ZAGAT SURVEY 2007-2008

America's Most Prestigious Dining & Shopping Guide
Rated Excellent

Review Highlights:

"Emory professors & staff" in the mood for an "upscale lunch" step "off the beaten path" and into this "lovely" Southerner set in an old fieldstone "mansion", where a "seasonal menu" of regional cuisine is full of "hits"; the "beautiful gardens" help make it a "favorite" for "weddings", "receptions" or whenever "you want to impress".

Never Run-of-the-Mill
By Suzanne Wright

Vincent Marra has been the executive chef and managing director of the Houston Mill House since September 2004. Nestled in a historic home-turned-restaurant and special events facility, the sylvan environs and gracious upscale dining room still retain its 1920s Daisy Buchanan-like charm. The Sunday Paper spoke to Marra about the Houston Mill House’s crab cakes and his family’s restaurant lineage.

How long has the Houston Mill House been around?
Maybe 25, 26 years. It’s had lots of different incarnations. We’re a well-kept secret inside the city of Atlanta in a wonderfully wooded and natural setting.

Who makes up your demographics?
We’re a fine dining, à la carte restaurant open to the public Monday through Friday for lunch. We get a lot of Emory faculty, staff and administration, CDC and American Cancer Society employees, garden clubs, civic groups and North Druid Hills residents. But we’re probably best known as a special events facility. We do a large number of weddings, rehearsal dinners, corporate and private parties.

How do special events affect your culinary creativity?
This is the ideal position for a chef. I don’t have to adhere to a specific theme and I can change the menu whenever I want. If I’m traveling on vacation or reading a publication and see something I want to plug in, I can. And because we cook out of the original footprint of the kitchen, we don’t have a lot of storage space, so we’re cooking from scratch each and every time. We have tons of flexibility. From a chef’s perspective, I can take all kinds of chances.

How would you describe the food at lunch?
New American South.

I can vouch for the delicious jumbo lump crab cakes. Are they always available?
We’re well-known for our crab cakes. They’re always on the menu, but the way they’re presented, the accompaniments and the garnishes change frequently. The whole menu changes eight to 10 times a year.

The cherry bread pudding is incredible.
We make all of our desserts in-house, including the Amarena cherry and milk chocolate bread pudding. The cherries come from Northern Italy; they’re canned in syrup for 18 months and are unlike any other cherry. Right now we’re also doing a champagne, fresh raspberry and lemon sorbet float.

Where does the name of the restaurant come from?
Major A.O. Houston. He owned a grain mill, specializing in grits, and a hardwood mill right on the property.

When was that?
In the 1870s through the early 1900s, maybe the teens. He never built a residence [here]. The current structure was built by a fairly prominent builder named Harry Carr. It probably should be named the Carr House, but it’s on Houston Mill Road.

When was the house completed?
It was finished in 1922. At the time there were no utilities in DeKalb County, so there was water, electric and telephone equipment in place on the property. It’s all still here and we often show it to people. It’s just not operational.

The house is unique in terms of its architecture.
It doesn’t have a plantation feel. It was made to look like a Georgian Fieldstone manner; all the stones were gathered from the property. The formal gardens are more English than Southern.

What’s your background?
The most important part of my background is coming from a long line of restaurant and hospitality folks. I’m the youngest of seven: Two of my three sisters married chefs and all three of my brothers married waitresses. I used to work at the Old Library Restaurant, which is on the National Register of Historic Places. So I kind of feel at home here.