Bar Review - Bar Joel provides 4 stars for less

Let’s face it: Most restaurant bars are really just waiting areas. Especially in upscale, trendy joints, at best they allow people to bask in the restaurant’s hipness without requiring a big commitment of time and money.

Bar Joël — the bar at Joël Antunes’ much-lauded Buckhead restaurant — aims to buck that convention and reposition the room as an attraction on its own.

But this is no casual neighborhood watering hole. It’s out of the way — in the Piazza at Paces multiuse complex off Northside Drive near West Paces Ferry. Also, its atmosphere is more formal than the ordinary bar next door. My friend commented on the vibe, “It feels so cold!” And I knew exactly what he meant. Looking around at all the hard shininess — the expensive furnishings and fixtures, the high ceilings and the meticulous design — it wasn’t exactly homey.

Walking into the 65-seat space, the patronage displays a wide age range. Everyone is extremely white and white-collar. Jeans are totally inappropriate, unless they are the super-stylish $100 kind. Laughing at the idea that Bar Joël could function as a hangout for the complex’s residents, my friend said, “Would you get all dressed up just to hang out with neighbors?”

The cornerstone of the bar’s new awareness campaign is a signature martini: the LIK. The Carrie Bradshaw-style beverage, a barely carbonated Vox Raspberry vodka martini, comes with a raspberry sugar rim and a lollipop. (“Lick,” get it?). It’s priced at just $6.

There’s been an effort to make the four-star experience more affordable yet still feel luxe. A little plate of Asian rice cracker-and-nut mix comes to every table and is refilled repeatedly, gratis. A new bar menu, approved by Antunes, features snacks that are sometimes half the cost of the dining room’s appetizers. Items include Parmesan beignets, chicken “empadillas,” fancy chips with fancy dips and several seafood items.

Because I sometimes do like dressing up a bit, for a date or cocktails, I might suggest meeting at Bar Joël. And because I do want to learn more about fine dining and liquor, I’d probably attend one of the tasting events planned for the spring.

But for most of us, like the fabulous restaurant that overshadows it, Bar Joël will remain an occasional place, not a usual place.-- Amy Winn

Bar Joël, 3290 Northside Parkway (Piazza at Paces). 404-233-3500. Mon.-Thurs., 5:30- 10 p.m.; Fri.-Sat., 5:30 p.m.-10:30 p.m. www.joelrestaurant.com.