For the plate, get to the heart of what BeetleCat wants to be — an oysterette (a little clipper to its seafood-centric sister, the Optimist, on the westside) — with an order of oysters… I’m a sucker for octopus, and this tentacled creature of the sea was the best snack on the menu.
Atlanta’s Best Seafood
“The newest addition to Ford Fry’s empire, this “oyster-ette” impresses with everything from crudo to moqueca, and of course, oysters.”
Atlanta Pulls a Chair to the Table for Culinary Greats
When it comes to creating visual playgrounds for diners, Atlanta’s king is Ford Fry, who opened four restaurants in the city last year. His latest is Beetlecat in Inman Park, a little sister to the Optimist, the sophisticated seafood place that Esquire named the nation’s best new restaurant in 2012.
Like the small wooden pleasure boat it’s named after, two-month-old Beetlecat in Inman Park has a couple guises. Just as some see the wooden dinghy as a piece of nautical bric-a-brac, others see a classic vessel with the cachet of the Kennedys. Between its main dining room upstairs and a separate lounge downstairs, Beetlecat’s twofold dining room approach allows patrons to customize their experience.
Here’s where the fun begins. Get out of the mindset of an appetizer, entrée, sides and dessert. Each dish on the menu is a treasure to be sampled and shared… if you are an oyster lover, you’re going to LOVE Beetlecat!
An easy-going, no-reservations cocktail lounge and oyster bar, with a retro ’70s and ’80s vibe and a kitschy downstairs den-meets-rumpus room, it seems certain to make a lively scene all its own.
