Sugarcoat Nail Spa

The Glenn building—which was built in 1923—sat vacant in one of downtown Atlanta’s most vibrant districts until the Legacy Property Group initiated a major remodel in the early 2000s and turned the building into one of the city’s first (and still one of its only) boutique hotels. The rooms are spacious, many with views of Centennial park, and in addition to a great restaurant and cozy living room bar for casual drinks, there’s a rooftop bar that gets a big crowd on weekends.

The St. Regis in Atlanta is situated in Buckhead, conveniently walking distance from Whole Foods—in case you want to pick up some snacks for the room (or forgotten toiletries). The hotel has a grand lobby with a soaring ceiling, crystal chandelier, impressive, winding staircases—with a tea room, meeting spaces, restaurant (Atlas is great), and bar spinning off of it. Suites here are grandly appointed, as can be expected, and really generous on space, with particularly luxurious powder rooms. Their 40,000-square foot “Pool Piazza” is flanked by inviting red-and-white striped lounge chairs—and transformed into an ice skating rink for a few months of winter fun.

A stone’s throw from the Fox Theater in Midtown, Stonehurst is a restored, 19th-century residence with six guestrooms. Rooms are surprisingly modern, done up in a neutral palette; some feature a working fireplace. The main wraparound porch is a highlight, particularly scenic given the Stonehurst’s perch on a tree-lined block, and the homemade pastries at breakfast are worth indulging in seconds.

This grand Buckhead Hotel was originally a Rosewood, but it’s been under the operation of Waldorf Astoria since 2018. You’ll find all the amenities you’d expect at a Waldorf Astoria, including great service and comfy beds, plus a cushy spa and a 60-foot indoor lap pool. While rooms on the building's exterior have gorgeous views of the city, the interior rooms look out onto a lovely courtyard garden—perfect for a stroll with your morning coffee.

Situated in Buckhead opposite Lenox Square (read: in close proximity to much of the city’s high-end shopping and fancier restaurants) the Whitley has a classic, grand lobby with gilded-frame paintings and dark wood. Upstairs, the guest rooms are light-filled and modern with mahogany floors, custom cabinetry, a walk-in shower and marble vanity. A wellness level, on the 9th floor, features decadent treatments like a honey and rose facial and a lavender body wrap. A rooftop, glass-encased Olympic-sized swimming pool is a great place to unwind in cooler months.

Aria has been around for fifteen-plus years, but its beautiful 2016 revamp by Atlanta firm Seiber Design has generated a lot of renewed interest. As ever, this is a white-tablecloth restaurant; there were a few bright oak tabletops added to the upstairs dining room, which is flanked by a leather banquette. The new bar, handsomely backed in dark wood panels, serves the full, seasonal dinner, and is a good option if you’re a pair without a reservation.

Inside the St. Regis is Southern-inspired Atlas, whose menu is overseen by Aria’s Chef Jerry Klaskala, and directed by Executive Chef Christopher Grossman, who cut his teeth at French Laundry. What’s great about Atlas, beyond the food, is their art collection: be it Matisse, Modigliani, Picasso, or works by local SCAD Atlanta students gracing the walls, it all adds beautifully to the experience.

Star Provisions is one of our favorite places to shop in Atlanta: There's really good home and kitchen goods, takeout counters (the peanut butter and marshmallow sandwich is a hit), plus all sorts of prepared and packaged foods. Bacchanalia, accessible through the back of the store, is one of Atlanta's best restaurants. It's the perfect solution if you're looking for a sit-down meal: The bar is gigantic and deep, where you can feast on items like crab fritters and celery root ravioli a la carte. Otherwise, it’s a five-course prix-fixe situation.

The highlight of Atlanta’s Four Seasons is the delightful Bar Margot. As the name suggests, the cocktail menu here is a real draw; house specialties include the Lady Victoria, a lemon-fresh vodka-rosemary concoction, plus a local-beer program. The restaurant does lunch and dinner with a number of snackable, shareable items on each menu (e.g. crab toast, burrata with pistachio butter, deviled eggs) in addition to their more substantial plates (lobster roll at lunch, lobster thermidor or chicken mattone at dinner). After midnight, they have a short-lived but appropriately satisfying late-night menu—think fried chicken sandwiches and house burgers dressed with charred onions.

We were sold on this place already for its patio—complete with a fire pit—and, fortunately, the food is fantastic, too. The cozy outdoor space here will make you want to cuddle up with a glass of rioja and order enough tapas to stick around for a while. While we like to go at night (aforementioned fire), we hear the brunch (there’s a bloody mary bar and a seriously good sangria) is just as great. There's an additional location in Knight Park, but this one's our favorite.

Nautically themed, super-chic Beetlecat is part of Ford Fry’s Atlanta empire (Superica, St. Cecilia, Optimist, et al.). There’s a turquoise-seated bright oyster bar on the first level, and upstairs, a fun, 1970s vibe, complete with wood paneling and old-school leather couches. Prepare for a crowd and order the lobster roll.

While simply done, the Bocado stack—two patties with American cheese and house pickles—is arguably the best burger in Atlanta. The menu is rounded out with other sandwiches, soups, and salads at lunch; entrees like roasted chicken served with braised collards and seared trout with succotash at dinner, and some veg-friendly plates—but, again, the burger is really the star of the show.

BoccaLupo is an Inman Park Italian restaurant by Atlanta native chef Bruce Logue, who previously worked at Babbo in NYC. The pasta—from the daily risotto to pan-fried shells, twenty-yolk tagliatelle with wild mushrooms, and black spaghetti with hot sausage and red shrimp—is expertly done. For good-weather days, there’s casual porch seating that extends the interior’s slightly industrial feel with roll-up, glass garage doors. (Note that the restaurant is closed on Sunday and Monday.)

Right behind Beetlecat is the tiny, very Instagrammable, French-inspired bistro-café Bread & Butterfly, from the team behind the restaurant Cakes + Ale. Come for weekend brunch, or lunch during the week, and try the tomato soup, which comes with a fresh-baked, croissant-like pastry on top.

If you’re looking for amazing vegan and vegetarian food in Atlanta, look no further than Cafe Sunflower’s bright, unpretentious Peachtree Road location: The menu offers vegetarian takes on everything from pan-fried dumplings to lasagna to enchiladas. Their brunch menu includes fried “chicken” seitan waffles topped with mustard maple syrup and vegan whipped cream, pretty much guaranteeing any non-vegans present won’t have any gripes. Plus, in addition to their wine selection, there’s a rotating craft-beer menu.

The Colonnade is a total Atlanta fixture at this point—it made national news when the restaurant started taking credit cards for the first time in its nearly 100-year history back in 2014. An old building off a busy-ish thoroughfare, the décor’s nothing to write home about, but this is hands-down the place to come for great, old-school fried chicken.

Don’t let the hip, glossy subway tiled interior fool you: as far as delis are concerned, The General Muir is the real deal. You can expect some seriously good matzoh ball soup, sandwiches featuring the pastrami they cure and smoke in-house, and fresh, hand-rolled and kettle boiled bagels with proper schmear options like scallion horseradish and dill caper. While it's open for breakfast, dinner, and weekend brunch (all from a full-service dining room), we recommend it for lunch—there’s a separate counter service area where you can grab a great sandwich, plus bagels, salads, and pastries. Bonus: there's an espresso bar with locally roasted coffee and a full bar.

If you don’t know what to expect, Gunshow might just be the most surprising dining experience in Atlanta. Here, there’s no such thing as ordering from a menu; plates of food come out of the kitchen as soon as they’re ready, then get carted around to diners, dim-sum style. Rather than stick to a set repertoire, chef/owner Kevin Gillespie and his team get together weekly to brainstorm and divvy up a menu of dishes they’re into at the moment. There’s no affiliation to any one style or cuisine, so you might get braised beef short ribs one day, and Mexican-style peanut-crusted snapper the next. The challenge is not getting attached to any one dish—odds are, you won’t see it again the next time you come back. Also of note: The bustling open kitchen is within eyeshot of almost every table.

When Holeman & Finch first opened, you could only order their famous burgers (which most people say are the best in Atlanta) after 10pm, and you had to be quick about it—only twenty-four were served each evening. In response to overwhelming demand, the chef finally made them a regular menu fixture a few years ago. The burgers and the rest of their pub-inspired menu are best experienced from the cozy bar at the back of the space.

Occupying a cozy, wood-lined space right on the main square and Decatur, the Iberian Pig’s Spanish-inspired menu is neatly divided into cheese, charcuterie, and tapas, with a wine list that leans heavily on Spain, Chile, and Argentina to match. While they do the classics really well, we love their fusion dishes, like the pork-cheek tacos and their extra-flavorful macaroni-and-cheese with charcuterie.

An outpost of the longstanding uptown NYC French bistro (there’s also a Dallas location), Le Bilboquet is inside the retail center sometimes referred to here as The Shops Buckhead Atlanta. Come for the classics—moules-frites, beef tartare—served inside a bright dining room, and outside, on Le Bilboquet’s sidewalk patio, designed after a Parisian café.

So there are the cocktails (great), but then there are the snacks: cheese, "pub frites," and bacon in a glass. You can pretty much stay all day. The shaded patio is undeniably pleasant, and the open garage door (a big trend in Atlanta) makes it airy and bright.

Named for the vivacious French boxing champion Marcel Cerdan, Ford Fry’s take on a classic French brasserie has all the trappings: luxe red banquettes, white-tablecloth-ed booth seating, and a dramatically lit bar. The menu focuses on meticulously sourced, heavy-hitting steaks; in fact, Marcel is the only steakhouse in the city that exclusively serves hormone-free beef. A meal like this comes with a price tag to match, so we like it best for special occasions—or just stop by for a glass of wine and an order of frites, best enjoyed near the patio fireplace.

Occupying the old Miller Union Stockyards, this is one of Atlanta’s most celebrated restaurants—early on, they had a review in the New York Times and were finalists for a James Beard Award—but even the most cynical locals will tell you that the food lives up to the hype. Co-owners Neal McCarthy (the general manager and sommelier) and Steven Satterfield (the chef) have an extraordinary commitment to sustainability, so the menu changes daily, but you can always count on fresh vegetables, including the Southern vegetable plate, to be crowd-pleasers. The wine list, made up of exclusively organic and biodynamic bottles, is one of the city’s best.

Nestled in a strip mall on Buford Highway, Nam Phuong is a major local favorite for authentic Vietnamese food. Everything on the—huge—menu is fresh and well-prepared, but we’re partial to their specialty, the Ba Vi: a make-your-own-summer-rolls platter that comes with shrimp balls, grilled pork, and beef with a slew of veggies and sauces and rice-paper rolls (which you dip into a specialty holder before rolling, for stickiness). Kids love it.

Optimist’s dining room is actually separated into two distinct sections, divided by a nautical, blue-and-white striped curtain. In the traditional dining room, chef/owner Ford Fry serves a southern-inspired seafood menu featuring lobster rolls, peel-and-eat Georgia shrimp, and excellent hushpuppies. On the other side, a smaller oyster bar offers raw or roasted oysters (imported straight from the Alabama coast) and Fry’s signature punch. From there, you can also access the open-air turf patio, which has a few mini-golf holes and room for a live band.

Ria Pell, the original owner of this cozy neighborhood breakfast joint, was something of a local hero—not only for her insanely good pancakes, but for the diverse, welcoming community she created at the diner. When she suddenly passed away a few years ago, ownership of the restaurant transferred to long-time manager Julie Pender, who operates the place in honor of Pell’s memory, serving her famous pancake recipe unchanged. Lines can get long here on Saturday and Sunday mornings, but the wait is more than worth it.

An Inman Park staple since 1999, this is the kind of classic Italian restaurant every neighborhood should have. The wine menu is Italian through-and-through, and their most famous dish is actually a dessert: a Belgian-chocolate soup. For the main course, opt for the pastas and risottos, each of which can be ordered in a half-size so you don’t have to pick between favorites.

The first thing you’ll love about St. Cecilia is the décor: The restaurant is set in a lofty three-story space with tall ceilings and wide windows, with a lengthy (and stunning) marble bar that spans the length of the room. Behind the bar, liquor bottles, wine, books, and artfully placed knick-knacks are stacked library-style on tall, mirror-backed shelves, which have the effect of making the entire space seem even larger than it is. The menu skews coastal European with French and Mediterranean influences; star dishes include wood-grilled octopus, cacio e pepe, and a whole-roasted branzino.

One of the hottest restaurants to open in Atlanta in recent years, the idea for Staplehouse began in 2009 as a supper club run by the late chef Ryan Hidinger and his wife Jen. The couple initially played hosts to ten guests at their home every Sunday, and later, as many as two hundred came for a Labor Day backyard feast. Ryan, who was diagnosed with gallbladder cancer in 2012, passed away in 2014. A little less than two years later, Jen opened Staplehouse with her sister Kara and an incredibly talented chef, also named Ryan—last name Smith—and an outpouring of support (monetary and otherwise) from their community. The profits from the restaurant go to the nonprofit that the family established, called The Giving Kitchen, which helps Atlanta restaurant workers in the midst of unexpected crises. Make no mistake: This restaurant has an incredible story (which merits more space than it is getting here), and a wonderful family vibe. But served from any kitchen, the food here would deserve to be on any best-of-Atlanta list. Everything is meant to be shared, it’s all seasonal, and the dozen dinner dishes and several lunch options get changed up frequently. Book in advance (or try the eight-seat bar).

Come here for a cacio e pepe that rivals anything you’d get in Italian trattoria. It probably has something to do with the fact that chef Michael Patrick not only makes all his own pasta but he also sources his own meat from local farms and grows his own herbs. Those adept in the kitchen will be happy to know that many of the ingredients—the olive oil, the tuna, the dried pasta from a factory south of Naples, as well as meats and cheeses—are for sale in their adjacent storefront. Take note: Wooden tables and bare walls mean it gets noisy pretty fast.

Sun in My Belly, a catering company that also operates a brunch/dinner café out of the Kirkwood neighborhood, specializes in exactly the kind of dishes you’d hope from the name: “The Hangover” features a housemade biscuit with cheddar cheese, sausage, fried egg, avocado, potatoes, plus sriracha. The MLT sandwich is mozzarella with basil pesto on country bread. There’s tuna nicoise salad and fried chicken with mac ‘n’ cheese and collard greens—and so on.

This is one of those places that immediately transports you somewhere else: in the case, Austin, Texas. In addition to the endless patio outside, there's a stage for live music inside, and the décor is wonderfully Texan, with a big star behind the bar and a classic longhorn mount. If you're there for drinks, get the guacamole, queso, and a Vampire Weekend, their house horchata cocktail. They also have a location in Cabbagetown.

Tucked into a quiet street of the Summerhill neighborhood, Talat Market is not-so-quietly serving up some of the best Thai in the South. (A James Beard nomination doesn’t hurt, either.) Every Friday afternoon, Chef Parnass Lim Savang snaps an Instagram of the menu, and people line-up around the block to add their name to a list posted on the door just as the restaurant opens at 6. Regulars will grab a six-pack or bottle of wine next door at Candler Market and hang out on the sidewalk. Inside, chef serves up his take on "Georgian Thai"—recreating traditional dishes from his childhood using ingredients from local farms like Woodland Gardens or Review Farms. Dishes change regularly, but often include crispy seafood pancakes, a five spice tofu stew, or red curry beef. Everything is meant to be shared. For dessert, don’t pass up the vanilla ice cream sandwich made with sweet sticky rice, which is as crazy good as it sounds.

Chef Fuyuhiko Ito’s Umi in Buckhead books weeks in advance—so plan a bit ahead for a dinner table here. The sushi is outstanding, as are the other carefully crafted Japanese dishes. The interior, done by ATL artist Todd Murphy, has cozy wood flooring matched by darker wood walls and sleek, minimalist tables and half-booths.

While they actually have a good menu (including brunch), Argosy is best known for what’s on tap: More than thirty of the best selections from small craft breweries in Europe and stateside. Accordingly, the enormous, beer-hall-style space is lined with long tables and benches, including a lengthy bar that spans the wall across from a few cozy seating areas. The Skeeball in the back is a major crowd-pleaser.

This sweet little juice bar, now three locations strong, first opened back in 2014 with a commitment to sourcing organic produce from local Georgia farmers and wholesalers. In addition to the requisite juices, smoothies, and elixirs, they have a small selection of solid food, including acai bowls, nori rolls, soups, and salads. Hard-core cleansers might want to try their pre-packaged juice cleanses and meal plans, served in their adorable (and signature) glass bottles.

If there was a goop HQ in Atlanta, we’d lobby for it to be next door to this place—their detox-friendly salads and wraps are exactly what we want to eat for lunch (plus the smoothies, acai bowls, and juices make it a morning staple, too). With a highly successful franchise program underway, outposts are basically taking over the city, though the original is in Inman Park.

Kimball House is the brainchild of four friends who originally worked together at Brick Store Pub and came across old menus from the historic (and, sadly, no longer standing) Kimball House Hotel featuring classic Manhattan cocktails and oysters. That menu—and the deep-dive into old-school dining traditions that ensued—became the inspiration for their own restaurant, which opened a few years ago. While the thorough oyster menu and its thoughtful tasting notes are an important part of the experience here, it’s the specialty cocktail program run by local bartending celebrity Miles Macquarrie that put it on our radar. If you’re lucky enough to stop by when he’s behind the bar, he’ll give you the history behind everything on the menu, including the exhaustive list of absinthes and the subtle differences between them.

Like a smaller version of Ponce City Market, Krog Street is filled with tiny purveyors selling everything from flowers, baked goods, and chocolate to ice cream, bbq, and locally brewed beer. It’s also home to some of our favorite restaurants in the city (notably, the Luminary and Superica). The entire operation is located just off the Beltline, so it’s easy to ride your bike here at all hours. P.S. Jane’s Bakeshop has great lattes.

The great thing about this certified dive bar on the West side (which has been open for more than forty years) is that they have live music seven nights a week. They specialize in blues and roots music, and any Atlanta music geek you ask will verify that they get some of the best acts in the city. Try to catch a Wednesday night, when Mudcat is on rotation—front man Danny “Mudcat” Dudeck is an important fixture in the town’s music scene, and worth the trek across town.

Located in the former Sears, Roebuck & Co building, Ponce City Market has flats and small apartments on the upper floors, and one of the city’s biggest food halls on the lower floors. Tenants run the gamut from a coffee bar, farmstand, and ice cream shop to full-fledged restaurants, and the entire operation is across the street from the generous green space of Fourth Ward Park and steps from the Beltline.

This is one of Atlanta’s oldest bars, complete with the neon signs and pool tables in the back. They have a pretty consistent lineup of live music, and it’s reliably rowdy (in a cozy, divey kind of way) on weekend nights. It’s also the place to be if you happen to be in town during an Alabama football game.

The menu here changes every day based on what’s in season (Jenny sources all her produce locally), and you’ll always find plenty of soups—warm in the winter, and chilled in the summer. The entire operation skews healthy, at there's never a time where you won't find both a gluten-free and vegan soup on the menu. They now have four locations (there's Blandtown, plus Brookhaven, Decatur, Buckhead), serving every major neighborhood.

In the same building as Bacchanalia, Star Provisions is Anne Quatrano’s specialty food market. There’s a counter where you can order coffee, baked goods, and specialty sandwiches to eat on the spot, but this place really shines as a specialty foods purveyor. Anne stocks house-cured charcuterie and aged meats in an enormous freezer, and gets fresh seafood delivered every day. You’ll find us near the cheese case, where there’s a selection of imports from all over the world (plus enormously knowledgeable staffers to help you sort through them all).

One-half of the powerhouse sartorial couple who has built a small clothing empire from a single boutique in Atlanta, former Glamour editor Ann Mashburn’s eponymous store is a quiet, curated oasis that feels like walking into a woman’s (massive) dream walk-in closet. The store experience is designed to be comfortable: you can have a drink and listen to some seriously good music while you peruse a selection that includes everything from Carven dresses to Jil Sander blouses to Ann Mashburn’s own line, which is full of well-made classics with slight southern feminine flair. And, of course, you’ll find the Sid Mashburn menswear counterpart right next door.

Billy Reid is a distinctly Southern designer, seamlessly working traditionally preppy elements (pastels, seersucker, lots of khaki and linen) into elegant, streamlined, and sometimes vintage-inspired silhouettes. In addition to his Atlanta location in Buckhead, he’s got shops across the country, including one in Charleston and two in New York—his White Provisions shop is everything you’d expect.

What began as co-founders Joshua Morgan and Brad Scoggins’s at-home experimentation with botanicals is now a full-blown line of organic, non-toxic products, which you can find at the Atlanta-based Little Barn Apothecary shop (as well as online). From their Charcoal + Aloe face cleanser to their hair texturizer to their body oils, each product is as uncomplicated as it is potent and effective.

Shop owner Kelley Knight's warm, positive vibe is imparted throughout her boutique—a modern metaphysical shop that focuses on ritual tools like crystals, candles, tarot decks, and apothecary items all intentionally crafted by female makers. In this light-filled space, located in the hip Ponce City Market, you can get a palm, tarot, or psychic reading, or, best yet, book a more in-depth spiritual counseling session with Knight herself (so worth it). If you're not in Atlanta but still looking for some spiritual goods, Kelley stocks mostly all of her curated assortment online.

Sid Mashburn, the eponymous store from Ann Mashburn’s husband, isn’t just one of the best men’s stores in Atlanta—it’s one of the best in the country. While the much-talked-about store experience is a comfortable hang (think Miles Davis records and a complimentary drink of choice), what’s even better is how much you can get done with just a short trip here: with a wide selection of stylish but classic well-made basics, stylists on hand, and full-service tailoring, it’d be easy to overhaul a guy’s wardrobe in the span of one painless afternoon. In addition to Mashburn’s second Atlanta location, you can find stores in Dallas, Houston, DC, and the Brentwood Country Mart.

At this boutique stationery store in Buckhead, you’ll find everything you’d expect to find in a store curated by designers and painters who are obsessed with typography, paper, and letterpress. While you can work with them to design personalized invitations and paper goods, they have an amazing (and varied) selection of gift cards and stationery along with Simply Put’s own custom line of goods. And, while you’re at it, you can peruse their gift selection, which includes Taschen books, hand-crafted decanters, candles, and soaps.

Located right next to the clothing store Peoples—where you can find a highly-curated selection of brands like Stella McCartney, Derek Lam, and Chloé—w.port is a small edit of goop-favorites like Demylee, Ulla, and Vince. It’s a great place to look for both wardrobe staples (like Mother jeans, cashmere sweaters, and chunky knits) and also cocktail dresses and handcrafted jewelry. A few parking spaces are conveniently located out front.

Aviary offers haircuts, massage, and waxing, but we like it best for the facials. Founder Amy Bransford uses a whole slew of goop-favorite products (Coola, Drunk Elephant), and the space features plenty of exposed brick and a gorgeous wooden wall installation. It’s worth it to spring for the microdermabrasion treatment.

Leigh teaches multiple kinds of yoga classes, both in private and at a few different yoga studios in Atlanta—you’ll find her at Yoga Samadhi a few times a week, plus Highland Yoga and Exhale Spa on Thursdays. For those who want to dig a little deeper, she also offers teacher trainings.

Nouvelle is our go-to nail place in Atlanta, in part because of the dreamy interior, which has exposed brick walls and a great little bar for manicures. You can add aromatherapy to any of their treatments for optimal relaxation, and they also do great nail art on request.

Owned by two ridiculously fit local trainers, Jeff Toney and Amy Selig, the workouts here are based on the Lagree Method, a pilates-based practice that uses a combination of cardio and strength training to get the posture and lengthening benefits of the former along with the calorie-burn and metabolism boost of the latter. Everything happens on a Megaformer, and since the room can only hold a few of them, the classes have the added benefit of always feeling super intimate and personalized.

Trainer Tammy Stokes (who moved to Atlanta from LA) is all about full-body training, so you can expect her workouts to use medicine balls, free weights, and a custom-designed bench that she uses for core training. Tammy also does cleanses and nutrition support, for people who want a more holistic weight-loss program.

This local yoga studio is right on the edge of Midtown, bordering Buckhead, so it’s easy to get to from almost anywhere. The focus here is on power yoga, with classes, trainings, and workshops on the calendar almost every week (look for flow and strength classes with Rebecca, who’s our favorite instructor here).