When you first walk in, you’re greeted by the Oyster Bar; first come first serve with a varied menu than what you can get in the main dining area.

Inside of The Optimist, main dinning area.

Shot of the bar area

Hot out of the oven bread with sprinkles of sea salt on top

Peel & eat ga white shrimp, “come back” sauce & lemon

Duck fat poached swordfish, pickled sweet peppers, crispy pancetta

Maine sea scallops, oxtail marmalade, brown butter-chicken jus

Pan seared red snapper

Grilled rack of lamb, field peas, preserved lemon, lamb jus

One of the newest restaurants in Atlanta that serves sustainable seafood. They seem to change parts of their menu; when I tried looking at the menu from The Optimist’s website, they no longer had the grilled rack of lamb nor the version of the red snapper. But I hope they never change the Maine sea scallops served with an oxtail marmalade because that dish is AMAZING! Go get that if nothing else. mmm….so good.

Also their website is pretty awesome. The main page has audio of the waves cascading against the shore. Looping infinitely. I think I’ll just leave that on while I work from now on…

The Optimist (information gathered 8/2012)
914 Howell Mill Road
Atlanta, GA 30318
404.477.6260 ?
Hours
Lunch
Mon – Fri 11:30am – 2:30pm
Dinner
Sun – Thurs 5pm – 10pm
Fri & Sat 5pm – 11pm

Oyster Bar
Mon – Fri 5 till …
Saturday & Sunday 3 till …

Parking
A good amount of parking space available in their own lot. Medium/High volume of cars sustainable.

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