Inside March 15, 2005's Issue

'What Southern Women Know' stereotypical portrayal of women in the South

Country artist appeals to various audiences

Dante's Down the Hatch, down the drain

By Hartwell Brooks
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Staff Writer

From the outside, Dante's Down the Hatch in Atlanta seems like a really classy restaurant with its cathedral-like building and claims to have live jazz music. I figured this would be a perfect place to bring a date.

As we walked up to the front door, through the archway that seemed really cool, however oddly out of place because it was littered with pirate paraphernalia and mangled road signs, something started to seem amiss.

Once inside, we were greeted by a well-mannered hostess. However, she was dressed in a t-shirt that looked like something a ship-hand would wear. There was jazz, but on top of a seven dollar cover charge, people had to dine inside of a hollowed-out pirate's ship if they were going to listen to it. Was I missing something?

It seemed like everyone in Dante's was trying to put on an air of class, like they weren't serving fondue in a restaurant that could have been Red Lobster's more affluent older sister.

We were seated and soon our waiter came to ask what we wanted to drink. I asked for sweet tea, and he said that they did not serve sweet tea and then made a snide remark about Southerners and their tea preferences.

My disappointment swelling, I ordered the cheese fondue. It comes with vegetables, bread and apples.

The fondue sauce is made with Swiss and wines. The sauce is very heavy on the wine.

If you don't continually stir it, the wine becomes the over-powering ingredient and you cannot even taste the cheese. And the vegetables? Let me just tell you that, yes, there were some vegetables: broccoli, cauliflower and one cherry tomato.

Yes, one cherry tomato. I looked at this tomato like it was a joke, like the staff had been chuckling in the kitchen, "Give him one cherry tomato� just enough to tempt him� whahahahahahaha!!!!!!"

The bread was so stale that I didn't even touch it.

At one point, I went to the bathroom, and they actually had a bathroom attendant, but he was serving out soap from a grimy soft soap container.

When dessert came I realized that ice cream can only be considered quality if it doesn't taste like something you can buy at the grocery store.

So here is my advice to Dante's: Drop the fake class, please. You are a gimmick restaurant, and your waiters and waitresses wear pirate outfits.

Drop the jazz. Come on, you need to be playing some old Irish harp music with the scenery you have going on.

And finally, drop the prices. $20 for nasty cheese and one cherry tomato? I think not.

Pricing: Moderate to high. Vegetarian selections available (just ask for extra tomatoes).

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