The Seafood Tower arrives the way Mastro’s has always sent it out: oysters, Dungeness crab, shrimp and lobster stacked over ice, finished in a swirl of dry ice fog that spills across the table. As of Friday, November 6, that arrival happens in downtown Atlanta. Mastro’s Ocean Club has opened at The CTR, the landmark long known as the CNN Center, at 190 Marietta Street NW, Suite 200. It is the first Mastro’s in Georgia.
The Social Register previewed the room on Thursday night, the evening before the opening, at an exclusive dinner that drew a VIP crowd including Real Housewives of Atlanta stars NeNe Leakes and Kenya Moore, and Married to Medicine star Lisa Nicole Cloud. During the preview we spoke with general manager Brandon Marshall, a real talent in hospitality, whose vision for the restaurant is plain: make Mastro’s number one in Atlanta. The address alone tells half the story. The restaurant sits steps from Mercedes-Benz Stadium, State Farm Arena and Centennial Olympic Park, inside one of the largest redevelopment projects downtown has going. Mastro’s is betting that the crowds those buildings draw, and the business dinners that follow them, want a steakhouse with live music and a martini that arrives ice-cold.
The kitchen belongs to Chef Richard Lee, an Atlanta chef cooking in his own city. His menu runs the Mastro’s canon: USDA Prime steaks, certified A5 Kobe and Wagyu beef, Chilean sea bass, bigeye tuna and branzino. The sides are the ones regulars cross state lines for, lobster mashed potatoes and white cheddar lobster mac and cheese among them, and the warm butter cake with vanilla bean ice cream closes the menu the way it closes every Mastro’s meal.
Two dishes belong to Atlanta alone. Lee’s jerk-spiced grouper comes with a mango butter sauce, and dessert adds a warm pecan pie beside the butter cake, the key lime pie and the chocolate sin cake. Lee is proudest of the beef. “Our WinterFrost American Wagyu is something special, and it sits alongside the classics Mastro’s guests love, from the Seafood Tower to the Butter Cake,” he said.
The wine cellar holds more than 3,000 bottles, built by Wine Director John Balian from Napa, Bordeaux, Burgundy and beyond. Mastro’s wine programs have drawn Wine Spectator recognition at every established location the brand runs, and Atlanta’s collection is not hidden in a back room: wine displays are built into the dining room walls and the private dining rooms, part of an interior of rich woods, natural stone and bronze accents under soft light. At the bar, which opens daily at 4 p.m., the martinis are the signature, poured ice-cold alongside a list of handcrafted cocktails.
Pianists and vocalists play nightly, and the room is arranged for both kinds of evening: booths and banquettes for a quiet dinner for two, larger tables for the celebration crowd. Three private dining rooms, each with fireplaces, chandeliers, wine walls and views over downtown, take groups as small as 15 and as large as 84 seated, or 100 standing for a cocktail reception.
Dinner runs Sunday and Monday from 5 to 9 p.m. and Tuesday through Saturday from 5 to 10 p.m. “Downtown Atlanta is entering an exciting new chapter, and we’re proud to open our first Georgia location at its center,” said Mark Levy, president of Mastro’s Restaurants. Lee put the same point more personally: “Cooking in my own city, in a building that means so much to Atlanta, makes this opening personal for me.”
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