Gunshow is a popular Atlanta restaurant that tops any “best of” list in town. It’s hard to get a reservation here – it took us about 3 weeks to get in. The restaurant is owned by famous local chef, Kevin Gillespie, who won the Bravo cooking show, Top Chef. We certainly had high hopes for this restaurant – between the famous chef and the difficulty in getting a reservation, this seemed like a confident choice for a Michelin star.
Gunshow is unique. You walk in to a big giant room where kitchen is clearly in view, tables are metal and long, reminding me of a food hall. You are lead to your seat, but you will have tablemates. The space is very loud – rock music blasting. You are given a paper with the day’s menu on it, but you don’t order from it. There is a great drink menu as well, and some drinks are made on a rolling cart, intended for you to watch as it’s made, although we were at the very end of the table so we didn’t even realize when our drinks were being made and only realized we missed the whole thing when the drinks were brought to us. Everything that is available on the day of your visit will be brought to you by the chef, explained to you, then you decide on the spot whether you want it or not. If you don’t want it, they will take it to the next table to make their next sales pitch. Here are the dishes we had:
Chicken on a Stick
First thing we tried was Chicken on a Stick. We were given two wooden skewers with chicken and green onions. The chicken was deep fried. The flavor was OK but it really wasn’t much different than a piece of sweet fried chicken. On top of that, it was not very crispy.
Admiral Oysters
Next course, Admiral Oysters with Watermelon. This was very good but I would need a lot more than 2 for the two of us.
Bear Creek Farm Beef Tartare
Bear Creek Farm is a local beef farm in Tennessee. This dish came with pepperoni and tomato, and it was on a piece of homemade bread. This was very good, although I wasn’t expecting the bread since it wasn’t mentioned on the menu. If you want something filling, this would be a good bang for your buck.
Chicken Liver Pate
Chicken liver pate with fig and hyssop. This was easily the best dish of the night. The liver wrapped inside the pastry. It tasted amazing.
Pork Belly w/Eggplant
The pork belly was OK. Nothing special. The eggplant tasted too much like… eggplant. The strawberry didn’t really add anything to this dish.
Buckwheat Culurgiones w/Duck
We were looking forward to this dish because we love duck, but sadly, it didn’t have much duck meat at all. The Culurgiones had great fillings but the outside was rather doughy.
Oxtail Burnt Cinnamon
This tasted good, but the menu literally said “oxtail, burnt cinnamon”, so I wasn’t expecting it to be like a bao, with some kind of sauce on top.
Lamb Peppers Peanut
This tasted good and it was pretty unique, but I didn’t expect it to be fried. Overall, it just feels like most of the dishes have been less than expected.
Desserts
When you are ready for dessert, the server brings a model of all the desserts that’s available and you tell them what you want, then they’ll bring a fresh one to you. Today’s dessert options are: Warm Old Fashioned Banana Pudding, Capperino Yogurt and Honey, Muscadine Cashew with Pink Peppercorn. I can’t imagine why you’d want capperino in your dessert, since they are quite spicy. For the same reason, pink peppercorn didn’t sound good to me either. We went with banana pudding which looked amazing.
The Old Fashioned Banana Pudding was VERY good. It was very hot inside, with fresh slices of banana. I highly recommend this dish.
Michelin Worthy?
This was honestly a bizarre experience. The food was mediocre – they were unique, but most of the dishes were lukewarm at best after traveling through from table to table as each guest listened to the “sales pitch” before it made to our table. It’s also rather awkward – the person delivering your dish and making the sales pitch is the chef who made that dish. It’s hard to say no directly to the chef. Also, the space was so unbearably hot that sweat was dripping down my face. Not to forget, the place had music blasting, which made talking to each other nearly impossible. The table are long, communal tables, so you sit pretty close to each other. I don’t mind communal tables, but since no one could hear one another, there was no way to really talk to each other. I’m actually in amazement that not many people online are complaining about this whole experience. To say we were disappointed is a big understatement. This is restaurant markets itself as a “dim sum” restaurant. This is not how dim sum is done or should be done. I will not be returning to Gunshow and I honestly hope they don’t get any recognition from Michelin.