Experience highs and lows at Roswell’s newest eatery

Service: a range of green to experienced servers

Best dishes: fish dishes

Vegetarian selections: vegetable plate, salads

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Price range: $$$

Credit cards: all major credit cards

Hours: noon-9 p.m. Sundays, 11:30 a.m.-3 p.m. and 5-10 p.m. Tuesdays-Thursdays, 11:30 a.m.-3 p.m. and 5-11 p.m. Fridays, 5-11 p.m. Saturdays

Children: fine, especially earlier in the evenings

Parking: strip mall lot

Reservations: limited reservations available

Wheelchair access: yes

Smoking: no

Noise level: moderate

Patio: yes

Takeout: yes

Address, phone: 1570 Holcomb Bridge Road, Roswell. 770-641-8877.

Website: www.foundationatl.com

Next time you dine out, chat up your server. You’ll gather great recommendations for dishes to try, discover off-menu items and quite possibly uncover a few kitchen mysteries.

You might also get a doozy of a story along the way. I certainly have. I’ve been desperately warned away from certain dishes, had my chicken compared to a medium-sized cat and been told that the chef secretly makes his cornbread from the blue Jiffy box mix.

Sometimes servers provide great insight into the inner workings of a restaurant. Other times, not so much. Recently I asked a server at Roswell’s new Foundation Social Eatery to tell me the meaning of the restaurant’s name. I was particularly curious about the “social” descriptor upon finding the restaurant compartmentalized and without communal tables I expected. Our server simply invited us to notice the lack of televisions by way of explanation. Time to check in with chef/owner Mel Toledo.

The design of the restaurant, which Toledo calls “deeply personal,” inspired its moniker.

In the absence of electronic distractions, minute details invite conversation. For example, the distinct floral motif woven into decor elements mimics his tattoo of a bloom from his wife’s wedding bouquet.

Taken literally, “foundation” comes from the combination of raw and refined materials used for the build out. You’ll find a mixture of rebar fixtures in the bar area, stacked cinderblock partitions on the patio and patterned, blond wood panels in the main dining room.

Physical structure in place, Toledo is working to solidify the nearly 2-month-old restaurant’s culinary foundation. His new American cuisine here is in various stages of refinement, much like the separate divisions within the space itself. Some dishes, like the seared halibut with buttery asparagus sections and brilliant green spring peas ($24), exhibit great finesse and a delicate touch while others are clunky and awkward like the messy bowl of bacon-studded pork shoulder ($21) topped with an apple-arugula salad. Once the menu comes together, this social eatery has the potential to become a draw for residents in its underserved section of Roswell.

Toledo originally planned to open the restaurant in an Inman Park space, but when that fell through, he began a new search for an OTP location. He took inspiration from the success of Woodstock’s Century House Tavern, where he once served as chef, and by other suburban restaurants like east Cobb’s Seed. He settled on a slip of east Roswell with few dining options and plenty of strip mall space, the area that once housed the popular restaurant Dick and Harry’s.

Area residents will appreciate the light and airy transformation of a spot that once housed a dark and rustic Twisted Taco. The space is divided into four distinct areas, one more finished than the next, much like the fare.

The television-less bar area may attract those who wish to visit over a cocktail like the refreshing double crossed mule ($7), a take on the Moscow mule with Double Cross vodka, ginger beer and lime served slushy style in a copper mug. Add some nibbles with the charcuterie board ($14) that comes with Caly Road red top goat cheese, Tuscano dry salami, thin folds of prosciutto, mildly pickled carrots and a fresh herb salad with horseradish dressing.

Out on the cement-studded patio, you’ll find the families with children enjoying the heady scent of the smoke billowing out of the kitchen’s wood-burning oven. You’ll taste that smoke in the lemony skin of the impressively moist wood oven roasted chicken ($20). You might also detect a note of smoke in the crispy pork rib appetizer ($7), but most of the flavor resides in the sweetened jus and pickled red onions left behind on the plate.

Back inside, the front dining room with soft lighting is the most elegant in the divided space. It’s the most fitting backdrop to showcase the delicate flavors of that sauteed halibut ($24) sparkling with spring vegetables. This is where you’ll want to order the well-seasoned Mediterranean sea bass ($26), its perfect flakes gently melding with a simple white bean-fennel ragout.

The contrast between the front and rear dining areas is stark. The latter, flooded with fluorescent lighting from the open kitchen, affords a view of Toledo’s culinary team at work. You can watch as they slide dishes into the wood-burning oven and concoct vanilla-scented savories like the peekytoe crabcake ($12).

The crumb-coated cake, meaty with crab, sits over a vanilla-pineapple puree. I get the pineapple, but the vanilla veers us into dessert land, straying too far from the crab’s savory origins and overshadowing its own natural sweetness. Ditto that for the vegetable plate ($16), an interesting layering of carrot puree, fat wands of asparagus, assorted mushrooms and salad. As you’re trying to reconcile the jumble of ingredients stacked like Lincoln Logs, you’ll find it’s the heavy dose of vanilla in the carrot puree that’s incompatible.

Let’s save the vanilla for dessert. Try the vanilla pots de creme ($8) layered with a beguiling mixture of braised cherries and strawberries and topped with shortbread crumbles. But a word to the wise: Unless you like the firm and gummy texture of fruitcake, disregard the server here when she steers you toward the rosemary olive oil cake ($8).

The groundwork has been laid. Now Toledo needs to give it structure and the servers a story to tell.