Our last meal in Atlanta during this year's CEDIA Expo was at a steak house in Buckhead, Bone's. Bone's has been an Atlanta institution since 1979 and has been named the best steak house in Atlanta by Atlanta Magazine nearly every year for over the last 20 years. And this year, the Zagat restaurant survey called Bone's the best steakhouse in America. They edged Del Frisco's in Dallas and Prime at The Bellagio in Las Vegas on points for both food and service. It came highly recommended to us and we were eager to give it a shot.
The owners of Bone's, Richard Lewis and Susan DeRose, established Bone's 30 years ago in the heart of Buckhead. There are historical pictures of old Atlanta from the 40's and 50's hanging on the golden walls of the restaurant, just above the dark walnut wainscoting. Lewis' and DeRose's corporate restaurant entity - Liberty House Restaurants - also own The Blue Ridge Grill and OK Cafe in Atlanta.
Today, there is sort of a masculine feeling to the restaurant. While some women do work in the restaurant, the wait staff is all male. Bone's is also the "power lunch" place to go in Atlanta. They will place pads and pens on the tables for people to jot notes down as they have their luncheon meeting. Many deals have been hashed out over a great steak at Bone's.
The waiters are all dressed in off-white coats, black ties and black pants. And there are a ton of them. While we had one waiter that seemed to be the "head" waiter for our table, there were no less than four other waiters that brought us our food, water, rolls, wine, glasses, whatever. The service was truly top-notch.
It was about a 10 minute walk from our hotel to Bone's on Piedmont (see map). It was just across the street from Fogo de Chao. When my colleague, John, and I had dinner at Fogo de Chao with the buyer from American TV and a couple of his colleagues, we were told that Bone's was probably the best steak house in Atlanta. Other guys in our company heard about Bone's and the consensus was overwhelming to eat there for our final meal in town.
Unfortunately, my colleague John and Dominic Baker from Focal couldn't join us for dinner - they had taken off early to begin training sessions for Ultimate Electronics. So there were seven of us for dinner and they seated us at a large round table near the entrance to the kitchen. As we sat down, the waiters on hand all laid our napkins in our laps. Oooo... Fancy!
The main dining room was full of all different types of people. The place was very elegant and classy. It wasn't overly huge and I've heard that on some evenings they will turn away as many as 250 diners. There have been offers to both Lewis and DeRose for space to open a second location, but Lewis said that Bone's would never work as a chain.
The menu was short and sweet. Steak was the main feature, but they also offered seafood, lamb chops, appetizers, soups and salads. It was clear that Bone's focuses on just a few things and does a very good job in their preparation of those items.
The wine list at Bone's was overly impressive. My estimate is that they offered over 1000 different bottles in all different varieties. The wine lovers in the group all got to take a look at the massive book that listed their wines. We ended up getting a few bottles of the Silver Oak 2004 Alexander Valley Cabernet. It was just outstanding with a full body and great taste. It would be perfect for steak.
The appetizers were tempting - especially the Kobe beef carpaccio and the jumbo onion rings. We did order up some rings for the table, but I wanted to get the wedge salad topped with their homemade creamy Maytag blue cheese dressing. The wedge salad was huge and the dressing was out of this world. It was easily one of the best wedge salads I'd ever had.
For my main entree, I was torn between the dry-aged bone-in rib eye or the bone-in filet. Actually, the waiter told me that the bone-in filet only yielded about 8 oz. of beef. He said, "If you're hungry, go with the 12 oz. filet. I believe it's on par - taste wise - with the bone in. It's very tough to tell the difference." So I ordered that - rare plus.
For sides, Bone's offered a variety of different items. They had sides such as sauteed mushrooms, roasted garlic mashed potatoes, grit fritters topped with cheese, and corn pudding. We actually ordered a little bit of everything and decided to share what we wanted in a family style manner.
As we were waiting for dinner, a cell phone of one of my colleagues rang and he answered it at the table. A manager immediately came over to the table and interrupted the phone call. "Sir," he said. "We do not allow the use of cell phones in the dining room." Earlier, one of my colleagues had a kangol style hat on and as he walked in the maitre d' admonished him, "Sir, we do not allow hats in the dining room." Sure, the place was stuffy, but it was also classy. Very classy. And they wanted to keep it that way.
Our meals came out to the table, brought out by an army of waiters. My filet was set in front of me and I eagerly cut into the chunk of meat on my plate. The color was a fabulous deep red, it was juicy and from the first bite it was just outstanding. I was just floored with the taste and texture. It was tender and the meat literally pulled apart with each cut. With the Silver Oak wine, it was just a just a wonderful combination.
I had a few sauteed mushrooms that were excellent, as well. I tried a few bits of the garlic mashed potatoes and they could have used some more garlic, in my opinion. But I love a lot of garlic on my food. And I have to say the onion rings were great, too. Big, flavorful and sinfully greasy, they were the perfect steak house onion rings.
With four bottles of wine, our meal was well into four figures. My boss said, "We all deserved this meal. We had a good show, we're having a good year considering the economy. We've been working very hard."
I know I have - since June 2 I've spent over 50 nights on the road. And Bone's was a very nice reward for the hard work and lots of travel I've put in. I never take anything for granted working for my company, and going to a world class steak house like Bone's makes me want to work harder for my boss. That's because I know the harder I work, the better the results and the more chances I have to eat in places like Bone's. It was definitely one of the very best steak houses in which I've dined.
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