodka, pineapple, lime and vanilla syrup from Henry Miller’s scandalous novel) and Fever Dream (a gin and Saint-Germain with Grand Poppy Amaro Quantity—into the flower as a “poppy,” Meyers instructed me, simply earlier than I took a sip). The most effective drinks we sampled had been the Crystal Negroni (a genie, limoncello-spiked slapper with candy botanical lilt- and hints of bergamot) and the fashionable basic Bare and Well-known (equal elements mezcal, Aperol, yellow chartreuse and lime).
Those that want extra meals won’t be uncared for. We had been impressed with a Saturday particular of Wagyu New York strip from Kentucky, all pink, juicy and charred, with grilled broccolini, candy potatoes and Georgia pecans. Who cares that the snapper was a bit of monochromatic? Pure butter consolation in that pure whiteness.
Cooks’ imaginations hardly ever freeze in relation to fall and winter greens. A humble wedge of cabbage—tender, black with char, and encased in taleggio foam dotted with basil oil—and a sensational swing of rice, beets, goat cheese, walnuts, and tangy basil and lemon. Each are nice.
So what do you consider this posthumous tribute to the Father Austin Nygren household? I believe he’ll be sipping on a entrance porch swing (made with bourbon, after all) and giving the joint his blessing.
This text seems in our December 2024 concern.
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