Haven Restaurant and Bar — Restaurant in Brookhaven

Date night! My wife and I decided we want to try new restaurants in and around Atlanta (according to the Georgia Restaurant Association there are 12,000 restaurants in Atlanta Metro so we have our work cut out).

Last night we went to Haven. We arrived approximately 10 minutes late (8 minutes if you want to get picky) for our reservation and walked up to the hostess stand to find our hostess complaining about reservations being late. Oops. I explained I was one of the patrons running late and there was an inordinate amount of traffic on the roads (even for Atlanta). The hostess informed me I should have planned for increased traffic.

This date night was not starting well...

We were seated (outside as requested) and introduced to our waiter, Curt. Curt was awesome. He was super friendly and didn't make us feel bad for being late (of course he might just not have known about our faux pas). He explained the specials of the day (an incredible tomato salad and Mediterranean fish dish) and asked for our drink orders. I ordered a Haven Hog but my wife was torn between the Toasted Orange Margarita and the Garden Party. Sometimes she does this and will ask the staff what they recommend.

Curt cheerfully stated he would surprise her!

My wife ordered the tomato salad and the fish special. I went with the Southern Snacks and Vegetables and the Seared Georges Bank Scallops.

Our drinks arrived.

I'm going to state for the record I do like my alcohol. I'm also a very simple man. Mojitos are my go to in the summer; Old Fashioneds in the winter. Both are delicious, simple, and I personally feel any bartender (are we going with mixologists now?) should be able to prepare these two drinks.

So I was very disappointed in the Haven Hog. The bacon it came with was good. I often sip whistle pig straight. But this drink was terrible. I got none of the usual flavors of an old fashioned in it.

The margarita wasn't much better. I switched to a Georgia Palmer. That drink was the best of the bunch but after drinking it down I decided to stick with my water. For a restaurant and bar I was not impressed with the bar.

Our appetizers arrived. The tomato salad was amazing! The tomatoes were bright and fresh and popped juicily in my mouth. The cheese and dressing didn't overwhelm the flavor of the tomatoes, instead complimenting them nicely.

The Southern Snacks: I still don't understand why Atlanta restaurants serve deviled eggs. I'm originally from the north east and no restaurant served deviled eggs. That being said, these were okay. Not as good as Bad Daddy's in Chamblee (but then again, those are fried) but they were okay. But the arugula, pickles, carrots, and cauliflower were amazing. Once again they were full of flavor, tart with the dressing on top, and just really, really good. So far the restaurant side of "restaurant and bar" was worth the price.

My wife's fish was good. Seasoned well. The mushrooms on top were crisp and flavorful.

The scallops though. I'd eat them every night if I could. They were perfectly seared, not chewy in the least but had that snap I look for in a scallop. The flavor was on point.

The asparagus had almost no flavor (which is odd for asparagus) but the melted leeks complimented the scallops well and the smoked bacon grits... well, it's grits and bacon isn't it? There's nothing not to like.

We finished off our meal with the banana bread. Again, the bread itself was dense (in a good way) with the banana flavor front and center. I didn't care for the ice cream on top at all but then again I didn't order Ice Cream with Banana Bread but rather Banana Bread.

I didn't think Haven was bad (If I were to go again I'd skip the bar part though). I see some reviews complaining about price vs portions here. The portions reminded me a lot of European sizes. They bring less food but by the time you get up from the table you feel full without... overfull? Exploding? Hating yourself?

That being said, we do have 11,999 restaurants to...

I visited this restaurant for the first time as I’m from out of town. I decided to reserve a table for my colleague and I today. My colleague was seated at the table and I sat down shortly after. My colleague and I chatted for a good 20 minutes before any waitress or waiter came to take our drink/food order. I asked my colleague if anyone came by before I had got there and my colleague said “no”.

Finally, a waitress approached our table to take down our drink order. Once we ordered our drinks, it took the waitress another 5 minutes before gave us our drinks. Then, she informed us that the “kitchen” was closing in a few minutes. However, we were there during lunch time and my colleague was there before me was not informed of this at the time she was seated. We were able to put our food order.

My colleague ordered the salmon dish which came out crisp and well seasoned. I ordered this grilled chicken dish that came with organic rices, beans and green beans with chimmichurri on top of the chicken.

My food was surprisingly delicious and healthy with the perfect amount of seasoning as well as good temperature.

Throughout our entire meal, our waitress only stopped by once to see if everything was fine but failed to refill my water glass, which was obviously low but she never bothered to offer to refill. Seemed like she didn’t care as much. Then, when she gave us our check, she didn’t even ask whether we wanted to split based on who got what or whether we would split down the middle and instead, took cards and split the check evenly.

Again, food was excellent and the restaurant had a nice rustic feel to it. The service was not great from what we experience. It doesn’t matter if your food is great. Your staff and any unprofessionalism or lack of proper service is what will deter people from going back to an establishment.

Spending even $20-$30 per entrée is not worth the money if you don’t get friendly service because this is part of the restaurant experience. Had it not been for the well cooked food, I don’t think I would recommend this restaurant to my colleagues or friends due to poor and slow service.

This one gets a 3-star for the sub-par service, but I’d give it 4.5 star for the food. I would give 2 star for the drinks were OK as the lunch cocktails were too sweet and you could barely taste the alcohol.

One more thing, it says valet parking but that’s apparently for the evening. It was self parking during lunch time. Parking lot in the back or you can try to park on the side...

came here for valentine’s day and had an absolutely lovely time! neither of us had been here or heard of it before making a reservation so we were a bit nervous. we were pleased at every step. our table was ready for us at our exact reservation time, we were quickly given ice waters. the menu was nice and clean (tho it was a special valentines menu so possibly hadn’t even been used). we ordered cocktails and were surprised with how quickly they came (probably less than 5 minutes, which is crazy fast on such a busy night). we ordered the homemade rolls and oh god they were so good. so good. i wanted more lol. i ordered the tenderloin which was cooked exactly how i wanted, and was nicely seasoned, juicy, and soft. i had whipped potatoes which were DELICIOUS, and my broccoli was perfectly roasted and flavored. we thought the prices of everything was fair considering how delicious it was and you get very fair portion sizes. we were so incredibly full after our meal but split a dessert since we were so pleased with the rest of the food. we got the lava cake which was a pretty standard lava cake and yummy.

the service was great, we never had a dirty, empty plate left on our table for long, but we were also never rushed. they found the balance for when to take your plate and when to let you have a moment. i was also pleased that the server even collected our silverware after the appetizer and replaced it with others before the main course. i’ve been to “fancier” places that did not do that. our waiter even noticed and took my folded up straw wrapper, which seems like such a tiny thing to care about, but i loved that they noticed the small details and took care of them to make the experience all around great. the small and big details do matter and this place takes them seriously. for an extremely busy holiday, i expected some mishaps but there were none. they staffed accordingly for the busy day and it was cool how smoothly the place ran. randall was very kind. 10/10...