Little Sparrow

Little Sparrow, from the people behind Marcel, treats excess as a philosophy rather than an accident. A mound of butter sits on a cart by the kitchen pass, and the complimentary baguettes are built to be dragged through it — animal fat and olive oil, a scatter of Maldon on top. That's the register the whole menu runs in: rich, direct, unapologetic about it.

The best dishes prove the approach out. Thick-cut fries come blanketed in melted raclette poured straight from the pan. The stacked cheeseburger on a brioche bun arrives closer to raw than most kitchens would risk — that's the chef's call, and it's the right one. Defer to it.

Not everything on the menu earns the same confidence. The ricotta gnudi lands bland and pasty, and the ravioles are a letdown next to dishes built with this much conviction. But the misses are the exception in a kitchen that mostly knows exactly what it's doing.

Little Sparrow has held a Michelin selection two years running, and Atlanta's own press has kept it on the short list of restaurants worth naming. The trophy case is confirmation, not the argument. The butter cart already made the case.