Local Three, Atlanta, GA (February 2011)

One of our favorite dinner / lunch spots is Muss & Turners in Vinings.  When we saw that they were opening a new restaurant with chef Chris Hall, Local Three Kitchen & Bar, we got excited.    They took over the old Jo-el space off Paces Ferry.   Our first visit was for dinner.

  

Very open space with (what I hear) is a fairly lively bar scene.   For dinner that night, I had pork tenderloin with spaetzle (kind of an egg noodle) with chard and vanilla pears.  The pork and pear combination was awesome - when Peter Brady's spoke of "pork chops and applesauce" he was onto a hot culinary creation.   Jo had the chicken pot pie, which IS quite tasty and this cream of celery soup that she talks about to this day.  A good bit. 

  

For dessert, a banana creme brulee with banana bread.   Very good.  

About two weeks later we went for brunch, for the first time.   I've been for lunch since and had their version of the Big Mac (awesome) with bacon mac-n-cheese (what could be wrong with that combination), but brunch is what we keep returning to.   It's the most unique presentation of a brunch that I've ever been to.  Follow the menu:

It's beautifully simple.  Enter the kitchen hungry (on the left).  Wander through the pastries, then find your way to the soup and salad (don't skip the pimiento cheese, follow that up with their traditional breakfast and finish with the brunch / lunch items.  Then you exit happy.

You're actually going into the kitchen and the chefs are cooking the food and placing it on the serving line as you pass through.  It is a beautiful  thing.   A properly executed kitchen pass resembles this:

(Clockwise from top left) - a sweet bun of some fashion, hot biscuit, housemade-sausage gravy, REALLY good bacon, chicken pot pie, mac n cheese and pimiento cheese.  Somewhere nearby is some lavosh for dipping in the pimiento cheese.   

There's also a sweet island out front, but this is one of the occasions where I skip dessert.   

And have more pimiento cheese and bacon.
  The best brunch in the city today.