The Move is your monthly guide to the top food finds from Senior Editor Beth McKibben, who oversees restaurant and dining coverage at Rough Draft. Subscribe to our Thursday dining newsletter Side Dish for the latest restaurant intel and scoops and to be the first to know where she’s been eating around Atlanta.
Savory breakfast crepes at Julianna’s Coffee and Crepes
775 Lake Avenue, Inman Park, Atlanta
On a Saturday morning at Julianna’s Coffee and Crepes, regulars pop into the tiny Inman Park restaurant to place to-go orders. They wait off to the side near the front door while sipping hot coffee and scrolling on their phones. Some people place orders and grab a seat inside. Tables are strewn about the unfussy dining room on the ground floor of a century-old house one block east of Krog Street Market. Music mingles with the sizzle of batter hitting the crepe spreader in the kitchen and with quiet conversations at tables beyond the counter.
Julianna’s serves both sweet and savory crepes. My crepe order is typically savory, including the Breakfasty One with scrambled eggs, ham, Swiss, and mushrooms and The Royale with tasso ham, gruyere, field greens, and peach chutney. Most crepes cost less than $11 and come generously stuffed with ingredients.
You might miss Julianna’s driving by were it not for the weathered awning and bright red sign with crisp white lettering above the entrance announcing the restaurant’s name. It’s the type of place you see in your travels around Europe – a gem of a restaurant hidden down a little alleyway known only to locals or found by curious tourists wandering the streets. That’s how owner Andrew Turoczi likes it too; he immigrated to the U.S. from Hungary in the 1980s with his family. With them, they brought an old family recipe for Hungarian-style crepes called palacsintas. The recipe paved the way for Turoczi to open Julianna’s in 2013, naming the restaurant after his late mother.
It may not always seem like it these days, especially as new and shiny overtakes old and beloved in Atlanta, but restaurant gems like Julianna’s do still exist. These are precious spots humming along in our neighborhoods without much fanfare, coveted by locals, and often a delightful discovery when stumbled upon by visitors to the city.
Brazilian Bakery Cafe
1260 Powers Ferry Road, Marietta
The heart of metro Atlanta’s Brazilian community resides in Smyrna and Marietta, with the cities home to some of the best Brazilian restaurants and bakeries. That includes Brazilian Bakery Cafe.
While the cafe serves everything from chicken-tomato pies to sandwiches to Brazilian crepes (tapiocas), I enjoy the baked goods and desserts. You’re rewarded for your time in traffic with an array of freshly baked sweet and savory baked goods, pastries, and candies displayed in a case at the front counter.
Order a beijinho truffle sweetened with coconut, condensed milk, and butter, which gives the bite-sized candy balls a stretchy, glutinous texture. For pastry lovers, I highly recommend the guava and cheese pastel. It’s heated before serving, warming the tangy, semi-sweet jelly inside and melting the mozzarella enough to create a perfect cheese pull. The flaky exterior bubbles up and pocks from baking. A firm crust neatly contains the jelly and cheese, even after the pastry is warmed and split open. For savory pastels, try the pastel de carne with ground beef and olives or the pastel de palmito with hearts of palm in Béchamel sauce.
Harissa chicken lahmacun at Rumi’s Kitchen
1175 Peachtree Street, Midtown
6112 Roswell Road, Sandy Springs
7105 Avalon Boulevard, Alpharetta
Restaurants like Divan and Rumi’s Kitchen have been credited for bringing Persian and Middle Eastern food to the forefront in Atlanta. I’ve been a longtime fan of Chef Ali Mesghali’s Rumi’s Kitchen, watching it expand from one location in Sandy Springs back in 2006 to locations in Midtown and Alpharetta over a decade later. There are even locations in Houston and Washington, D.C.
Traveling to Sandy Springs from the city in traffic to eat at Rumi’s was never a chore, but I take great pleasure in knowing the restaurant is closer to me now in Midtown so more Atlantans can enjoy its gracious hospitality and its food. Hospitality is a core tenet of Persian culture, much of which revolves around food and enjoying a meal together.
I typically start with the fattoush salad and either green tahini hummus or the labneh with charred cherry tomatoes, both served with triangles of soft pita freshly baked that day. Sometimes I switch it up with the ghasemi mirza (Think smoked eggplant dip). I often order one of Rumi’s signature dishes as my entree: wood-charred Chilean sea bass with sides of roasted tomatoes and baghali polo (fava bean and dill basmati rice).
On a recent visit to the Colony Square location in Midtown, I ordered the lahmacun, sometimes referred to as Turkish pizza. The flatbread comes piled with fragrant layers of minced meat and vegetables and topped with fresh herbs and red onions. My move tends to be the harissa chicken lahmacun with the meat spiced with sumac bringing in hints of tart citrus.