Marcel

Atlanta Magazine did a piece on the price comparison on steak prices across the top steakhouses in Atlanta and Marcel came out on top as the most expensive "steakhouse" in Atlanta... Not surprising given this resto group has been testing the waters if customers are willing to pay outrageous amounts for common cuisine with every new venture they open monthly. With this newest opening, Marcel, undoubtedly commands the highest margin of profit in every single dish. They may say they source only the finest dry and wet aged steaks from Linz near Chicago but Little Alley in Roswell sources the exact same cuts from them as well with a far lower price point to the customer.
Being a steakhouse is one thing, being a French steakhouse is another. The theme of this resto is visually French, from the decor, the staff uniform, the guy with the fake accent, to the fancy script writing on the menu... But it's more American than it appears if you look at the dishes on the menu. French cooking technique is not easily acquired or found in this town but it seems like adding obscene amounts of butter, salt, garlic and wine gives it all the froggy street cred it needs here... aka BSGW. Shit, it's kinda like The Jersey Shore acronym with their GTL. Fake ginzos and fake frogs (surprisingly, no grenouille was found on the menu). The 24 hour notice Beef Wellington just reeks of pretentiousness. It's such a gimmick but if Hells Kitchen can do it to order on the same night, it's expected that Marcel can as well or just don't do it at all. Let's see if the talent here is better than Lane Meyer's mom's take on Fronch food... BTW- I didn't see Peru sparkling water on the menu here.

Foie Gras & Fig Terrine. Not a bad looking terrine. It was smooth and buttery but it lacked that richness only that of a terrine made only of 100% foie gras can give. I really couldn't tell if they used whole pieces of foie and pressed it or if this was pâté de foie gras because it was way too smooth like a mousse/pâté and the color was too consistent throughout the entire slice. I didn't notice any lines like you'll find between the pieces in a classic French foie gras terrine unless they pressed it really hard but then it would be more dense instead of velvety like in this version. There is a difference between a foie gras terrine and a pâté de foie gras, not many people notice it, though. Overall, it was decent and the really nice figs gave it a nice sweet contrast... Wait, come to think of it, I hope they're not putting pureed figs in the terrine itself based on the title of the dish because I have see that done before and it was really weird. I don't know if I would get this again next time... Prolly not.

Oysters Bienville. I'm not a fan of baked bi-valves, especially, oysters... I prefer them shucked on the half. Why would anyone waste a dericious briny sea snot fresh from the water and bake them full of fillers I will never understand... But since this dish is a NOLA classic from Arnaud's, the pouch was curious on their version. As you can see they look pretty flat unlike the plump versions with shrimp found elsewhere. There was so much butter and salt that you couldn't really tell what you were eating except a mass of goo while you chewed and mooed. Like I said, baked oysters are a dumb idea.

Escargots. They were decent size shells but the price to shell ratio is way off... Along with the amount of meat in each shell which was not much. They are cooked, pulled, cleaned and restuffed back into the shell... Reasoning is because they can be "gritty" sometimes. Sure, I heard that many times but if you soak and rinse them enough they wouldn't be sandy unless they were frozen without being cleaned but whatever... Once again, these were pretty indistinguishable with all the butter, salt, herbs in there... Barely enough slug meat for one let alone a shared plate. But the bread was a smart move not only to accompany the almost non-existent snails but to sop up the buttery salty drippings in the dish. 

Cote De Boeuf, 22 oz. I love how it started as a 24 oz piece of meat on the initial menu, then quietly reduced to 22 oz without any adjustment to the lofty price tag. It is fucking amazing how no one notices these bait and switch tactics by restos. Medium-rare temp requested, it came out blue. I'm totally ok with it but the table looked at it in disgust but tried it anyways... Too raw for them. The server was kind enough to offer another one made to the requested temp (that's the way you fucking do it, bravo). But sadly, the second coming was also slightly blue and not mid-rare. Once again, I was totally ok with it and the table quietly suffered through it. The steak was well seasoned, some would say even way over seasoned but that's nothing compared to the amount butter used to give it that nice shiny glaze. This steak after two tries was still not memorable enough compared to the exact one I had at Little Alley... That was a very good piece of meat cooked to temp. Some say to stick with the steak frites (L'Entrecote) but if you stay up later on the weekends you can get it for cheaper... Which I may have to try one night. But this cut was way overpriced and they couldn't even get it to the right temp with two tries.

Lobster Tortelloni. What a waste of what coulda been a good dish. The filling was all mush, no texture or seasoning at all. The pasta was flavorless even with all the sherry and butter involved. The one thing they forgot here was the salt... Sacrilege! If you gonna charge that much and give you only a handful of them, make them fucking insane tasting at least. This was amateur at best and pretty disappointing.

Creamed Corn Gratin. Over salted, over buttered, under creamed but yet somehow with every bite it tasted drier and more undercooked. I believe that they're using fresh corn kernels from the texture of it but this side dish may have been left in the salamander a bit too long... Drying it out without actually cooking the corn. I can't figure out what exactly they're doing to this dish but it shouldn't be rocket science. There are so many versions of this dish worldwide and this doesn't fit into any of them.  

Pommes Dauphinoise. I have made hundreds if not thousands of this dish back in the days. There is no French technique in this version at all, just only by name. There's scalloped taters found in your grocery's freezer that's more French. The potatoes are too thick, you want thinner slices so they can flex better when you layer them on top of each other and they actually cook through as well. There was no finesse to this, looked like a tater gratin from a greasy spoon diner. It was so rich and fatty. The potato was very al dente, the crunching sound indicated it needed a bit more time in the oven as well with the butter, cream, salt and gruyere to fully incorporate into the taters. This was fair at best.

Roasted Asparagus. Finally, something done with some French technique... Well, most decent restos all over have been doing asparagus this way for a long time. There's no magic in roasting asparagus, just make sure you peel the fibrous bottom. This was one pricey party trick to make your piss smell weird.

As with all the other concepts in this resto group, they spend a lot of other people's money to make it look all fancypants. There's no doubt the kitchen sources pretty quality products but the execution is lacking especially in French techniques. The French theme is a nice gimmick but everyone knows there's no real French food in this town. This would be a good place for a drink and bite at the bar late night but the dinner service is still learning but headed into the right direction. The clumsy server knocked over our pricey bottle of wine to the floor and she actually did the right thing by offering to bring a new bottle out without any debate. The service was surprisingly attentive and tried their best to fix any issues. But the kitchen made it difficult for them with undercooked food especially with the star of the show, the steaks.
I can see why a lot of people "really want to like this place" and buy into the hype and hero worship, that's because they don't know any better or have anything comparable to know the difference... Ignorance is bliss and if they believe it's good, more power to them. But at this lofty price point which is expensive by any means, it just isn't there at the level they propose to be. If this was in NYC, it would be crushed like Guy Fieri's Times Square donkey dump. There is still a lot of work to be done here. When you open restos at record pace, no matter how many other restos you have opened before and the experience gained, there will still be many things that fall through the cracks. I probably won't be back any time soon for the dinner service but I may for their late night specials at the bar, just because they're so close to Little Trouble... Now, that place rocks.

1170 Howell Mill Rd
Atlanta, GA 30318
404-665-4555
http://www.marcelatl.com/