The Battery entertainment complex adjacent to the Atlanta Braves new stadium SunTrust Park will offer plenty of options for dining and drinking . Now, there is one more reason to hit up The Battery before, during and after the game: Celebrity chef Todd English has signed on to open a restaurant.
The Atlanta-raised English is coming back to his roots and opening Todd English Tavern. It is one of three concepts within a larger venue called Live! at the Battery. The other two concepts include PBR Atlanta (which will be similar to its sister site in St. Louis' Ballpark Village adjacent to Busch Stadium) as well as an entertainment-plex called Sports & Social. Live! at the Battery will be owned by the Cordish Companies and operated by ECI, its subsidiary that manages restaurants, bars and clubs.
At Todd English Tavern, dishes will have a Southern heritage with an international influence. The menu will include a number of shareable offerings as well as items like an upscale riff on an oyster po’ boy of corn pone with truffles and oysters. The signature burger will be a pork and truffle version with pork shoulder confit served with fennel-apple salad. English also stated that some pub grub would be tweaked as vegetable-based offerings, such as cauliflower tater tots.
English calls his eatery a “neo-tavern." He considers a neo-tavern to reflect a style of cooking that uses authentic techniques yet is “not afraid of blending” from “the melting pot of the world that we live in.” He stated that it falls in line with a culinary movement happening globally, and notably in Paris, of taking “elegant cooking, making it accessible and bringing world elements to it.” This, as opposed to haute cuisine that was “less experimentation” or fusion cooking that “became ‘confusion,’” according to English.
While English will be on-site frequently, especially during the restaurant’s infancy, day-to-day kitchen duties will fall on the shoulders of Jimmy Reyes. He worked at English’s Bluezoo in Orlando and will serve as the executive chef for all of the Live! at the Battery dining operations.
The beverage program at Todd English Tavern will be run by Carl Grossglass, currently behind the stick at Holeman & Finch. Expect top-tier spirits, craft beer, mocktails, fruit drinks and more libations.
"I've been all over the world. It feels good to come back to Atlanta," said English, who graduated from the Galloway School in the 1970s and whose first cooking stint was at the Tower Place Hotel in Atlanta. He is now based in New York and runs 24 restaurants around the globe.
English will also have a hand in the menu for Sports & Social at Live! at the Battery, a two-story space for sports lovers that will feature five bars, indoor and outdoor patios, a 30-foot screen TV and golf simulators. PBR Atlanta will be a 9,500 square foot bar located on the second level of Live! at the Battery and overlooking the stadium.
Todd English Tavern and Sports & Social will both debut April 12, just prior to the April 14 opening day at SunTrust Stadium. PBR Atlanta will celebrate its grand opening May 12.
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