Cakes & Ale, Decatur

Billy Allin occasionally emerges from his kitchen dressed in shorts, a dun-colored T-shirt and a well-loved apron. He doesn’t look at all magazine-cover or “Top Chef”-ready, and bless him for that. His pitch-perfect neighborhood bistro proves that when a chef cooks night after night in his own kitchen, uses the best local ingredients, keeps things small, and doesn’t try to respond to every trend sweeping the city, then cooking happens at a heightened level. Allin’s brief and deeply personal menu usually includes a whole roasted trout for two, smoky and crisp-skinned, and a presentation of burrata with seasonal vegetables, such as pole beans, eggplant and tomato in a lemon-anchovy vinaigrette.

Cakes & Ale, 155 Sycamore St., Decatur. 404-377-7994, cakesandalerestaurant.com.