Atlanta Food Guide for World Cup 2026

Atlanta’s food identity is built on Southern cooking — fried chicken, biscuits, pork barbecue, collard greens, and sweet tea — but the city has developed a restaurant scene that extends well beyond its regional roots. The combination of a large, affluent Black professional community, a significant international population (Atlanta has one of the largest Ethiopian communities in the US, a large Korean community, and substantial Vietnamese and Latino neighborhoods), and a generation of James Beard Award-winning chefs has made Atlanta one of the genuinely underrated food cities in the country.

The Essential: Southern Fried Chicken

Atlanta’s claim to the center of American fried chicken culture is well-founded — the city has both the historic soul food version and the spicy Nashville Hot Chicken wave, and the local variations on both are worth pursuing.

The Busy Bee Café (810 Martin Luther King Jr Dr SW): Operating since 1947, the Busy Bee is the closest thing Atlanta has to a fried chicken institution — a sit-down soul food restaurant with fried chicken, collard greens, candied yams, and cornbread. The combination plate ($15–22) is the correct order. Frequented by civil rights leaders during the movement, and subsequently by every Atlanta politician.

Gunshow (924 Garrett St SE): Not a traditional fried chicken restaurant — Kevin Gillespie’s modern Americana restaurant where servers bring rotating dishes tableside and you choose what to order in real time. The fried chicken, when it appears, is among the best in the city.

Hattie B’s Hot Chicken (multiple Atlanta locations): The Nashville chain that established the spicy hot chicken category in Atlanta. The “Shut the Cluck Up” (hottest level) is genuine heat — understand what you’re ordering. $12–18 per meal.

Soul Food

Soul food is the traditional Southern Black American cooking tradition — developed through necessity and transformed into one of America’s most important cuisines.

Mary Mac’s Tea Room (224 Ponce de Leon Ave NE): Operating since 1945, Mary Mac’s is the most complete soul food restaurant in Atlanta — fried chicken, smothered pork chops, black-eyed peas, cornbread, and the specific sweetness of Southern sweet tea. The prix-fixe lunch option (meat + two sides + cornbread) is $20–28. A legacy restaurant that has maintained quality through 80 years of operation.

Watershed on Peachtree (1820 Peachtree Rd NW): Modern Southern cooking with a farm-to-table approach — the fried chicken (served Tuesdays) has its own following.

Ponce City Market Food Hall

675 Ponce de Leon Ave NE, Old Fourth Ward

The converted Sears building that now houses Atlanta’s best food hall — 20+ food vendors on the Central Food Hall level covering the full range of Atlanta’s food diversity.

What to eat:

Hop’s Chicken: Nashville hot chicken in the hall — the format that put spicy fried chicken on every menu
H&F Burger: Holeman and Finch’s burger stand — the restaurant’s famous double smash burger available in the hall
Little Bear: Oysters and Gulf Coast seafood
Minero: Jose Andres’s Atlanta taqueria outpost — excellent al pastor and fish tacos

The food hall model lets you sample multiple Atlanta food styles in one location — relevant for World Cup visitors with limited time.

The Upscale Scene

Bacchanalia (1198 Howell Mill Rd NW): The longest-running standard-bearer of Atlanta fine dining — tasting menu format, local sourcing, and a consistency that has maintained its reputation since 1993. Dinner: $95–130 per person.

Staplehouse (541 Edgewood Ave SE): James Beard Award winner, located in a small Old Fourth Ward restaurant — modern American cooking with an ingredient-focused approach. The tasting menu is $85–110 per person; the à la carte bar menu is a more accessible entry point.

Empire State South (999 Peachtree St NE, Midtown): Hugh Acheson’s Midtown restaurant — Southern ingredients in a contemporary framework. The weekend brunch is one of the most popular in the city.

Ethiopian Food

Atlanta has one of the largest Ethiopian and Eritrean communities in the United States, centered in Clarkston (northeast of the city) and with restaurants throughout the metro area.

Desta Ethiopian Kitchen (3086 Briarcliff Rd NE): The most-cited Ethiopian restaurant in Atlanta — a shared platter of injera with various stews, vegetable sides, and meat dishes. Full vegetarian spread available. $18–25 per person.

Lalibela (Clarkston, multiple locations): Traditional Ethiopian in the community where the diaspora lives — less restaurant-polished but more authentic to how the food is eaten in Ethiopia.

Drinks

Sweet tea: The Southern default non-alcoholic drink — black tea brewed hot with sugar dissolved in the brewing process. Different from iced tea with sugar added after. Available at any traditional Southern restaurant.

Creature Comforts Brewing (271 W Hancock Ave, Athens — 70 miles): The brewery (Tropicalia IPA is the flagship) has an Atlanta taproom presence; multiple bars pour Creature Comforts.

Monday Night Brewing (670 Trabert Ave NW, Atlanta): The best Atlanta-based brewery — taproom with food trucks, 20+ taps, and a West Side Atlanta location convenient to the I-285 corridor.