Watershed has a new owner.
Ross Jones and Emily Saliers (of music duo the Indigo Girls) have sold the Southern restaurant to Matt Marcus, formerly executive chef at Bluetop and Portofino , as first reported by Eater.
Marcus will retain the restaurant’s name. However, numerous other changes are in the works.
Following today’s Sunday brunch service, he is temporarily closing the restaurant, located at 1820 Peachtree Road in the Brookwood high-rise condo complex. Watershed will re-open April 17, sporting a fresh coat of paint and an upholstery touch-up, but also a revamped lunch and dinner menu, with a chef’s tasting menu to follow soon thereafter.
The restaurant will also see a change in hours. Watershed will serve lunch Tuesdays through Fridays, doing away with Saturday mid-day service, and it will no longer offer Sunday brunch. Dinner hours of operation – 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays – remain the same.
The move puts Marcus back as executive chef of a kitchen since his departure from Bluetop last fall . He said that about 90 percent of the staff will remain, however its executive chef, Zeb Stevenson, is moving on. Stevenson and Jones are partnering on a new dining concept. Today was Stevenson's last day at Watershed, which he joined in January 2014.
Marcus has brought on board Karl Gorline as chef de cuisine. The two worked together at fine-dining restaurant Parlor Market in Jackson, Miss. Gorline most recently worked at Restaurant August in New Orleans.
For this next chapter of Watershed, Marcus stated that the restaurant would still maintain its Southern bent (and a similar price point) but with cooking preparations that cull from “traditional French techniques.”
Examples from the new lunch menu include a rabbit sloppy Joe and a duck neck gumbo with the broth poured tableside. Collard greens will get doctored with Dr. Pepper, ham hocks and peppered vinegar while popcorn grits will see black-eyed peas ground and cooked in the manner of grits with Emmentaler cheese and puffed sorghum.
Highlights from the dinner menu include a jelly fish carbonara, an all-beef charcuterie plate and a high-ticket plate of French fries. The latter, priced at $350, come with a bottle of Cru rosé.
Among desserts, Watershed’s popular hot milk cake will remain. Joining it will be a sweet tea flan, a play on a baked Alaska called “Baked Atlanta” whose insides will hold a deconstructed banana pudding and “Coke and Doughnuts” – yeast doughnuts with a Mexican Coca-Cola crème anglaise and an espresso tuille.
Watershed opened at a location in Decatur in 1998, with Anne Quatrano as its executive chef. It relocated to its current spot in Buckhead in 2012.
RELATED
Read more stories like this by liking Atlanta Restaurant Scene on Facebook , following @ATLDiningNews on Twitter and @ajcdining on Instagram .
About the Author
