Two Atlanta eateries — O-Ku Sushi Atlanta on Howell Mill Road and TWO urban licks on Ralph McGill Boulevard — have made OpenTable’s Top 100 hot spot restaurants list for 2017.
The list highlights eateries with great food and drinks, vibrant bar scenes, live music and festive atmospheres. The list of honorees is based on an analysis of more than 10 million reviews of more than 24,000 restaurants across the country, all submitted by verified diners.
OpenTable is an online restaurant-reservation service company based in San Francisco. It and its readers rate dining spots in 25 states and 40 international locations.
O-Ku Sushi was inspired by sister restaurant O-Ku in Charleston, OpenTable writes, saying that the Atlanta location “provides a fresh and innovative take on traditional Japanese sushi and cuisine.” The Midtown restaurant offers rare and unique dining options along with traditional sashimi and specialty rolls, sourcing seafood from the finest fish markets in Tokyo and Hawaii alongside local and seasonal ingredients.
TWO urban licks has been heating up the Atlanta restaurant scene with “fiery American cooking” since fall 2004, OpenTable contributors say, making it one of the city’s busiest restaurants on a nightly basis. It features food prepared in a 9-ft. wood-pit rotisserie and live blues nightly. Its accolades include Conde Nast Traveler’s Hot List, Bon Appetit’s Hot 50 Tables and being one of Rachael Ray’s favorite restaurants as quoted in InStyle Magazine. TWO urban licks is nominated annually for Open Table’s best restaurant scene and best place to take an out-of-towner lists.
The Grey in Savannah also made the list. That’s where chef Mashama Bailey’s American menu features an ever-evolving raw bar and the likes of layered seafood and vegetable starters, country pasta with pork ragu, foie and grits, bison meatballs, sirloin and oxtails, and unbelievably decadent-sounding desserts. The Grey is in what OpenTable calls a “beautifully restored art deco Greyhound Bus Terminal.”
