 |
 |
 |
|
||||||
 |
|||||||||
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
||||||
|
|
|||||||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Chef Paul Albrecht by Jennifer Grzeskowiak The subject of numerous magazine and newspaper articles, Chef Paul Albrecht has been a ubiquitous presence in Atlanta for almost 30 years. His tenure with the Buckhead Life Group restaurants, including Pano’s and Paul’s and Atlanta Fish Market, contributed to the development of the city’s culinary identity. After a three-and-a-half-year hiatus from the city, Albrecht is back, infusing his magic into Midtown’s Spice restaurant. “When I returned, I was amazed at the Midtown area,” Albrecht says. “It reminded me of Buckhead when I first came in 1978.” Separating from the Buckhead Life Group, he had left Atlanta nearly five and a half years ago to start Chef Paul’s in Carillon Beach, Florida, a popular vacation spot for Atlantans. “His fans really wanted him to do the restaurant in Florida,” says Chris Martha, manager of Spice. But unable to resist the call of Atlanta, he returned two years ago and accepted a new challenge: helping establish Spice as a serious Midtown eatery. Since joining the restaurant, he has helped turn it around, combining his own style with Spice’s warm and trendy atmosphere. “People don’t eat the same as they used to. Customers now want different tastes and flavors and are more health conscious,” Albrecht says. So he created a menu that features organic vegetables, smaller portions and colorful food with a twist that fits in with the Midtown location. For Albrecht, who respects classic cuisine but likes to add a little bit of his own flare and cutting edge trends, his personal style has complemented Spice nicely. The menu includes some of his signature dishes, such as batter fried lobster tail and dover sole, as well as new, unique items, such as lava soup with carrots, mint, ginger and avocados, and pork chops stuffed with andouille, shrimp and apples. He changes the menu four times a year to keep it fresh and seasonally appropriate. Spice’s transformation should not be a surprise to anyone, considering Albrecht’s prolific career, which covers more than four decades. While Albrecht now doesn’t know what he would do without cooking, he hasn’t always felt that way. When Albrecht was a young teenager, his parents decided that one of their children should go into the restaurant business. Being the youngest, that expectation fell on him. At age 14, he entered into an apprenticeship that demanded 14 to 18 hour days. “By the third year, I fell in love with the profession,” Albrecht says. His culinary education also includes graduating from the Hotel and Restaurant School in Munich, Germany, followed by work at some of the best hotels in Switzerland where he developed an appreciation for different nationalities and cuisines. In the meantime, he thought about what he says is every chef’s dream: having his own restaurant. He started on that path when he teamed up with Pano Karatassos. They met each other by chance when they started working the same week at the Hotel Sonesta in Washington, D.C. Karatassos, who is Greek-American, got along well with Albrecht’s Greek wife, and the two men formed a friendship. They moved to Missouri together and worked at the Four Seasons in the Lake of the Ozarks. Tired of the snow, they left after nine years and headed to the Peach State, where a friend in Atlanta had some space available. After many successful restaurants (he averaged one every three years with the Buckhead Life Group) and accolades, Albrecht says the most rewarding aspect of his job is having happy customers who return again and again. “You can’t forget the customer. The awards give us a reason to be better, not a reason to rest on our laurels,” he says. Albrecht recognizes that there are many restaurants in the Midtown area and that all of them are in competition. So he continues to focus on the thousands of details that go into operating a successful kitchen and restaurant. Spice reflects a great attention to detail in everything from the prompt service and lighting fixtures to the caramel drizzles on the dessert plates. It’s odd to think that in the late 1950s, Albrecht joined the restaurant business, believing that there weren’t many other opportunities for him. Now restaurants are vying for his talents, never letting him run out of new challenges and possibilities. And his creative work at Spice shows why. Spice is located at 793 Juniper, the corner of Juniper and 5th in Midtown. The restaurant is open for dinner Monday through Thursday 5:00 to 11:00, Friday through Saturday 5:00 to 12:00 and Sunday 5:00 to 10:00. The restaurant also offers a Sunday brunch from 11:00 to 3:00, with live jazz from 12:00 to 2:00. For more information call (404) 875-4242 or visit www.spicerestaurant.com. |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Executive Chef and co-proprietor Paul Albrecht (far right). | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
.jpg)
