Cafe Lapin adds dining option to Peachtree Battle
March 20, 2009
Mattie Hines, owner of the La Lapin restaurant in the Atlanta Decorative Arts Center (ADAC) in Peachtree Hills, and partner Jim Mosher have opened a second restaurant, Cafe Lapin, in the Peachtree Battle Shopping Center.
Years ago, Cafe Lapin was on Bennett Street in Buckhead.
The neighborhood French bistro serves breakfast, lunch and dinner and also offers to-go orders, bakery items and catering. All items are made from scratch on the premises. The dinner menu changes daily, and there are daily lunch specials.
Hines, who has had the only restaurant at ADAC for four years, said many of his customers asked him to open a second restaurant because ADAC is closed on weekends.
Cafe Lapin, which opens at 8 a.m. seven days a week, is open Monday through Saturday until 9:30 p.m. And Sunday until 6 p.m. The brunch and lunch menus are served from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.
As of this writing, Cafe Lapin has not received its liquor license, so patrons can bring their own wine without paying a corkage fee.
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Cafe Lapin
In the Peachtree Battle Shopping Center; 2341 Peachtree Street, Unit C, Buckhead; 404.812.9171
Indiana Jones-type flicks always find the hero grabbing a particularly tempting artifact from a tomb or temple, only to trigger the release of giant boulders, a skeleton army, or Billy Zanes. For a diabolically booby-trapped date spot, visit Cafe Lapin.
Just now serving dinner, Lapin's a date-impressingly hidden (their sign's not up yet) dining room armed with candlelit white-clothed tables, a grand 19th Century mirror, and a mesmerizing white floral chandelier -- plus a trio of man-traps that could render all the aforementioned crap romantically moot. For starters, the menu's loaded with politely delicious fare (crab & leek quiche, herb roasted chicken w/ banana-orange puree, even a Muenster-topped sirloin burger), all of which'll look like children's crayon drawings of food when stacked up against the glorious bacon-wrapped meatloaf -- the one dish you must have, yet under the circumstances, the one dish you can never have. Further peril: Lapin is BYO-wine, with no corkage fee, which is awesome -- but of course you'll buy two bottles, and unless you're dating Kitty Dukakis, that second bottle's all you.
The final pitfall: desserts like almond-pear tart pie and orange-almond streusal pound cake are displayed conspicuously on a round table in the center of the dining room -- a situation which, assuming you failed Test #2, might cause you to Garfield out on pie. So basically, one misstep and you'll have no one to go home with but your own Short Round.
Be not tempted by evil impulses, at CafeLapin.com
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Café Lapin
This week, our favorite new restaurant on the scene is Café Lapin. Located in the Peachtree Battle shopping center, this little French styled café oozes European charm and tickles our discerning palette.
The Cafe is relaxed and affordable and the perfect place for a casual yet gourmet meal. The appealing breakfast and lunch menus include a variety of quiche, soups, salads, sandwiches, eggs, french toast and side items. The dinner menu, servedMonday – Saturday from 6-9 isn’t decided upon until late afternoon that day. The chef chooses the freshest ingredients of the day to comprise a menu of around 10 choices. Some popular ones include Meatloaf with Potatoes, Steak Salad with Jack Daniels Dressing, or Blackened Cod. The cutest thing about the evening meal is that patrons are encouraged to bring their own bottle of wine – and there is no corking fee!
Available for fast pick up or call ahead custom orders, the bakery at Café Lapin rivals the Parisian bakeries we crave stateside.
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Rabbit Redux
2:04 pm March 9, 2009, by jkessler
Shirley Corriher is one woman who knows the hows and whys of good baking. So when she offered to take me to lunch at a new restaurant where she claims she “can’t get enough of the pie crust,” I suspected she had made a great find. Indeed, I think she has.
Café Lapin, in the Peachtree Battle Shopping Center, has been open just five weeks, but already has baked goods to compete with any in town. Co-owner/baker Mattie Hines also runs Le Lapin Café in the Atlanta Decorative Arts Center nearby. He has already made a name for his chocolate chip cookies — huge, super thin and chewy-gooey in all the right places. His Valrhona chocolate chunk brownies are also notable for their dense yet perfectly melting texture. I’m thinking it’s the best brownie I’ve ever eaten.
But the biggest swoons should be saved for Hines’ pie crust, which is crisp, tender, flaky and as buttery as any I’ve ever had. The best way to sample it is in one of the daily quiches, which are blessedly not deep dish. You get a wide slice with a tremulous custard just set inside that amazing crust.
The selection of pies that serve as a centerpiece to the dining room are also worth exploring. The apple pie has a flaky, savory cheddar crust, while the blueberry crumb pie has a fantastic, not-too-sweet flavor.
When I asked Hines about the secret to his crust recipe, I was thrilled to hear that he sticks to basics. White Lily flour, very cold butter, salt and enough ice water to pull it together in a standing mixer. But he has worked on the recipe so long that he has the feel. No shortening, no shortcuts.
The cafe serves breakfast, lunch and a small dinner menu. At night, it’s currently BYOB, with no corkage fee.
Lunch, as you might guess, is a total hen house. I noted that to Shirley, who countered, “Oh, no! Men come in all the time!” She scanned the room and found precisely one other dude.
Specialties include five kinds of chicken salad, including a very tasty one with bits of dried apricot. Flavors here are as soft and genteel as a well powdered nose. The waiter even warns guests that the jalapeño chicken salad isn’t at all spicy.
But those pies are something to be reckoned with. In a city where it can be awfully hard to find a good slice of pie, I think we’ve got a new gold standard.
By the way, Café Lapin doesn’t yet have a sign. It can be a little hard to find.
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