A longtime Atlanta restaurant that closed several years ago is set to reopen next week in a new space.
Holeman & Finch will open Feb. 9 inside Colony Square at 1201 Peachtree St. NE in Midtown. The restaurant comes from James Beard Award-winning chef Linton Hopkins and his wife, Gina, a certified sommelier. The pair also own C. Ellet’s Steakhouse at Battery Atlanta; Hop’s Chicken in Ponce City Market; H&F Burger locations in Ponce City Market, Mercedes-Benz Stadium and at Truist Park; and H&F Bottle Shop and The Buttery in Buckhead and a Holeman & Finch location in Asheville, North Carolina.
The Holeman & Finch menu, executed in part by chef de cuisine Mason Bostwick, will include several dishes from the old menu, including the popular cheeseburger and fries. Offerings will also include a full oyster bar, extensive cheese and charcuterie program; small plates like welsh rarebit, pimento cheese, and steak tartare; and main dishes such as half roast chicken with toasted levain, greens and natural jus, and carbonara ala chitarra.
Credit: Courtesy of Holeman & Finch
Credit: Courtesy of Holeman & Finch
A selection of “parts” will offer dishes like sweetbreads with mustard, pickles and red-eyed gravy and veal brains with black butter and toast.
“I love cooking how I like to eat,” Hopkins said of developing the menu. “This is a synthesis of my appetites at Holeman & Finch and (shuttered Hopkins restaurant) Restaurant Eugene in one menu. “It’s not a resurrection of the past, more than it is a synthesis of who Gina and I are.”
He notes that the menu continues to be “whole animal, whole vegetable,” sourcing from local and regional growers and producers as much as possible, including Banner Butter, Bread & Butter Farms, Rodgers Greens and Roots and Hobo Cheese Company. He’s also getting Southern oysters from Rappahannock Oyster Co. and other seafood from Inland Seafood.
“It’s a menu that’s a testament to the wealth of the relationships we’ve built over 25 years,” he said.
He’s particuarly excited by the pastry and dessert selection developed by pastry chef Ayana Reid, giving a nod to her chocolate cake made with Sonoran flour, as well as a brown butter bourbon ice cream served with the bananas Foster he was inspired to put together after time cooking in New Orleans.
The beverage program, developed in collaboration with assistant general manager Brendan Town, who was recently promoted from his role as beverage manager, will feature a selection of craft cocktails. Options will include the Althea, made with gin, quina, walnut and lemon, and the Foxy Whiskers, made with apple brandy, vermut negre, coconut aquavit, cacao and coffee. The wine list, curated by general manager Sarah Lawrence, “really shines,” he said.
“It’s such a collaborative, creative process,” he said of working with the key members of his team.
The new 3,600-square-foot space will almost double the restaurant’s previous footprint with more than 100 seats. An outdoor patio will open in the spring.
Designed by Gina Hopkins as a “convivial gathering place for the community,” according to a representative for the restaurant, the space will “evoke the spirit of a traditional public house” with dark wood and more than 200 pieces of found and custom art. Each of the nine booths feature a curated selection of art that is personal to the Hopkinses.
Hopkins said the COVID-19 pandemic gave he and Gina “the chance to realize what we really wanted. We feel really happy with Holeman & Finch being the final linchpin of who we are. You open your doors, and you just hope that people are going to still feel that love for Holeman & Finch the way we do.”
Credit: Courtesy of Holeman & Finch
Credit: Courtesy of Holeman & Finch
Holeman & Finch first opened in 2008 at 2277 Peachtree Road in Brookwood Hills, and closed in early 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The restaurant had been located next to the Hopkinses’ much-lauded fine dining eatery Restaurant Eugene, which closed in 2019.
Restaurateur Justin Lim is slated to open ramen restaurant Okiburu in the former Holeman & Finch space and Bene Korean Steakhouse in the former Restaurant Eugene space later this year.
Credit: Courtesy of Holeman & Finch
Credit: Courtesy of Holeman & Finch
In addition to their restaurants, the Hopkinses also operate Good Food Works, a nonprofit they launched during the pandemic to provide meals to restaurant workers in need.
Holeman & Finch’s opening hours will be 4-11 p.m. Tuesdays-Thursdays and 4 p.m.-midnight Fridays-Saturdays. Nightly dinner service, lunch, breakfast and weekend brunch are set to be added in the coming weeks.
The restaurant will join several other food and dining concepts that have opened in the redeveloped Colony Square over the past two years including Rumi’s Kitchen, Saints + Council, Politan Row Food Hall, Jojo’s Beloved, Brown Bag Seafood Co., Serena Pastificio and Sweetgreen.
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