Food for Thought: Bringing books and wine to Buckhead

By Kevin C. Madigan

Lucian Books and Wine, a wine bar and bookshop that also serves food, is open in Buckhead’s new Modera apartment building at 3005 Peachtree Road.

Pratt Institute graduate Katie Barringer, formerly of Cover Books in the Westside, and sommelier Jordan Smelt, Cake & Ale’s former wine and beverage director, are the owners. The place is inspired by British artist Lucian Freud and reflects their own “fervent interests.”

Smelt said the shop has in the neighborhood of 250 bottles of wine, including chardonnay from the premier regions of the world right alongside “something unexpected from Patagonia or South Africa or Australia.”

While the list is dominated by European regions, there are plenty of things from the States, and all with organic farming as a baseline, Smelt said.

“A rotating list of by-the-glass options completely turns over every two months,” he said. “There are grape-based spirits such as Brandy, Cognac, Armagnac – things that are meant to be sipped on after dinner as opposed to a full-on mixology program, and an abbreviated aperitif menu that’s very simple and clean.”

Chef Brian Hendrickson, an alum of Cakes & Ale, is in charge of the kitchen and has introduced Mediterranean influences. “There’s a daytime menu from 11 a.m. until 4 p.m. – light snacks that pair well with wine, so you can have a glass while you browse in the bookstore, and you can piece together a light lunch out of that as well,” Smelt said. “We do have plans for a lunch program but that will probably not come until fall. Our dinner menu will begin at 4 p.m.”

Berringer said a small concise menu ranging from elevated bar snacks to full-size composed dinner entrees was designed to meet the needs of a variety of customers.

“ We’re trying to think of the different experiences that people may come to Lucian for,” she said. “It could be a glass of wine, it could be a group of friends, it could be a dinner, so we’re trying to provide a food menu with options for all of those scenarios –a range of size and composition.”

Smelt said that was part of the reasoning behind starting dinner service at 4p.m. “You have options from popping in for an early glass or two of wine, or a snack, to a full-on dinner.”

Berringer is doing a mixture of known with unknown for the wine list, but also a lot of small production wines that people may not recognize, but “hopefully will come to love as much as we do,” Smelt said.

As for the bookstore, Berringer said nonfiction with a strong emphasis on art architecture, design and photography are what booklovers will find. “There’s also a collection of cookbooks and wine and cocktail-related books, with a balance of classic, recognizable names as well as small production artist books that you’ve never seen before, and everything in between,” Berringer said. “There is also a a small selection of magazines with a focus on international titles on similar subjects.”