This place is one of Atlanta's best kept secrets, because it's a bit off the beaten track.
Atlanta has a lot of very good steak houses. In-town, mostly, which is convenient for travelers. But if you are willing to travel slightly North of the city, to Alpharetta (exit 11 off of GA 400) you'll encounter one of our best-kept secrets. Cabernet beautiful steakhouse with lovely sculpted high ceilings that absorb sound (kind of the opposite effect you get when eating in one of those silly faux-loft industrial style restaurants that are All About the Noise). Lovely golden art-deco light fixtures hang from this impossibly high ceiling with complex high domes that absorb and drown out the sounds of others. They give the large main room a magical glow, like something out of an Arabian Nights story. The decor of the large dining room is classic steakhouse: white tableclothes, tables the swing out from enormous, extremely comfortable leather booths. Shining dark wood everywhere on the impossibly high walls. There is even a glassed off bar, that is not just a bar. It is a cigar bar! You can be sitting in a booth in the main dining room right next to someone across the glass in the bar and not hear or smell a single thing, even though the bar is packed. Many separate eating areas exist in this huge venue. Across the dining hall is another glassed off areal for the kitchen staff. You don't see the actual cooking, that's behind a second wall, but you see the staff moving busily back and forth in that area. There's an intimate, cozy room in the back left of the restaurant, a raised platform area that is great for larger parties, and even a romantic balcony area very high up (did I mention the ceilings in the place are extraordinarily high?) for a very special dining experience. And for extremely large parties, there is an intriguing basement (I have not been down there but on the night I last went went, beautiful tall women were going up and down the stairs--maybe a model convention?)
Enough of the ambience. The food here is superb. Stunningly good steaks. Steaks to die for. They have a full wine menu for the connoisseur but the simple "Cabernet" house wine is is perfect to me: very smooth and delicious. (How often do you get a "house wine" that doesn't take akin to turpentine?) I usually have a New York steak, but the appetizers are so good that by the time the steak comes there is no way I can eat it all. The classic wedge salad is delicious and not too heavy. The lobster bisque... OMG! the only way to describe this is that it is "Liquid Crack." It is that good! French Fries are fresh and crispy, and green vegetable sides are always cooked to perfection. I never finish my steak because I get full easily and the appetizers are scrumptious, but I always take it home and enjoy it later. It travels well. The New York strip comes in two sizes and is perfectly juicy and dripping. I've never had a bad cut of meat at Cabernet.
My favorite part about this restaurant, however heavenly the food, is the classic and extremely classy decor. It really makes you feel good to be in a large palatial room like this. The marvelously high and many-arched ceilings that make you feel like you're in a Spanish cathedral or Moroccan temple. (They also serve to magically dampen sound.) The glowing amber art-deco lamps add a wonderful ambiance. This is definitely the place to take a first date, somebody you want to impress, or just someone you want to have a wonderful, quiet intimate time with. Try it out on the weekdays, there is less noise due to far less people: you can almost feel like you have this beautiful place to yourself. On the weekends, it is like many restaurants these days: crowded with large families. It can get a bit boisterous. The seating is pandemic-conscious, so on a day with few customers, we are always widely spaced apart. If you are going to do the weekend, however, be sure to make a reservation. Atlanta's best-kept steakhouse secret is not so secret among the locals!
How to find: Just take GA 400 (the North-South corridor) slightly past the North perimeter to Exit 11. If you want someplace to hang out before dinner, go one more exit North, to exit 10 and visit the Avalon shopping center. read more