Hannah Eats: Dining on my birthday: Woodfire Grill

I have great friends.

For my birthday, a group of them got together and gave me a gift certificate to Woodfire Grill, one of several restaurants in Atlanta made famous by the TV show 'Top Chef'. I'd heard about Woodfire Grill but it is notoriously difficult to get a reservation and to do it right is on the pricey side, so getting a birthday card that said something to the effect of "Appear tomorrow at 7 pm at Woodfire Grill and here's a gift certificate to pay for it" was pretty awesome.

The best way for me to share this amazing evening with you, my readers, is to paste in the thank you I sent to my friends the next morning. I think this best captures how wonderful the meal was, and the cell phone photos, while terrible and blurry, give you a snapshot of the precision, beauty, and perfection of this meal.

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Dear K, T, L, B, A, B, S, S, M, N,
I know usually I'm all Miss Manners with the real paper/handwritten thank yous, but this year I'm going out on a limb with the email since I have a gazillion photos to accompany my thank you (and I'm only sending you 1/3 of the photos).

Thank you, thank you, thank you for a wonderful dinner last night for my birthday! Mw and I had a fabulous meal, we loved every bite. For those of you who have not been, Woodfire Grill has a 7-course 'blinded' tasting menu (I resisted asking the waitress about whether they have a double blinded option), where you are at the whim of the chef for your entire meal. Everything is 'slow food', as local as possible and when not local, sourced from small farms or the like. Dinner was outstanding and fun, photos attached of every course although my phone's camera does not do the meal justice:

1st: okra (GA) with shrimp (Belize)
2nd: Point Judith calamari (from RI!) (I did get myself into a bit of trouble here by correcting the waitress for calling it Judith Point calamari, but she forgave me after I explained that I was from Rhode Island)
3rd: scallop (Nova Scotia) with beets and cabbage (bad photo, sorry)
4th: veal sweetbreads (VT or WI, depending on who you asked) with charred local peach
5th: quail (GA) with berkshire pork
6th: duck breast (too full to remember locale of duck)
7th: obvious

The meal was accompanied by a perfectly paired 1/2 bottle of champagne and 1/2 bottle of Zinfandel (Sonoma Co!!), the sommelier was amazing and his enthusiasm for making sure that we accompanied the 4th course with champagne was contagious.

We even saw Kevin Gillespie, the top chef contestant who is the owner and executive chef, but sadly he did not come over to wish me birthday well wishes, although the restaurant staff was well-informed of the occasion (thanks, k). Even across the room I had a moment of celebrity awe (some people think I need to see more real celebrities).

Thank you all again, this was really a special birthday meal, next time you all will have to join me.

1st course