Mirko Pasta: Fine Dining on a Student Budget

  Mirko Pasta on Athens’ Eastside offers patrons a multitude of dining and beverage options in a laid-back atmosphere. From their specialty entrees to a build-it-yourself pasta menu and an extensive drink list, Mirko’s affordable, yet first-class dining experience is suitable for a date or a relaxing night out with friends and family.  

            Restaurant founder and chef Mirko de Giacomantonio is a native of a small coastal Italian town.  He has lived a life surrounded by food, and learned very early how to cook.  More importantly, however, he learned how to prepare a dish with love and care from his grandmother.  It’s this meticulous and careful nature that allows his restaurants to cater to the even the pickiest of patrons.

            After working at restaurants in five countries, then moving to Atlanta, Mirko coveted the relaxed feel of Athens and wanted to share that intimate, laid-back feeling through food.  He wanted it to feel just like his grandmother’s house.  He succeeded.

            Upon first walking into the restaurant, you can smell the cheeses and sauces just begging to melt in your mouth.  You’ll also notice how clean everything looks.  Surrounding you are clean, empty tabletops ready for dining. 

            At first glance, the menu might appear a bit overwhelming:  There are plenty of hard to recognize Italian words.  But don’t fear ­– each menu option is followed by a detailed description and the cashiers are friendly and happy to answer questions.  For pasta fans, there is also a large plate at the front which labels each kind of pasta so patrons can know the length and thickness prior to ordering. 

            There is quite a bit of information crammed into one front-and-back menu, but Mirko wants to offer nearly unlimited dining options, just like his grandmother offered him.  For fans of appetizers, Mirko offers six unique types of salads and seven distinct appetizers with varying breads, sauces or soups.

            The restaurant offers five different kinds of pre-selected filled pasta, as well as eight types of Italian entrees, but the real fun comes in creating your own affordable dish – between $9 and $12 depending on the type (although expect your bill to be a bit more pricy if you opt for one of the larger entrees). First, you choose from one of six short or long pasta types. Then you can top it with any one of 13 delicious sauce options.  I’d recommend something thick – perhaps their Funghi sauce, rich with mushrooms and cream and coating the pasta beautifully like paint on a canvas.

            As if a traditional Italian dinner isn’t enough, Mirko offers six desserts which they display in a clear, glass case in the front counter – each appearing more decadent than the last – and an extensive beverage list including coffee, wine and beer. You can expect no fewer than 12-15 beer options, both bottle and draft (beer selection will vary by location). They will also offer you a wine to match the food dish you have chosen, but they list six to eight different wines available by the glass, ½ liter or liter. 

            Perhaps more impressive than their food though, is the atmosphere and what happens after you order.  Those same smiling, friendly cashiers that you’ve already spoken to will bring you drinking glasses and fill them for you.  They also bring out a plate of complimentary bread with oil and bean dipping sauces.  Once they bring your food to you, they’ll continue to fill your glasses as needed and bring as much bread as you desire. While I eat, I see them continue to clean tables and prepare a wonderful dining experience for the next person. 

            I leave wishing it could have lasted longer.  Mirko offers a unique experience of letting you choose exactly what you want, sort of a walk through his own kitchen and selecting items as you go.  The restaurant offers a high-end menu with a laid-back, down to earth cost, and you can bet I’ll be back again soon to see what other fantastic dish I can create.

Food and Beverage: A

Affordability: B

Atmosphere: A+

Overall Experience: A

             

Antico Pizzeria: Your Mini-Italian Vacation

by: Meg Goggans

My stomach seems to be gnawing at my insides, yelling at me for not feeding it nearly all day. It’s 7 o’clock on a Wednesday night and I’ve made the drive to Atlanta to see a few old friends at the last minute. As we discuss places to eat dinner, one of our crowd’s favorite activities, a friend mentions Antico pizzeria. Everyone seems to jump out of their seats, immediately ready to get in the car and make the quick trip to Midtown Atlanta. I groan. 

I don’t dislike pizza. I like it, I have some Italian in me after all. It’s just that pizza can be so underdone, making it easy to order a large hot and ready for $5 and scarf the whole thing down without letting your taste buds have a chance to think. Antico, however, is not that kind of pizza place. 

Though the outside of the pizzeria is small and modest, the atmosphere and the pizza at Antico are far from either of those things. Walking in at 7 p.m. on a Wednesday evening, there is already a crowd lining up at the door. As we wait in line to the walk up counter to place our order, there is a glass enclosed seated area with rustic wood community seating to our right. Some people are even standing as they hold large, drooping triangles dripping with cheese. 

The Pomodorini Pizza: refreshing with cherry tomatoes, fresh basil and buffala mozzarella 

There is a large refrigerator on the left, filled with an assortment of desserts (including homemade canolis) and beverage choices from canned Coke products to bottles of Perrier, small boxes of wine, and beer. My friends have been to Antico before and know to bring their own bottle of wine or beer from home for the table, a casual option I’m always a fan of. 

The owner of Antico, Giovanni Di Palma, was inspired to open his own place after visiting his grandparents’ village outside Naples, Italy five years ago. “Antico” means “ancient” in Italian, alluding to the traditional preparation of the pizza and the natural ingredients used, which Giovanni has shipped from Napoli and Campania.

The menu is displayed on large panels behind the cash register, describing the 10 different pizzas and 3 calzones. Prices range from $18-$21 per pizza. After we mull over the menu, we decide on 2 pizzas for the 4 of us: the Pomodorini with fresh cherry tomatoes, bufala mozzarella, garlic, and basil, and the San Gennaro with salsiccia sausage, sweet red peppers, bufala mozzarella, and cipolline onions. 

Mouths already watering, we take our order number and walk around to the seat yourself dining area in the back of the restaurant. Walking through the doorway from the register is like a passport to Italy. You can see everything: three brick ovens that have been imported directly from Italy roaring with open flames in the back as the cooks openly twirl fresh pizza dough in the back. 

There’s not a seat in the house and I feel uneasy, but after 5 minutes of patient standing a space clears up in the middle of one of the long, farm tables. We sit, uncork our bottle of cheap Merlot, and wait. The room is full of chatter and the atmosphere is warm and unpretentious. The smell of olive oil and basil is pungent. Extra pizza toppings line a table that separates the dining area from the kitchen. Everything from salt, fresh ground pepper, silver tin cans with infused olive oil, dried and marinated assorted peppers, and fresh basil you can pluck from the stem. 

All the Italian fixings: garlic, basil, olive oil, and fresh cherry tomatoes.

After fifteen minutes of conversation (mostly about how casual and great the ambiance is) our pizzas arrive atop a tin pizza pan lined with brown butcher paper. Eyes wide, the chatter ceases and everyone reaches for a slice. 

I analyze the two pizzas, both enticing with their bubbling bufala cheese and shiny cherry tomatoes and red peppers. I go for the San Gennaro first. I recognize the flavor of the peppers, sweet, almost caramelized. They remind me exactly of the homemade marinated peppers my grandfather used to send home with my mom in mason jars, but these are fresh and crisp. The Pomodorini is next. The cherry tomatoes pop in my mouth with warm salty, sweet juices and the bright green basil is a refreshing counter to the spicy sausage of the San Gennaro. 

The San Gennaro Pizza with salsiccia sausage, sweet red peppers, bufala mozzarella, and cipolline onions.

It’s not long before only crumbs are left. Two pizzas and a bottle of wine later, I’m stuffed and happy. Happy to be in good company, happy to have good (albeit cheap) wine, and happy to have found such a unique place to enjoy amazing food. 

Since my visit, I’ve recommended Antico to nearly everyone I know who is visiting Atlanta, longing for them to enjoy the same experience I had and also to give business to a locally owned place that deserves more credit than a cheap, unsatisfying hot and ready. Get there early though since the crowds can be a bit overwhelming, but well worth it. Antico is a place that feels like home, only the home you dream about having in Naples, Italy: warm, inviting, and unassuming. 

Antico is located at 1093 Hemphill Avenue in Atlanta, Georgia

Tel: 404-724-2333

Monday-Saturday: Noon until "Out of Dough!"

Closed Sundays

Last Resort Grill: Athens' Most Popular Place

          Last Resort Grill, nestled on a corner of Clayton Street just a few short steps away from the famous Georgia Theatre and the bar lined streets of downtown, is arguably the most famous restaurant in Athens, Georgia. On any given night, outside you will find diners spilling out onto the sidewalks waiting for a table, and inside standing room only at the cramped bar area.

            There seems to be no limit to Last Resort’s patronage. There were elderly couples nursing wine, young professionals, college students with their parents, and even a gaggle of drunken twenty-somethings there for a bachelorette party. Inside, it is dim and noisy with conversation. The exposed brick walls and light fixtures that resemble beehives made of sticks give off an underground bodega kind of vibe.

            My favorite dining companion, my Mom, a friend and I arrived around 8:15, a little early for our 8:30 call ahead [Last Resort does not take reservations] hoping to get seated a little earlier. As it turns out, the “call ahead” was completely futile and we could not have been more wrong. We crammed in at the bar and ordered a couple of beers for the wait. By the time our table was called at 9:40 we were slumped over on a bench in the bar, already three beers in and ravenous.

            Once at the table, a four top tucked into a quaint alcove, we eagerly consumed the menu. We settled on two “small plates” [I told you we were hungry, right?], the shrimp quesadilla topped with jalapenos, Monterey jack cheese, and pineapple salsa [$6.95], and the Carolina crab cakes [$8.95]. The appetizers arrive after about 15 minutes and we dive in.

Both apps were good, but I’ll admit, we devoured them like angry vultures so that could just be the hunger talking. The pineapple on the quesadilla offered a sweet contrast to the jalapeños, and the shrimp were perfectly cooked. The crab cakes were simple, and not too mayonnaise-y, which is often my biggest complaint about crab cakes. At one point my friend, Morgan, looked up and said guiltily, “I think I just ate half of a crab cake in a single bite.” Amen, sister.

            For the entrée I select the Praline Chicken, a Last Resort classic. It is stuffed with a “medley of cheeses,” drizzled with walnut honey sauce, and served with creamy grits and green beans. At $14.50, its one of the cheaper items on the menu. My Mom settled on the Pecan Crusted Blue Trout, served with lentil rice and veggies, priced at $16.95.

Last Resort's Praline Chicken

            Our food arrived in about 30 minutes. The presentation fit the feel of the restaurant- not overly fancy but still impressive. I started with the sides first, as I always do. The beans were nothing special, just your average green beans that your mom could have made for dinner on a school night. The grits were creamy and quite good, and the texture felt more like mashed potatoes. The chicken was juicy and plump, although it was more like a medley of cheeses with a side of chicken than the other way around. Luckily, the medley was good.

            My Mom’s trout, however, was overdone. The pecan flour, cornmeal and walnut “dusting” was really more of a smothering, and she had to scrape off most of the topping just to taste the fish. No complaints about the rice and veggies, but no ravings either.

            We were pretty full after the marathon of food shoveling we did [really, one would think we were contest eaters], but the dessert choice was an easy one- Red Velvet cake, my all time favorite. As a disclaimer, I am picky about my Red Velvet due to my inability to pass it up under any circumstances, and therefore having tasted an embarrassingly large number of variations. The cake was good, moist and not smothered in gobs of icing. My only complaint is that the icing was not the cream cheese variety, the traditional companion to Red Velvet cake.

Last Resort's Red Velvet Cake

            When all was said and done, the bill came around 11:30 and we were all certifiably in a food coma, barely short of asking someone to simply roll us home. The place had emptied out by then, and we shared the dining room with only one other couple on a date. While I didn’t have any major complaints about the food, I wasn’t completely blown away either. When weighing the food against the trouble of the lengthy wait time and the constant jostling of the crowds, it just doesn’t stack up. In the future, I think I’d steer clear of the dinner crowd and give it a second try at lunch.

            So why is Last Resort such an Athens legend? The price range is a little outside the realm of the average college student’s budget, although you do see a few couples there on dates, and the food is good but not exceptional, especially compared to some of the other restaurants in Athens. The best answer I can offer is simply that it’s trendy. It’s a good place to go and be seen and its reputation as an Athens classic has diners scrambling for a table. Everyone should try it just once, but beware; it might not live up to the hype.