Omnivore - Atlanta shines with three spins on Southern

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• The “parts” menu at Holeman & Finch

Hosting a food-obsessed friend from out of town is always fun — I try to pick a few restaurants that represent Atlanta well, but also provide something they won’t get back home. For this particular friend who hailed from Las Vegas, I knew the key was sticking to the realm of “Southern” fare, something they wouldn’t be able to find in that Mecca of all things extravagant and worldly that is Las Vegas. We definitely needed a meat and three type lunch, certainly a contemporary farm-to-table type dinner, and hopefully something edgy but based on tradition. After some back and forth, we chose Busy Bee, Empire State South, and Holeman & Finch — but we could have easily done Carver’s, Miller Union, and JCT. Or the Colonnade, Cakes & Ale, and Local Three. Or a handful of others for that matter. These are genres that Atlanta can do very well, and genres that you aren’t likely to find in the Southwest of the United States.