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EACH TIME I VISIT a restaurant of Tom Catherall's, one word sticks in my mind: flashy. Flashy drinks. Flashy sushi. Flashy surroundings. My brain feels as if it's been forced into editing a Quentin Tarantino film.

OK, so maybe that's not a bad thing. Restaurants such as Prime and particularly Twist are designed as high-energy adult romper rooms for eating and drinking. And pretty digs and pretty people don't exactly make for a bad combination.

T. LEVETTE BAGWELL/AJC STAFF (ENLARGE)
Greek spreads (eggplant, roasted red pepper with feta, and chickpea) with grilled pizza bread.
T. LEVETTE BAGWELL/AJC STAFF (ENLARGE)
In a cool, splashy setting, diners can nosh on everything from sushi to pizzas to build-your-own-salads.
T. LEVETTE BAGWELL/AJC STAFF (ENLARGE)
The upstairs lounge has a South Beach feel.
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Shout, in Colony Square, is Catherall's newest love child. It is a ravishing picture designed by the Johnson Studio, a grand addition to his ever-growing dynasty. The alluring upstairs lounge has a South Beach feel, with cabanas decked with white leather banquettes, fluffy pillows and drapes. The outdoor area is sexily open to the elements. Inside, a fireplace is surrounded by comfortable lounge furniture and bedecked with a red-tiled pizza oven, used for the menu's pizzas and tandoori items.

Downstairs, the scene is much darker, with a roving bar that seems to go on forever and plush, red velvet banquettes set off by giant sculptures that look like sea barnacles on acid. A back room for sushi looks like a sophisticated version of the Tiki Room.

The drinks are always flowing, and the wait staff looks as good as the clientele.

And if I were visiting Shout just to drink and graze, I would pronounce it the greatest find since the Rosetta stone. However, I generally eat when I go out, and at Shout this presents a problem.

It presents a problem because the around-the-world-in-80-days menu from Ian Winslade (formerly of Bluepointe) is scattered, lacks focus and subsequently isn't executed very well.

Sure, there are tidbits on a mostly tapas-style vignette that are wonderful nibbles — most notably a trio of Greek spreads with the restaurant's chewy, yeasty pizza bread and the build-your-own salads — but the heart of the menu lacks depth. So does the flavor of most of the dishes.

There is a mini-obsession with tandoori-style Indian offerings (which one waiter called "bland-doori" to steer us away from ordering it) like tandoori chicken and fish that are covered in red tandoori spice and cooked to an almost unrecognizable texture. Moroccan spiced cornish hen tries very hard, but in the end falls flat, with the white meat of the hen cooked dry and the yellow chickpeas peppered and mixed with a curdled goat cheese that just doesn't blend in.

Coconut-poached fried chicken is weird; I'm not sure where I've seen its straight-from-the-freezer nuggets before, but I think it was among my daughter's second grade lunch offerings. The sushi, from sushi chef Jimmy Meas, is all over the place with flashy (there's that word again), deep-fried, wrapped-with-cream-cheese American-style offerings that rarely disappoint, although few could hardly be for die-hard sushi eaters.

And yet the salads are fresh and lovely, with add-ons ranging from artichoke hearts to golden raisins. Still, it sort of feels like I'm at Shoney's when I order it. Do I really have to build my own salad for $6? Of course, I get it: It's supposed to be fun — sexy even — to build your own salad. Right. Maybe if I were building it with Jude Law.

A dish of jumbo sea scallops is close to perfect, blanketed with a mild masaman curry and cubes of potatoes I could take or leave, depending on how hungry I am. The pizzas can be very good, although at times the crusts can be soggy. No one in the kitchen seems to understand that some items (let's say peppers, for example), sometimes have to be cooked or sauteed before putting them on a pizza. Most of the time, though, the pizzas possess a hardy chewiness that satisfies a hungry soul.

Desserts are not something heralded on the menu, because Shout is not the kind of place one ventures into to have a cup of coffee and a piece of pie. But a strawberry and rhubarb cobbler, while more crisplike than cobblerish, has a tasty, sweet syrup and a bit of texture from a granola-inspired topping. An attempt at s'mores winds up a plateful of mushy marshmallow drenched in chocolate syrup.

Shout, in turn, winds up being the kind of place where I want — even love — to go to have a drink, either before or after I have eaten somewhere else.

KEY TO RATINGS
Outstanding. Sets the standard for fine dining in the region.
Excellent. One of the best in the Atlanta area.
Very good. Merits a drive if you're looking for this kind of dining.
Good. A worthy addition to its neighborhood, but food may be hit or miss.
• Restaurants that do not meet these criteria may be rated Fair or Poor.