THIS RESTAURANT IS CLOSED Roy's

THIS RESTAURANT IS CLOSED Roy's Restaurant Review:

Roy Yamaguchi's Honolulu-founded (and now California-based) operation has a unit in Atlanta's fashionable Buckhead neighborhood. Sweeping ceilings and tall windows enclose a contemporary design that features comfortable banquettes and generously spaced seating. Three private dining spaces of various sizes make this a popular spot for business purposes. Staffers welcome patrons with the signature Aloha greeting. The highly personal style of Euro-Asian cooking that is the hallmark of these restaurants blends Asian flavors with European ingredients and methodology. Executive chef Mac Lynch does some masterful dishes with these tricks up his sleeve, such as a creamy risotto with edamame, prepared for one of the restaurant's many wine dinners to accompany a seared Asian-seasoned tuna. A Y-shaped symbol on the menu indicates the dishes that are Roy's corporate items, but Roy's isn't cookie-cutter food. Menus are written fresh every day. Each chef-partner is encouraged to create his own culinary image within the structure that Yamaguchi imparts. Lynch may explore local ingredients---even grits---and incorporate them into the Atlanta restaurant's dishes. The wine list seems pared down from the restaurant's early days, and today flits nervously between fairly ordinary choices and fairly expensive ones, such as the high-end PlumpJack Cabernet Sauvignon. A more careful exploration of possibilities from Australia and New Zealand might make a better fit with this food.