Spilling secrets about off-menu items at local haunts!
A warm greeting from a hostess. A nod from the bartender. A seat in your favorite server’s section. These are just a few things that can make dinner at your local spot feel like your own version of “Cheers.” Then there’s the next tier for sitting firmly in the know: You are privy to a restaurant’s secret menu. Those insider items are reserved for diners who know what to ask for and when to ask for them. There are more off menu eats around than you might think, and below, we share exactly how to get your forks in them.
GOLDEN NUGGETS at Kyma
Chef Pano Karatassos gives decadent lobster a luxe treatment with his riff on nuggets. Restaurant regulars know to order Kyma’s signature lobster morsels coated in 24K gold and served with honey mustard made with imported Greek honey. Enjoy them as is or level up by adding caviar, truffles or both. “Our motto is, ‘Why eat chicken and caviar when you can have the lobster instead?’” Karatassos says.
kymaatlanta.com
@kymaatlanta
CALIFORNIA STYLE TACO at Little Rey
Here, the Tex-Mex menu openly advertises a “not so secret” list of taco styles: gringo with shredded lettuce, cheese and jalapeño crema, costra with a griddled cheese crust and rico with chile con queso and wood-roasted jalapenos. One style never makes the list, though, giving it its “secret” designation. California style is a twist on the classic California burrito that overstuffs the taco with salted crinkle fries, shredded cheese and pico de gallo.
littlerey.com
@littlereyalcarbon
FRIES OSCAR at Marcel
The menu at this Westside steakhouse includes pommes frites bearnaise, crispy fries served with a buttery, tarragon-scented sauce. It’s a delicious order, of course, but the insider move is to ask for the secret Oscar version instead. Oscar style traditionally means a steak crowned with crab, asparagus and béarnaise, and the kitchen gives that treatment to fries, with Alabama jumbo lump crab as the star.
marcelatl.com
@marcelatlanta
UNI PASTA at Umi
The acclaimed Buckhead Japanese restaurant is best known for its sushi, but the unexpected item to ask about is pasta. Uni is the Japanese word for sea urchin, and the sauce here is made with uni from Hokkaido, whose northern Japanese waters yield some of the sweetest, creamiest sea urchin in the world. It’s a rich, briny sauce you won’t find on a typical Italian menu. As for the pasta, the restaurant uses snappy, high alkaline noodles similar to ramen. Everything is made in house.
umimodern.com
@umisushiatl
STEAK FRITES at McKendrick’s
Operating partner Anthony Casiello, who orders this dish every time he’s in France, realized the steakhouse had never offered steak frites. Once Chef Branden Holte joined the team, they set out to get it right. An 8-ounce bavette is sliced to keep it tender, then served with french fries and sauce au poivre. “The idea was to make it something our bar guests could get any night, so it lives offmenu at dinner and is at the bar only,” Casiello says.
mckendricks.com
@mckendrickssteakhouse
NATILLA at Taquería del Sol
Regulars come to Taqueria del Sol for the tacos and cheese dip (never called “queso” here), but the secret dessert is the item worth saving room for. Natilla, a traditional Spanish and Latin American custard, appears here as a silky vanilla and cinnamon version topped with a chocolate sauce swirl shaped like an “S.” Whether the letter nods to “sol” or to “secret” is left for guests to decide.
taqueriadelsol.com
@taqueriadelsol
