Photograph by Cori Carter
Even before Octopus Bar opens at 10:30 p.m., the night owls will have swooped in to claim their perch. By 11 p.m., the dining room, which won’t close until 2:30 a.m., will be packed. The food is as unorthodox as the hours, and every bite is worth staying up late for. The 2011 brainchild of Nhan Le and the late Angus Brown, Octopus Bar is still the coolest restaurant in Atlanta, and chef Alexander Young’s dishes are as punk as they are pretty: dry-fried eggplant, served skin-on, is seasoned with black garlic oil, and icicle radishes delicately intermingle with tendrils of radish pods atop a sheet of creamy chevre. There is no better meal to be had in the middle of the night—and few that are better at any time of day. 560 Gresham Avenue, 404-627-9911, octopusbaratl.com
