I’m here in Atlanta for a work session with clients today, and of course, as an end to an all-day reporting session, they asked if we could take them out for a celebratory dinner. I obliged by taking them to one of Atlanta’s supposedly best steak houses Marcel, and I left thoroughly disappointed.

I really don’t go out for steak that often. I’ve probably eaten steak in New York City at six or seven different steakhouses, but every single time I’ve gone, I’ve always left satisfied. The quality of the meat, the medium rareness of the meat, the great crust and sear, the light amount of seasoning — all these things have to come together for a steak to be notable. Tonight’s eight-ounce madame filet was a complete disappointment. The sear on the outside was so-so — no nice crust that was apparent. The inside was like flappy meat medium rare. Each bite was worse than the last. It was also horribly over-salted and made me feel like I was going to get high blood pressure afterwards from all the excessive sodium. So I ate about half of it and called it quits. Maybe dessert would be better?

The strawberry mascarpone crepe cake would have made Lady M Confections cry, as they do such an incredibly light and airy crepe cake, and Marcel… well, Marcel gives you the densest, heaviest possible crepe cake. The clients raved about their steak and crepe cake (almost everyone chose the crepe cake for dessert), and I sat there silently, smiling and nodding, trying very hard to refrain from not giving my New Yorker-side judgmental comments on how subpar both the steak and the crepe cake were here.

At least the spinach gnudi and the wine were good.

Atlanta’s dining scene is budding and getting increasingly more diverse (and more expensive). I am always excited to eat in this city, but this meal left such a bad taste in my mouth for steak in Atlanta. I will save my steak cravings for when I am back home in New York.