Southern National — Restaurant in Atlanta

I get to spend time once a month with some amazing people in my life, doing what we love-socializing and, above all, sharing a great meal.

This month, our group, “The Foodie ATL,” visited Southern National. One of our members picked this special spot. Atlanta’s food scene has changed dramatically since I moved here in 2008. The number of new restaurants opening, the variety, and the competitive spirit have raised the bar, with new places bringing something extra for food lovers.

Southern National is truly a hidden gem in Atlanta. Let’s start with the service—exceptional from the moment we arrived to when we sat down. I have to give credit to our server, John, who did an amazing job. He was attentive and very knowledgeable.

Now, for the must-try items: definitely don’t skip the bread basket to share with the table, the Spring Mix Salad, and the dessert. I had a tough choice between the NY Strip Steak and the Lamb Burger Helper. My decision was made easier when I found out they were out of the NY Strip, so I went with the Lamb Burger Helper, which didn’t disappoint. The rest of the table ordered the Chicken Schnitzel, which I didn’t try, but based on their reactions, they thoroughly enjoyed it.

The ambiance of the place is beautiful—well-designed, stylishly decorated, and spacious. It has a minimalist vibe, but without feeling cramped, with plenty of space to move around comfortably. I’d also recommend trying the Crispy Tots and, for dessert, the Almond Cake.

I will definitely be back again to sit in the bar area and try their NY Strip. I highly recommend this restaurant to anyone visiting the city because we had a very positive experience. The only minor downside was that we waited a bit longer than expected for our food, but personally, I was okay with...

I’m not quite sure what happened but our experience started great and went south very quickly. We showed up a little early for our reservation and had a drink at the bar. The bartender was attentive and friendly and after our first round we sat down at our table. A server came by and got us started with water and answered some questions we had about the menu. A different server then took over and we ordered the bread plate which was delicious but things took a turn for the worse afterwards. We ordered the oysters and the trout and then proceeded to wait 25 minutes for our food without anyone even acknowledging how long we were waiting. When we finally did get our food, the fried oysters came out cold and they brought us a piece of cornmeal dusted salmon instead of the trout. Again, nobody chose to even acknowledge the fact that we were given the wrong fish. I also want to note that there was no salmon on the menu and the fish was plated with the trout set (also cold) so its obvious a substitution was made and we didn’t order/receive the wrong menu item. Had the substitution been communicated to us we would have chosen an entirely different menu item. Ultimately, we ate the salmon because we were starving at this point and didn’t want to wait another 30 minutes for a different plate to come out. The oysters however, were completely inedible and it didn’t even feel safe to eat shellfish that had clearly been dying in a window for 30 minutes. Overall the service was friendly but inattentive to what was happening. Because we’re service industry workers ourselves we didn’t make a fuss and paid the full check, tipped, and left hungry and disappointed. It felt like a huge waste of money and we’ll likely never choose to...

I have NEVER given a negative review, but Southern National needs to get it together. We were super excited for a new restaurant to come to this space, but we left still hungry and disappointed. I worked in restaurants for almost a decade and some things are excusable on Opening Week, and some are not.

We ordered our appetizers and entrees at the same time. After we were finished with our apps, we waited 40 minutes for our entree and the restaurant was only at about 1/3 capacity. If a manager had come by and apologized and maybe comped an appetizer, we would have been fine.

The portions were super small for how expensive they were. $9 for a bread service which included 4 small pieces of bread ? A $16 okra app with 5 pieces of okra ? We ordered 3 appetizers and 4 entrees between 4 people and we had to go across the street to get BBQ after.

The server spilled my drink while bringing it to the table, and did not offer to bring a new one. About a 1/4 of the drink was gone and the glass and table was covered in the drink, and when the server came back the next time (20 minutes later) and I asked for a new one, they brought it back just slightly fuller in the same glass with the same garnish. Not a huge deal, but when you’re presenting as a fine dining restaurant and charging Miller Union / Lyla Lila prices, service needs to be impeccable. We felt like we were an afterthought the...