I live in Colorado but wiould like to order a restaurant gift certificate for someone in Atlanta. Can you recommend a nice, downtown (or near downtown) restaurant? The amount will be $100, for 2 people. I know they like Bones, but would like to get them something different. Still a steak, seafood, American food place though. I got on a website and thought maybe Pano's & Pauls? Any comments or suggestions? Thanks.

Sue

Both Bones and Panos are in Buckhead, which is a little trendy area just north of downtown. So, keep in mind that if you're staying in downtown, these restaurants WILL NOT be within walking distance.

Both are very good restaurants. Bones is a low-key, but high-priced steak house. Panos is over-the-top in the sense of decoration and presentation.

Chops is also a good restaurant in Buckhead. As is the Buckhead Diner.

You can almost be guaranteed of getting a great meal with great service at any of these four restaurants.

As to downtown restaurants, I'll let someone else help.

Chops, Buckhead Diner and Panos are owned by the same company- the Buckhead Life Group. They also own some other popular restaurants around Atlanta. You can buy a gift certificate from them and it can be used at any of their restaurant. It is a popular gift giving choice among Atlantans. The downtown restaurants mostly cater to the convention and business traveler. I think the best downtown restaurant is City Grill. Dailey's is another traditional good choice.

http://www.buckheadrestaurants.com/home2.html

You can get a gift card which can be used at any of their high-end restaurants so your friend can choose.

I second the idea of getting a Buckhead Life Restaurant Group gift certificate. At the company I work for, we will periodically run promotions that we give out gift certificates for. The two that we commonly give are either Simon Mall gift certificates (which has absoultely nothing to do with this conversation) or Buckhead Life Restaurant Group.

If you want to stick to downtown the Pleasant Peasant, continental cuisine, is a very good choice. It begat a string of others, including Dailey's, along with considerable financial rewards for its three founders. The Dining Room at the [downtown] Ritz Carlton more than holds it own with a flourish. The Buckhead Life restaurants (Panos, Diner, Fish Market, Bones...)are truly first rate and many can be reached from downtown by rapid rail and a short taxi ride. Near Panos (which is decorated like the bordellos I've seen only in pictures, really) in Buckhead is the Blue Ridge Grill, with higher end fare in a well laid out building designed to evoke an exclusive hunting lodge. The Cabin on Buford Highway has a similar and perhaps better gig that predates the Blue Ridge. Finally, you cannot misfire with Bacchanalia, continental, which may be the best in Atlanta.

OK, I work near the downtown area.

One poster recommended Pleasant Peasant. Very good resturant, but depending on hotel, more than a couple of blocks. Based on what you described, and for $100 I recommend a couple of things...

-McCormick & Schmicks at CNN center (few block walk depending on where you are staying)
-Mortons Steak House
-Daileys

If it does not have to be downtown and you want a great steak, Capital Grille is awesome. Believe it is on Roswell Rd in Buckhead (I think).

Based on all of the things listed, you should be able to do a great search.

Good luck.

I think the Buckhead Life gift certificate is the best suggestion. Although there are better restaurants in the city, the Buckhead Life group would give them lots of choices.

Two restaurants that we found excellent in Atlanta are Emerils (Buckhead) and Dish (Virginia Highlands, I think). We had great meals at both.

Emeril's is terrible and gets bad reviews. Not a fine dining restaurant but a restaurant you go to once. Dish is great,though. To be safe, like other posters have suggested, get a gift certificate from the Buckhead Life Group. They have several very good restaurants to chose from.

how about MF Sushi....I have heard it is one of the best ...any thoughts ??

The Palm is comparable to Bone's and offers brilliant steak and seafood. Gift certificates are available online.

http://www.thepalm.com/

I'm a little confused about why you'd want a restaurant downtown for somebody who apparently lives in Atlanta, as most Atlantans don't dine downtown, but closer to where they live (and not that many people live downtown). Bones, for instance, is in Buckhead.

The Buckhead Life restaurants (Chops, Nava, Bluepointe, Kyma, Pano's & Paul's, Veni Vidi Vici, Buckhead Diner) are all considered upmarket, but none of them really serve fantastic food in my opinion. But it's very easy to give a "one size fits all" gift certificate to the restaurants in this group.

Bones, Chops, Mortons, Capital Grille, Ruth's Chris, The Palm all serve pretty the same great big servings of dead cow. Fine if that's what you want.

Really upmarket restaurants are The Dining Room at the Ritz-Carlton Buckhead, Bacchanalia, Joel, Restaurant Eugene, and Seegers. Seegers probably too fancy and non-American. Food Studio's a very nice option that's close in to downtown (near Bacchanalia).

MF Sushi gets great press, and I've got friends who like it, but I've never found that it quite lives up to expectations. A bit more about the "look at me" scene than about the food.

Really inspired sushi and Japanese dishes to be found at Soto, newly re-opened. It's on Piedmont west of Peachtree, in the disco Kroger shopping center.

While Soto was closed one of his former co-workers, Taka, opened up his own place on (I think) Pharr Rd. Great.

thx for the sushi update