A friend recently asked me for a restaurant recommendation with these parameters:
- In Midtown
- Going with older family members
- Price not a huge concern
- Good service
- Nothing too unusual or exotic
- Nothing too stuffy
I asked her to name a restaurant that had worked successfully for this group in the past, and she mentioned Bone’s.
I fed all these criteria into the Kessler restaurant Choos-o-lator, made some robotic beeping noises, and came up with the Oceanaire Seafood Room.
While I’ve never actively loved this restaurant, I’ve always found it correct at what it does. The 1930’s cruise liner decor is maybe a little kitschy but makes for a pleasing environment. I think it’s a quality operation. While our Atlanta branch doesn’t have a lot of impact on the local dining scene, I know that it’s quite popular elsewhere — both in its hometown of Minneapolis and in my old hometown of Denver, where it pulls a downtown after-work drinks crowd.
But I hadn’t been to our Oceanaire in years, …