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By Melanie Votaw
Frankly, My Dear… It’s a Terrific City
If you go to Atlanta looking for the Old South, you’ll have to look hard to find it. A cosmopolitan city with newly built mansions, restaurants run by some of the world’s most celebrated chefs, and plentiful 5-star hotels, museums, art galleries, and designer shops, you need a lot of time to do the city justice. We could easily see that it isn’t called “Hotlanta” because of summer temperatures.
 Our first evening, we visited the Fernbank Museum of Natural History (http://www.fernbankmuseum.org) for “Martinis & IMAX®”, a special event held there on Friday evenings. We could opt to have dinner and martinis indoors under two enormous dinosaur skeleton models or outdoors on a large terrace. We opted for outdoors and sipped apple martinis while we ate dishes like chicken cordon bleu and listened to a live jazz band. After dinner, we entered the small IMAX theatre for a showing of Wild Ocean, a fascinating film about the salmon run in South Africa.
The next morning, we enjoyed a breakfast buffet at The Ellis (http://www.ellishotel.com), our hotel on Atlanta’s famed Peachtree Street. After $28 million was spent to renovate a 1913 historic landmark, The Ellis contains 127 guest rooms and 13 suites. We stayed on a special floor reserved only for women. It features added security (you can’t get onto the floor without using your card key on the elevator), extra toiletries, Spanx pantyhose (http://www.spanx.com), a curling iron, and a flat iron.
While the bathroom was small, and my room’s widescreen television faced the desk rather than the couch or the beds, The Ellis had one of the most comfortable beds I’ve ever slept in. I wanted to take that bed home, as well as the cuddly down comforter. The robe and slippers were also especially comfortable. The robe was satin on the outside and terry cloth on the inside, while the slippers had more cushioning than usual. I actually said “ooh!” out loud when I slipped my  feet into them the first time.
After breakfast, we were in for a special treat – a Sri Lankan Ocean Scrub at the Nani Salon & Spa (http://www.nanisalonandspa.com) owned by NBA player Shandon Anderson. The spa is housed in the trendy Atlantic Station (http://www.atlanticstation.com) section of the city, which contains numerous restaurants and boutiques. Of course, how can you go wrong with a body scrub? We were pampered for nearly 1-1/2 hours with Dead Sea salts and a massage with oils. Afterwards, my skin felt like the satiny robe at The Ellis.
Next, it was time to take in the High Museum of Art (http://www.high.org), which contains more than 11,000 works in its permanent collection and receives many impressive traveling exhibitions. This fall, the museum will house the Terracotta Army exhibit and Leonardo Da Vinci’s Notebook. We were too early for either of those exhibits, but the highlight of the museum visit for me was Road to Freedom: Photographs of the Civil Rights Movement, 1956-1968. With more than 200 images, some on display for the first time, it was an incredibly moving history lesson. I even saw an arrest record with Rosa Parks’ name on it, as well as disturbing flyers  distributed by the Ku Klux Klan in the early 60’s. The exhibit pays tribute to those who lost their lives or suffered during the marches and other events of the time.
By the time we left the museum, we were famished and ready to head to the Virginia Highland area (http://www.virginiahighland.com) for some Spanish-influenced tapas at a restaurant called Noche (http://www.heretoserverestaurants.com). This was my favorite meal in Atlanta. Everything was delicious from the spinach salad with cotija cheese, pistachios, and chipotle ranch dressing to the grilled vegetable flatbread with goat cheese and cilantro pesto, to the grilled NY strip steak with chipotle au jus.
After lunch, we briefly visited some of the charming shops in Virginia Highland (“The Highlands” if you’re an Atlantan), which include little bakeries, home décor stores, and folk art boutiques. There was no time to lose, so we rushed in the late afternoon to the Georgia Aquarium (http://www.georgiaaquarium.org), the world’s largest aquarium with eight million gallons of water. This was the highlight of my short time in Atlanta. It’s the only  place outside of Asia where you can see whale sharks, the world’s largest fish. In fact, you can swim with them if you like! Yes, they’re safe, and while you’re not allowed to touch or approach them, they often come close to swimmers. Your swimming adventure takes place in the largest single aquarium habitat on the planet at 284 feet long, 126 feet wide, and 30 feet deep, and the tank is filled with all sorts of sea animals alongside the whale sharks.
I opted not to swim with the sharks, but it was thrilling to see them. They are white on the bottom and brown with white spots on the top. They can reach 40 feet in length, and their heads are quite flat with a mouth that can reach as wide as four feet across! I had never seen  anything quite like them.
The Aquarium has some terrific exhibits for children including several petting pools, where I touched a sea anemone for the first time. There’s a replica of a ship indoors where children can take the wheel, as well as a large model of a whale with a slide inside it. The children end up sliding out of the whale’s mouth.
For dinner, we went to Trois restaurant (http://www.trois3.com), which is located by the future site of the Atlanta Symphony Center. The main dining area is modern and elegant with freestanding works of art on pedestals in a row in the center of the room. Chef Jeremy Lieb’s menu is divided into classic and modern nouvelle-French creations. I  ordered the Sole Parisian with cauliflower, capers, lemon, and herbs. If sole isn’t your favorite, you can enjoy dishes like suckling pig with bing cherries or braised beef oxtail with roasted scallops. The bar at Trois has quickly become famous for its own concoctions, such as the Trois cocktail, which mixes gin-infused green tea and mint with syrup, lemon juice, and egg white, shaken with ice until frothy and sprayed with rosewater mist.
After dinner, we had to experience some of Atlanta’s nightlife, so we made our way to Opera (http://www.operaatlanta.com), a nightclub with balcony tables where you can look down on the dance floor and watch all of the action. The club is so popular that ultimate fighting champion Chuck Liddell was scheduled to hold his after-fight party there that evening. Our day had been so full, however, that we were back at The Ellis and in bed before Chuck’s arrival.
 Our last morning in Atlanta, we started our day with a breakfast at Buckhead Diner (http://www.buckheadrestaurants.com/diner.html) where the sophisticated menu makes the name “diner” a misnomer. Can you usually order white chocolate egg bread French toast at a diner? How about Scottish smoked salmon and potato pancake Benedict with poached eggs, red onions, and capers? While I don’t usually have dessert for breakfast, it was impossible to pass up the delectable white chocolate banana  crème pie.
The Buckhead Diner is named after its Buckhead neighborhood (http://www.buckhead.net), which is filled with 5-star hotels and gorgeous mansions – both old and brand new. The area isn’t just for Atlanta’s elite, but it is definitely home to many of the city’s wealthiest residents. After breakfast, we desperately needed to work off some pounds, and what better way to do that than at Buckhead’s upscale shopping malls – Lenox Square (http://www.buckhead.net/lenoxsquare) and Phipps Plaza (http://www.phippsplaza.com)? They’re a fashion paradise with 250 stores that include Giorgio Armani, Jimmy Choo, and a shop filled only with Michael Kors bags.
 We weren’t exactly hungry after our big breakfast and shopping excursion, but we needed a little something to hold us since we were flying back to New York in the early evening. So, we had lunch at Seasons 52 (http://www.seasons52.com), also located in Buckhead. One of the most interesting aspects of the restaurant’s menu is its five different kinds of flatbreads. These made for an appropriately light lunch, along with a spinach salad with pears and pine nuts. After having eaten so much food during our stay in Atlanta, we appreciated Seasons 52’s health-conscious menu with gluten-free and low-calorie dishes.
Unfortunately, there wasn’t time to see The New World of Coca-Cola (http://www.worldofcocacola.com), the Jimmy Carter Center (http://www.cartercenter.org), or the Gone With the Wind memorabilia at the Margaret Mitchell House (http://www.gwtw.org). This means, of course, that a return to the city is definitely in order to take in more of what “Hotlanta” has to offer.
© October 2008 LuxuryWeb Magazine. All rights reserved.
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