Another big-name chef is set to open a high-concept restaurant in an Atlanta hotel.
Food Network personality and James Beard Award-winning chef Scott Conant will open The Americano inside the InterContinental Hotel Buckhead Atlanta next month. It replaces celebrity chef Art Smith’s eatery Southern Art, which quietly closed last year after 10 years.
The restaurant “blends a European style of highly personalized service with contemporary Italian-inspired dining to create an exceptional and convivial experience,” according to a press release.
Similar to the first Americano that opened in Scottsdale, Arizona in 2020, the Atlanta location will feature a menu highlighting steaks, pasta, salads, antipasti and Mediterranean seafood. In the morning, the restaurant will serve as a cafe with coffee and pastries.
Credit: KEN GOODMAN PHOTOGRAPHY
Credit: KEN GOODMAN PHOTOGRAPHY
The full bar will offer a cocktail program, a wine list with more than 200 selections from Italy and the United States
Americano’s space will feature “a chic, moody atmosphere” with sculptural artwork, an island bar area and lounge and a large outdoor dining patio. The dining room will have butcher block tables and crescent-shaped booths, with wicker chairs and stone-topped tables on the patio.
Credit: The Americano
Credit: The Americano
Conant, who won 2003 James Beard Awards for his work at New York restaurant L’Impero, has published four cookbooks and has been a guest host and judge on Food Network show “Chopped” since 2009.
He’s the latest in a growing list of notable chefs who have signed on to help run hotels in metro Atlanta restaurants. Todd Ginsberg of Rye Restaurants helped open Dirty Rascal in the Thompson Buckhead hotel and Hugh Acheson and Chris Wilkins recently opened Mount Royal in the Hyatt Centric Buckhead Atlanta (Acheson also worked on By George in the Candler Hotel).
Other hotels with destination restaurants include the recently-opened Epicurean Atlanta, Kimpton Sylvan Hotel, Wylie Hotel and Bellyard Hotel. Nobu Hotel and Restaurant, with celebrity backers including Robert DeNiro, is set to open at Phipps Plaza this summer.
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