The expansion of the Michelin Guide beyond Atlanta’s inner loop in 2024 has the winning OTP restaurant owners saying it affirms that recognizing culinary excellence shouldn’t have geographic boundaries.
This year marks the city’s second dining guide from the French tire company, which awards coveted stars, Bib Gourmands, and other distinctions to restaurants in cities worldwide. The inaugural guide to Atlanta debuted in 2023, centering selections on restaurants in the city and inside the I-285 perimeter.
But in 2024, Michelin’s anonymous inspectors expanded their dining radius to suburban Atlanta, including Doraville, Marietta, Roswell, Duluth, and Johns Creek.
Michelin heads OTP
According to the Georgia Restaurant Association, Metro Atlanta includes around 12,000 restaurants. The counties of Cherokee, Clayton, Cobb, DeKalb, Douglas, Fayette, Forsyth, Fulton, Gwinnett, Henry, and Rockdale and the city of Atlanta comprise the Metro Atlanta region, home to just over 6.3 million people.
Nearly half of those restaurants reside within Atlanta’s bustling perimeter. Outside the perimeter (OTP), thousands more restaurants occupy spaces in suburban shopping complexes, along major state roads, in charming historic town squares, and converted homes on the edge of quiet neighborhoods.
Of the 57 Atlanta restaurants recognized in the 2024 Atlanta Michelin Guide, five suburban restaurants made the list: Woo Nam Jeong (Stone Bowl House); Hen Mother Cookhouse; Masterpiece; Table & Main; and Spring.
Michelin listed Doraville Korean restaurant Woo Nam Jeong at Seoul Plaza on Buford Highway as “recommended,” along with breakfast and brunch restaurant Hen Mother Cookhouse in Johns Creek. Both restaurants frequent many of Atlanta’s “Best of” lists, with owners Young Hui Han and Soraya Khoury spotlighting their Korean and Jordanian-Persian heritages, respectively, in dishes on their menus.
Recommended: A restaurant hasn’t achieved star or Bib Gourmand status and/or doesn’t fit star or Bib Gourmand category standards but is worth recommending.
Masterpiece in Duluth, specializing in Sichuan and Hunan dishes from China, received a Bib Gourmand in 2024, as did Roswell’s Table & Main, known for seasonal Southern cuisine.
“Masterpiece is a bit out of the way in Duluth in an unassuming strip mall, but it’s worth the drive,” Michelin stated in the 2024 Atlanta guide. “The hearty Sichuan food is served family-style with care and focus shown in dishes like dongpo pork, a square of meltingly tender pork belly in a dark brown sauce that is sweet and vibrant.”
Like Hen Mother Cookhouse and Woo Nam Jeong, Masterpiece frequents “Best of” lists in Atlanta, too. In 2017 and 2018, the James Beard Foundation named chef and owner Rui Liu — a Northern China native — as a semifinalist for Best Chef: Southeast.
Bib Gourmand: A restaurant serves high-quality food at a reasonable price for people seeking more affordable dining options during their travels.
Located in a converted house on Canton Street in downtown Roswell, the Michelin Guide said of Table & Main’s most popular dish, “Fried chicken brims with flavor and is impossibly delicious, and it’s a good thing the portion is overly generous, as you’ll want to tuck into leftovers later.”
Owned by Roswell native Ryan Pernice, and led in the kitchen by Chef Woolery ‘Woody’ Back, Table & Main opened in 2011 focusing on seasonal Southern fare. It quickly became one of metro Atlanta’s best restaurants.
Michelin awarded Spring in Marietta one star in the 2024 Atlanta guide, while sommelier and partner Daniel Crawford earned the Michelin Service Award.
Michelin inspectors use five criteria to help them determine star ratings: quality of the ingredients; harmony of flavors; mastery of techniques; personality of the chef as expressed through the cuisine; and consistency across the entire menu over time. Each visit features a different inspector dining at a restaurant. Inspectors then meet to go over their separate evaluations and determine the award designation.
One star: A restaurant includes high-quality cooking and is worthy of a stop during your travels. Any style of restaurant or cuisine type can qualify for a star.
Crawford co-owns Spring with Chef Brian So, a multiple-year nominee for Best Chef: Southeast by the James Beard Foundation. The critically acclaimed fine dining restaurant is a perennial on both local and national “Best of” lists, with Michelin nodding to So and his team serving a “tightly edited, contemporary American menu” that prioritizes seasonality, technique, and simplicity.
Michelin highlights Spring’s house-made sourdough bread with garlic chive butter, the pan-seared wild king salmon topped with Hollandaise sauce, and a maple-glazed cruller with sliced almonds in an amaretto crème anglaise as standout dishes.
Not anticipated or expected
“We are just ‘heads-down-doing-our-thing people,’ so getting the notice from Michelin [telling them of an impending award] was a complete surprise,” Pernice said of Table & Main’s recognition this year. “We were hoping to get maybe a ‘recommended,’ so getting a Bib Gourmand was a special surprise.”
Khoury also said Hen Mother Cookhouse’s Michelin honor was not on her radar in 2024.
“We are a breakfast place, so I wasn’t expecting it at all,” she said. “When we first got a notice [from Michelin] to send in some pictures, I thought it was a scam, so I ignored it for a couple of days.”
When the official invitation arrived from Michelin a few weeks later, Khoury said she was still skeptical, until Aaron Phillips, chef and co-owner of one-star restaurant Lazy Betty in Midtown, told her it was legitimate.
So and Crawford said they were gratified by the Michelin recognition for Spring, considering their humble beginnings in the restaurant industry.
“You’ve got a guy who used to be a hibachi chef and another one who used to be a manager of a Pizza Hut now with a Michelin star,” Crawford said.
Pernice, Khoury, Crawford, and So all note the significance of Michelin venturing OTP in 2024 and recognizing the Atlanta dining scene expands far beyond the boundaries of the perimeter. The 2025 guide may expand even further into Atlanta’s suburbs.
“You can’t tell the story of Atlanta restaurants without going outside the perimeter,” Pernice said. “Atlanta dining, to me, is amazing food found in unexpected places.”
Khoury said she was grateful that Hen Mother Cookhouse, located in an area of Johns Creek dominated by chain restaurants, was recognized.
“A lot of people told us we should expand to Buckhead or Midtown, but we are very happy where we are,” she said. “We live in Johns Creek and this allows us to have some semblance of a life and a chance to watch our children grow up.”
Earlier this fall, Khoury did expand Hen Mother Cookhouse to a second location in neighboring Alpharetta.
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Is there a Michelin boost?
Pernice said in the few days following the Michelin announcement, he saw a significant uptick in reservations for November, typically the restaurant’s slowest month ahead of the holidays.
“While it’s too soon to draw broad conclusions, the early word is that the Bib Gourmand has definitely boosted business,” he said. “We are starting with the most covers on the books that we ever had and sales were up 29% over the same week last year.”
Khoury said she has been focusing recents efforts on ramping up Hen Mother Cookhouse in Alpharetta, not so much on the impact of the Michelin designation at either location.
“We are just trying to focus on great service and good frickin’ food,” Khoury said. “We might feel a bit of pressure, but there’s no ambition to do more at this point. We don’t want to expand, and we don’t want to franchise.”
Woo Nam Jeong (Stone Bowl House), 5953 Buford Highway, Doraville; Hen Mother Cookhouse, 11705 Jones Bridge Road, Johns Creek, and 50 South Main Street, Alpharetta; Masterpiece, 3940 Buford Highway, Duluth; Table & Main, 1028 Canton Street, Roswell; Spring, 36 Mill Street, Marietta.
