Creative Loafing food writer Besha Rodell asked this question over on their Omnivore blog, and I felt like there are few questions the DM community is more equipped to answer (aside from: Why are kids/old people (and/or drivers/bikers/pedestrians) so annoying in restaurants (and/or on the street)?)

She clarifies her question a bit in her post…

I’m not talking about coffee shops. I mean the neighborhood cafe, that serves breakfast, lunch, dinner and late night. I’m talking about the places in Paris where Parisians sit and drink wine and coffee and look iconically Parisian on the sidewalk. The panini place in my old neighborhood in Brooklyn that served Spanish wines and blood orange bellinis and great coffee and was open from approximately 10 a.m. to 3 a.m. Or the place just up the street from that, which was basically the same concept except French, or the other place around the corner that was crammed with oversized antiques and had a great beer selection and the best brunch around, and where you’d sit on metal chairs in the leafy back courtyard and eat oysters at 3 p.m. or sausages at 2 a.m.

Why don’t we have that? Or something like that? In Melbourne, every neighborhood has about ten places that are coffee and wine oriented, where you can go to get avocado on toast for breakfast, quiche for lunch, and simple pasta dishes for dinner. The occasional pork belly sandwich, or more ambitious kitchen serving a light “new Australian” menu.

Yeah ATL, what the what?

Creative Loafing’s Besha Rodell hopes the Iberian Pig will serve as a “stepping stone” for Spanish food in Atlanta, but also labels the popular Decatur spot’s offerings as “bastardized Spanish food” in her recent review.

A 90 minute BSP-style wait at the Pig on Saturday (“Do you have a reservation?” “Um…maybe?”) sent me and the wife down to Feast for a satisfying, walkable alternative.

CL’s Besha Rodell documents her continual faith in Cakes & Ale and rewards the Decatur restaurant by tacking on a fourth star to its previous three-star ranking.

I think congratulations are in order…