Bar Review - Swanky Joel is top-shelf

First of all, it’s pronounced “Joe El.” It’s a restaurant. It’s named after its owner and chef, Joel Antunes. He’s French.

Second, it’s in a complex called Piazza At Paces. Piazza is Italian for plaza. Don’t confuse it with pizza, which is Italian for pizza.

Walk inside Joel (the restaurant, not the owner) and you will see an elegantly curved, long bar lit from within. Don’t be alarmed if you notice the bar changing colors like a giant, slow-motion, angry squid. It’s supposed to. There are fine wines aplenty, but the bar’s specialty is a martini. A regular old martini ($7) with a top-shelf vodka like Ketel One (of which there is an enormous bottle on the bar’s top shelf).

Also worth trying are the spectacularly fragrant apple martini and the peach martini, made with imported red peach nectar. The bar also serves a drink called the Joel that has banana cream and triple sec in it.

On Wednesday evenings from 6-9 p.m. and Friday 7-11 p.m., Joel hosts live musicians.

They’re playing music, not drinking.

You also can sample Joel’s acclaimed French cuisine while seated at the bar. Word on the street is that Joel will be Atlanta’s newest five-star restaurant. Normally, I ignore people who walk up to me on the street to tell me things, but this is probably true. True or not, we can at least thank Joel for forcing writers to find the umlaut on their keyboards.

Joel, 3290 Northside Parkway. Lunch: Mon.-Fri., 11:30 a.m.-2 p.m. Dinner: Mon.-Thurs., 5:30-10:30 p.m., Fri.-Sat. 5:30-11 p.m. 404-233-3500.??