Atlanta Good Food category interest

Restaurants have a way of putting on a show — parading dishes through dimly lit dining rooms, adding plumes of smoke and liquid nitrogen to heighten the theatrics of a meal, demanding attention like feathered showgirls. But beyond the spectacle, there are small details that keep the show going. The plates, the bowls, and the glassware are like costumes for the food and deserve their own moment in the spotlight. Several Atlanta chefs have zeroed in on plateware details — many working with local artists, with others making their own dinnerware — in an effort to complete the story of a dish.

Mad potter

When you walk into Zach Meloy’s Dirt Church Ceramics, you can smell the scent of clay in the air. It’s sweet, like the first moments of rain, when the droplets just begin to hit the sidewalk. Meloy is a potter and chef. If his apron is not covered in stains from sauces and soup, it’s usually covered in remnants of wet dirt.

“Making the vessel is the last level of control over plating something,” says Meloy. “I like to tell a story even through the plates.”

Meloy (formerly of the now-closed, lauded restaurant Better Half in Home Park) runs his weekly dinner pop-up, Mug of the Month Club, from the space. Not only is he cooking, but he is also making all of the plateware by hand. The metal racks in the room are filled with “blates” (bowl-plates) with an eggshell grain, bowls with whimsical lids and tree trunk patterned exteriors, plates with chicken feet imprints — as though a chicken were left loose when the clay was wet — imperfect spoons, and two-toned mugs.

“I thought, what if you took it one step further and made the plates themselves inspired by the dish?” says Meloy. “Like for a dish for a peach course, I mixed peach ash into the glaze and then stamped the plates with peach pits and the leaves from my peach tree. Plating is the complete circle in telling the story.”

Plating for whimsy

Chefs around Atlanta are hyperaware of the story plating can tell. For example, a brightly colored watermelon gazpacho looks vivid in a light-colored bowl, and a garnish served in a mini cereal box can evoke memories of Sunday morning cartoons. Chef Joey Ward (formerly at the experimental Gunshow) of Georgia Boy on Ponce de Leon, where a tasting menu is offered in the kitchen hidden behind a bookcase, is doing the latter.

He is Atlanta’s “Willy Wonka” chef, with nods to Roald Dahl all around his restaurant, including inserting a golden ticket, inscribed with the evening’s menu, in chocolate bars. Ward plates a tomato macaron with “hose water” sorbet in a bowl (made by Haand in North Carolina) with a grassy bottom, encircled with a miniature garden hose to remind diners of summer nights when you’d drink from a hose in the backyard. He is inspired by the likes of chef Grant Achatz of Michelin-starred Alinea in Chicago, known for creating his iconic edible helium balloons.

“Growing up, I loved to color,” says Ward. “It’s a lot like that with plating. With food, you eat with your eyes first. I think it’s all about playing with your food — making it as artistic as you can.”

Hunkered over a plate that seems like it’s bent in half, Ward looks like he’s drawing. Creating green swirls from a sunflower seed pesto, Ward makes the stem and leaves of a sunflower for a venison dish with summer squash and Georgia chanterelles. He plates a baked Alaska on a marble dish with matching patterns and ridges. And as a signal to diners to not take anything too seriously, he serves one of his desserts wedged in a batter beater and a hot dog ice cream topped with caviar in a Varsity paper hat.

“If guests can leave with a memory, an aha moment, that’s my goal,” says Ward.

Plating for regionality and nostalgia

Whimsy is one thing, but plates do not need to be over-the-top to evoke emotions. At chef Meherwan Irani’s Chai Pani in Decatur, multisectioned stainless steel plates and bowls are used for the food. Things like samosas, Maggi (instant noodles every child in the country loved), pav bhaji, roti, yogurt, and rice are served on the same plates in Indian households. Water glasses are also stainless steel — the material keeps the water cold, and the food hot.

“My family always had a stack around for informal dinners, the kid’s table, and storing atta (whole wheat flour),” says Sahar Siddiqi, James Beard semifinalist and chef de cuisine at Chai Pani. “Our vision has always been to capture the beautiful details of an Indian home, and our plateware is a part of that story.”

Some families, including my grandmother’s, had their steel dinnerware engraved with the family initials. These were hardy plates, with dents of love and use, that were often passed on to the next generation. Chai Pani uses this intimate detail of plating to evoke a sense of nostalgia and comfort among its Indian diners, and to introduce others to true regionality.

There are no small roles, as it is often said. And if plates, bowls, and glassware are those roles, then they tie in the whole production. The next time you’re dining out, take a peek under the plate to see who made it or where it came from. Notice the colors of the bowls and the forks. And leave a lipstick-stained glass having noticed the etching on its base, taking in all the details of the smaller parts at play.