Celebrity Executive Chef Steven Meese Unveils All-New Menu Pairing Southern Flavors with European Influences
Livingston Restaurant + Bar, the Atlanta dining institution located inside the historic Georgian Terrace hotel, reopens its doors on Wednesday, Feb. 1 after almost three years. Fans of this cherished destination are likely to find this new iteration to be well worth the wait thanks to a creative new menu designed by new executive chef Steven Meese. An acclaimed chef who’s trained with such world-renowned names as Jean Georges, Grant Achatz, Jason Atherton and Sunny Jin, Meese also is well-known to many food lovers as host of the popular PBS series “A Chef’s Journey.”
“We’re thrilled to finally be reopening Livingston after so long,” says Todd Felsen, president and CEO of OTH Hotels Resorts. “And we couldn’t be more excited to have a world-class chef like Steven at the helm. Steven has combined the best of Livingston’s contemporary American fare with his own creative approach to European cuisine to create something uniquely his own. It’s the perfect way to reintroduce this beloved landmark to the Atlanta community.”
“It’s a real honor to be entrusted with reopening a restaurant like Livingston after the pandemic,” says Meese. “Atlanta is a beautiful city with a vibrant culture and a competitive culinary scene, and my goal is to create an extraordinary experience that honors all of that. We want to be the best restaurant in Atlanta and win a James Beard Award. There are a lot of incredible restaurants and chefs here, so we know we have our work cut out for us. That’s the challenge that has me excited to get out of bed in the morning.”
Meese’s menu showcases a mixture of local and European influences, a style he calls European Southern modern cuisine. “My background is Mediterranean and European,” says the Greek-born chef. “So there’s a mixture of French, Italian and Spanish along with the flavors of Georgia. I’m using a lot of locally sourced ingredients and many techniques like foams, fermentation, smoking and more.”
Highlights of the menu include appetizers such as tuna crudo with ponzu, pickled cucumber and matcha crisp and Baker Family Farms baby beets with Satsuma orange segments, goat cheese, egg emulsion and rye crumble; entrees such as White Oak Pastures braised short ribs with cipollini onions, fingerlings and heirloom carrots, Maine diver sea scallops with truffled Parmesan risotto and smoked chorizo hollandaise sauce, and winter squash ravioli with brown butter foam and fried sage leaves; sides such as Brussels sprouts with pancetta and Parmesan and ham hock collard greens; and desserts such as Meyer lemon meringue tart and seasonal fruit cobbler with buttermilk ice cream.
As he prepares for the restaurant’s Feb. 1 opening, Meese is immersing himself in Atlanta’s dining scene and meeting local farmers and providers with the assistance of The Georgian Terrace’s executive chef Fred Gilbert.
“Fred was executive chef for Wolfgang Puck,” Meese says. “He’s fantastic. He’s world-class. And that’s exactly the kind of team and the kind of experience I’m hoping to build at Livingston. To come to Atlanta and be competitive, every dish has to be on point, and every person has to be hungry, every day. What I tell everyone on my team is, ‘Whatever you did yesterday, I don’t care. It’s what you do today that matters.’ Every guest experience has to be amazing.”
Livingston is located inside the historic landmark The Georgian Terrace hotel, the oldest operating hotel in Atlanta, at 659 Peachtree St. NE. For more information, call 866-976-34878 or visit thegeorgianterrace.com.
