Lusca has been open roughly two months now, and though I had been eagerly anticipating this opening from Octopus Bar’s Angus Brown and Nhan Le, it was just this week I made my first visit. I’ve only made it into Octopus Bar a handful of times, as it’s across town and doesn’t open until 10PM, but I really like the style of eating there. Their unique and popular restaurant in a restaurant has an appealing cheffy mix of oysters and other seafood, shareable dishes with Asian influences (Korean, Japanese, Vietnamese, and Chinese all represented), cocktails, pastas, and sometimes a three pound dry-aged steak, in case that’s what your hankering for at 2AM.
Octopus Bar is decidedly punk rock and appeals to the modern food fanatic, who probably likes a good drink late at night, and I was somewhat surprised their first “complete” restaurant would be opening in Buckhead, on Peachtree Rd just south of Holeman & Finch. The location works well for me, but much of the opening trend has lately been towards the Eastside of town, well, outside of Ford Fry, but I don’t know that Lusca is going for the same style.
Not that Lusca isn’t finely detailed – it is – a light feel of shiny surfaces and cool colors, with two prominent octopus paintings over each bar, one primarily for boozing, the other the increasingly popular seafood counter proudly displaying a quartet of oyster varieties on ice. What is a bit more rare for the modern non-Japanese billed restaurant, is the sushi bar near the front of the house, which is where a buddy and I posted up on this evening.
I’ll stop blathering and post photos below. The quick summary is this – many dishes were excellent, with some room for improvement in a few areas. And just like Octopus Bar, I very much enjoy the style of eating, especially as I like to sit at the bar. We picked our way through almost every category of the menu, save for the larger entree items, as we ran out of appetite.
Hit the raw bar. Casually sample some charcuterie. Throw down a few pieces of nigiri. Maybe eat a pasta or some toasts or share a branzino. Drink a weirdo orange wine or an absinthe cocktail. There’s not many places I can think of, if any, where this combination of food freak fun can be enjoyed. I will be back.
Oyster selection is solid. I did get a little bit of shell in most oysters, a nuisance which Kimball House has somehow figured perfectly.
Charcuterie – mostly terrine style – would like to see selection grow, sure it will with time
Radikon on the list for $62! Acidic Italian orange wine paired extremely well with the seafood and variety.
The sushi Nhan was handing us a few pieces at a time was better than expected (I’m always suspicious of sushi, I guess my standards are high) having a varied, high quality selection of fish for nigiri (no rolls, no sashimi that night either) and above average execution – very nice warmer-than-cold temperature on the rice and fish, the rice maybe a little too sticky and glutinous, but expertly not cold nor tightly packed.
Fried anchovies, fritto misto style, with sliced lemons and fennel – killer – $8
Trout roe on toast – tasty, but a bit expensive for two bites at $14 or $16, can’t recall
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