Restaurant Review - Brave new world

Technology Square at sunset. Another darkening gray sky in what seems like Atlanta’s rainiest summer ever can’t dull the area’s shiny urbanity. The buildings’ glass and brick facades transmit a confident communiqué: Smart is the new sexy.

Yet, walking from the parking garage to dinner, it strikes me how quickly this brainy, immaculate stretch has assimilated into the cult of Midtown’s personality. Serious-faced men with overly developed pecs march purposefully from the parking garage to LA Fitness on the corner. Half a block down, Tech students hang out on benches with homework in their laps. I imagine them flinging algorithms like bons mots.

Fifth Street and its environs have been rigged up with many of the chain leviathans deemed necessary to modern metropolitan life — Starbucks and Barnes & Noble being the most conspicuous. So it’s refreshing to find an unexpected mix of independent eateries like Tin Drum Cafe and 5th Street Ribs n Blues around here. It wasn’t until the Globe opened a few months ago, however, that Tech Square acquired a restaurant that really defined and united its burgeoning community.

Govantez Lowndes (is that a great name for a restaurateur or what?) has engineered his second restaurant to be a drastically different experience than his first, star-crossed venture, Commune. Design-wise, the Globe is, in fact, the anti-Commune: bright and white and airy, like the hip cafe in a modern European museum. I don’t blame Lowndes one bit for wanting to spend his days somewhere more cheerful than the gloomy grotto of his previous west side establishment.

Except now the whole town has shown up to hang out with him.

“OK, thanks for checking in. We don’t have a table for you yet, but we’re about to put some checks down, so have a seat or a drink at the bar and we’ll come get you as soon as a table frees up. Unless you’d like to just eat up here?” the hostess asks, gesturing to a tiny table up front.

Nice try and no thanks. It’s the same speech I’ve heard every time I’ve walked in, day or evening. Expect a 10- to 30-minute wait, even if you have reservations. And like everyone else, I prefer to lounge on a low green sofa or chill in the reading room in the back and suspend my hunger. I want a table in the back behind the gauzy white curtains or against the towering, chestnut-colored banquet. (You can sit outside, but odds are good these days that you’ll be caught in a downpour.)

But don’t be discouraged from grabbing a drink and a quick bite at the bar if you’re rushed or starved. I’d happily swing by to down a tangy rhubarb daiquiri — not too sweet and without the typical fluorescent color that can make a daiquiri so obnoxious — or a pear martini with its savory hint of rosemary.

And to eat? Think nibblies, like the Globe’s slightly crispy, slightly floppy Belgian frites, swabbed through homemade lemon aioli that has the consistency of whipped cream. The kitchen dispenses a heap of fries next to its sandwiches, but doles out a more judicious serving as a stand-alone starter wrapped in a paper cone. Make mine a double, please.

Chorizo and sage croquettes are gutsy little noshes, though it’s hard to imagine anything more maliciously caloric than deep-fried sausage. Dig into a salad of silky heirloom tomatoes with fluffy punctuations of goat cheese as an antidote.

The dry-rubbed ancho chile ribs are sneakily impressive. Ribs served outside barbecue joints tend to be askew in some way, but these tender, roughly spicy specimens warrant some serious gnawing. I also like the shrimp cakes with mango salsa, though the portion always feels tiny until I remember that the plate costs $5. That’s a reasonable price for a few high-quality bites.

Grabbing a bar seat and ordering a few choice fixings for a quickie grub fest is easy at the Globe. Navigating a full meal is the chancier undertaking.

Service can be flighty, but it never goes too amiss under the vigilant eye of general manager Oswald Morgan, whose stylish frame many remember from his time at Justin’s. No, it’s the food that needs most of the attention. I’ve eaten and deeply appreciated chef Joshua Perkins’ cooking at Brasserie Le Coze and Di Paolo in Alpharetta. He’s obviously mastered the arts of French and Italian cuisines, but he’s still finding his footing in the New American milieu.

Sometimes it’s an execution snafu during a hectic night. One evening, my grilled skirt steak arrived with a viscous, greasy blob atop it. My steak was cooked to medium-rare as requested, but it had sat and cooled before a dollop of butter was plopped on, which softened to margarine consistency without truly melting. To that was added a snarl of caramelized onions, which tangled with the butter in a gluey mess. It rendered the steak barely edible. Fortunately, a grand pile of fries was on the side to fill me up.

Another trip, the server took my friend’s order for duck breast without asking her the temperature at which she’d like it grilled. The duck comes fanned in lovely slices, and it’s cooked ... rare. Now. I like a bloody steak as much as the next intrepid American. And I’ll eat sushi-grade fish until my head is buzzing from a protein rush. But raw, chewy poultry? Don’t go there. My friend sends the dish back and, to the kitchen’s credit, it returns a just-blushing, lovely medium. You can detect the exotic flintiness of coriander seed on the duck, and the accompanying spinach and duck ravioli lend the dish bistro fare cred.

Some dishes simply need a plain old-fashioned reworking. I know Perkins can produce a pluckier Caesar salad than the wimpy version he serves here. Seared diver scallops are magnificently burnished specimens, but the oven-dried berries are unappetizingly brittle instead of appealingly intense. The sandwiches I’ve tried, including lamb on olive bread and a shrimp-manchego melt with pineapple salsa, need more acidic or salty oomph to rouse the flavors.

Perkins has definitely nailed his fish dishes, though. Both the pan-roasted grouper with cucumber-tomato salad and the grilled salmon with summery beans and succulent chanterelle mushrooms taste clean and respectfully balanced.

But on a weeknight, when I don’t feel like blowing it out, I could just fill up on apps, skip the entree, and zoom straight to the finale. If you’re an Atlanta foodie, it’s obvious from the first mouthful that Kathryn King of Aria designed the Globe’s desserts. They have her poignant sense of composition.

The cake of her pineapple upside-down creation is honest-to-God moist. Rummy caramel and slices of pineapple are mere grace notes. A cobbler with strawberries, raspberries and cherries dons a buttery crust. The tiny scoop of concentrated vanilla ice cream runs into the cracks to brighten and soothe the hot fruit. Strawberry shortcake is nearly identical to Aria’s: The shortcake is a shade drier than a traditional biscuit. That way, it maintains its texture against the strawberry juice, and crunches seductively while clouds of billowy cream dissolve on the tongue. Sugary Shangri-La.

If every morsel doesn’t deliver that height of rapture, my hunch is that the food will improve as the restaurant settles into itself. And the Globe has so many compelling traits. The room feels right-now fresh, and it draws an attractive yet civilized crowd. To that end, I think Lowndes’ attractive, affordable new hot spot has indeed achieved the mission he set out to accomplish with Commune. He’s helping to create the future of dining in this city with his nexus of neighborhood restaurant and scene restaurant. I look forward to watching his intriguing vision ripen.