Cakes & Ale Recognized Again

I've done my share of heaping praise on Cakes & Ale over the last three years. However, I'm just a dude who likes to cook, eat, and drink who happens to have a blog to pontificate on things I probably don't know enough about. So, it's only fair that I point out when a place I dig gets recognized by the folks who get paid to write about restaurants.

John Kessler of the AJC recently bestowed 4 stars (out of 5) on the "new" Cakes & Ale. The praise is well deserved. Timely, for me, as I was impressed once again with dinner at Cakes & Ale last Friday night. I didn't take a lot of pics, but this carrot-two-ways salad with roasted carrot and carrot puree was right in the groove.

Funny to get excited about a carrot salad, perhaps, but not when it's a Cakes & Ale salad. We also had several other tasty dishes including the farro and veggie bowl with wood-fired farm egg, a decadent broccoli and kohlrabi soup, quail over black lentils, and the culotte steak with beets, horseradish cream, frisée, sunchoke chips, aged balsamic vinaigrette. Wow. That steak dish kicked ass.

As Kessler notes, Cakes & Ale has, since opening 4 years ago, been a Decatur hot spot for dining. It is now deservedly one of metro-Atlanta true dining destinations. I won't rave on in this brief shout-out about the brilliance of lunch at the Bakery, though Kessler did in his review. My take is here. If you are a food lover and have yet to spend time at Cakes & Ale then shame on you!