Abattoir

When Abattoir first opened, everyone was excited to visit but they weren’t quite sure how to spell the name, which is French for “slaughterhouse.” And so people were posting a lot about their meals at “Abbatoir.” That tickled my funny bone.

Abbatoir: a hermetically sealed room where “Dancing Queen” is played on an endless loop.

Anyhow, the good news is that Abattoir is now open for lunch. In fact, the restaurant is open straight through from noon through 11 p.m., Tuesdays-Saturdays, so it’s a perfect place to go for one of those mid-afternoon-escape-the-world lunches. The bad news is that Abattoir serves the same menu at lunch and dinner, and the prices that seem on the edge of reasonable at night come off as a little steep at lunch.

I’m not going to spend much time trying to figure out why Atlanta’s most lauded chefs, Anne Quatrano and Clifford Harrison, owners of Bacchanalia, Floataway Café, the Quinones Room at Bacchanalia and Star Provisions, would want to open their most casual restaurant to date and have the menu focus on alternative, “whole animal” foods in the middle of a recession.

I’m just going to tell you that Abattoir is by far the most enjoyable dining experience I’ve had in this city in a long time.