Atlanta: BLT Steak

It is downtown restaurant week in Atlanta…I love restaurant weeks, they are a great time to check out new restaurants at convenient prices!  BLT Steak has been on my radar for a while, this was the perfect excuse.  We headed there on a double date, and I was not disappointed.

The restaurant is located in the W hotel in Downtown Atlanta. The ambiance is ok – I wasn’t overly impressed with the set up, it had low lighting and dark accent colors. But the service was outstanding and both floor managers stopped by at different points to make sure everything was ok. The crowd was surprisingly older than I would have expected. During the week I imagine it is full of business diners and expense cards.

Now lets talk about what you really care about, the food!  And let me start by saying there was so much of it, I practically had to be rolled out of there. Because it was restaurant week there was a limited menu, but it included three courses: an appetizer, entrée and desert. Before the apps came out though there were two rounds of bread. I usually try to stay away from filling up on bread but I couldn’t resist. The first round was sliced sour dough bread with sun-dried tomato paté. I wanted to bottle up the pate and take it home with me it was so good. The second round was popovers, served with unsalted butter and sea salt. AMAZING! And these are served with a copy of the recipe. Total prep and cooking time for these is over an hour!

I should also mention that they had a wine pairing special, for only $20/pp a glass of wine was paired with each course. It didn’t hurt that our server is a sommelier for his second job. While we technically only had three courses he kept filling up our glasses, I don’t know how many glasses I had before we left!

For my meal I opted to start with the mussels in a white wine sauce, the hangar steak with peppercorn cream sauce as my entrée and a lime sorbet topped with fresh strawberries and homemade cream for dessert. Every single thing melted in my mouth. I literally requested a spoon for the white wine mussel sauce! RG started with the coconut chicken soup, an olive tapenade stuffed chicken breast and finished with a peanut butter/chocolate cup topped with banana ice cream.  For our sides we added macaroni & cheese with bacon and truffle oil and brussels sprouts with chestnuts and bacon. Can you tell we have an obsession with bacon?! I was not disappointed with anything. If I was going to go back again I would probably swap the brussels sprouts for something else though, they were a little tougher than I like. The steak was seasoned and cooked to perfection. Next time I definitely want to raise the bar and try the filet.

Did you see the onion rings?! The other couple we dined with ordered those, they were massive! That was the only thing I did not try…and not because I don’t like onions but because I couldn’t fit another bite of food into my mouth. We had to take home half of my steak, some chicken, and half of the mac and cheese. I just ate the left-overs for dinner and I almost think the steak was better today! The seasoning had a chance to really sink in overnight.
I can’t wait to go back and try some other menu options. I would definitely suggest you take a visit if you are in a city where there is a BLT Steak…but know that it is expensive, but worth every penny!