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Cheddar foam? Ranch dressing ice cream? It takes a creative soul like Richard Blais to jump-start an idle menu

RICHARD BLAIS SOUNDS very excited. Over the phone, he is explaining that his liquid nitrogen has just arrived. He plans to experiment with it freezing ice creams. Earlier, he successfully made his first batch of fried Thousand Island dressing.

JOEY IVANSCO/AJC (ENLARGE)
Squash blossoms with mascarpone cheese are one of the ways Richard Blais keeps the creative juices flowing at One Midtown Kitchen.
Joey Ivansco/Staff (ENLARGE)
Cold pea soup with bacon ice cream.
Joey Ivansco/Staff (ENLARGE)
When chef Richard Blais (below) came to One Midtown Kitchen, he injected his unique flair in dishes like the tuna carpaccio.
(ENLARGE)
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The bad boy of brunoise is back. He's taken up a new toque at One Midtown Kitchen. Let me say that again to be clear: Richard Blais is now the executive chef at One Midtown Kitchen, the Midtown bistro that practically invented glam dining in Atlanta.

Opened in 2002, it took years before the hip eatery's wait list dwindled enough to allow for a same-day reservation. Bono's in town? Find him at the bar at One, then later schmoozing with Usher in the restaurant's private room.

One's combination of clever, edgy gourmet eats and groovy intown digs had Buckhead power moms and Coke executives alike raving about goat cheese wrapped in sourdough bread and how to duplicate One's two-foot wide wheat grass hedge for their children's playrooms.

Fast forward a few years. The menu is beginning to lose its thrill, although the restaurant has remained ever-popular.

Somewhere along the way, it stopped pushing the foodie envelope, relying more on a handful of favorites, like the goat cheese and calamari fries, that were sure bets with customers and no strain on anyone's imagination to prepare.

One Midtown Kitchen became complacent. A little lazy.

Meanwhile, Blais opened his own eponymous restaurant in December of 2003. By May of 2004, it had closed. A Culinary Institute of America graduate who studied with luminaries such as Thomas Keller, Blais' odd pairings and infamous foie gras milkshake won critical acclaim but frightened the dining public.

After the restaurant's demise, he popped around to Bazzaar, then wound up in the kitchen at Two Urban Licks, One's sister and part of the growing family of restaurants owned by Bob Amick (that now includes the newly opened Piebar).

It's an odd coupling — a hip scene like One Midtown pairing with a so, so serious chef like Richard Blais. No one would bet on it working.

I wish I had laid the odds. Blais' additions to the menu at One, along with his deft tweaking of the restaurant's set-in-stone signature dishes, are a way-out-in-front winner. The food here finally gets the liftoff it needs to escape from the high-brow bar food niche the kitchen pigeonholed itself into years ago.

The truth is, Blais is one of the most gifted chefs in this city. But he needs creative boundaries. When left to his own design he can sometimes get too caught up in the craft.

It's the perfect remedy to place his electric talents into a loosely bound box of a kitchen that has a penchant for fun and lots of signature dishes nobody wants altered.

Yes, there are weird-sounding foams and bacon ice cream. The foie gras milkshake is available off the menu. But here, no one's noticing. They're too busy soaking up a cocktail and slurping back perfectly chilled oysters with a perky green tomato salsa.

Between tiny bites of perfectly fried green tomatoes offset by the cold smoothness of a ranch dressing ice cream, diners cuddle up to their drinks and murmur about how good everything tastes.

Somehow, vaporized beer and soy jellies have managed to slip under everyone's radar.

The brooding bar dishes, all signatures, are still around. The calamari, never a favorite of mine here, is still cut from giant squid into a fry shape, still chewy and a bad mix with ketchup.

The goat cheese wrapped in sourdough is as appealing as it ever was and the steak frites, chargrilled to a bloody medium rare, is perfect bistro fare with a glass of red wine and a mound of Parmesan-dusted shoe string fries.

But it's the perfectly cleaned, succulent mussels in a heady broth of vaporized beer with spicy chorizo and a bit of cilantro that should be attracting your attention. It has an earthy caldo verde flavor, only ramped up to the max.

Pay attention, also, to the fried squash blossoms with an ethereally thin and crunchy crust that burst open with mascarpone cheese, contrasting perfectly with bold flavors of lemon and chili. Tuna carpaccio, laid out in thin sheaths with wasabi and pickled ginger, mates deliciously with tiny cubes of soy jelly and rice flour crispies. And short ribs hold a smoky tenderness with a beautiful, bright red beet salad and a mustard "caviar" smear.

Blais is a little like the girl with the curl in her forehead. When he's good, he's very, very good. When he's bad, he can be horrid: rosettes of funky whipped Parmesan practically ruin a dish of fresh figs with prosciutto. And a foam of cheddar cheese seems superfluous with the otherwise nicely seared scallops, grapefruit and superb Guinness reduction. (Amick and Blais should bottle and sell the latter.)

Desserts, from Jennifer Etchison, are as sturdy as ever, and the Kit-Kat bar is still around and still a standout — rich bars of hazelnut gianduja are part cream, part crunch. An off-the-menu French toast with jelly was surprisingly special, a precious serving of buttery, brioche-like bread with a crisp crust and downy center to smear with sweet jam.

One has always been superlative at offering a boutique wine list at extremely affordable prices. The wine program here is nothing short of genius: From a list that changes daily, you can have a bottle, a glass or half-glass at a prix fixe price offered in four price tiers. Each tier also allows for a "bottomless" glass, where you can try each wine offered for a fixed price, too. It's easy to peruse and easy to choose.

The argument will always be made that popularity is never proof of quality, and nowhere is that more prevalent than in the restaurant business.

With Richard Blais firing the grill (or shaking up the can of nitrous oxide), One Midtown Kitchen has finally proved that a popular bistro actually can be as good as its street cred.

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.
Fair: The food is more miss than hit.
Restaurants that do not meet these criteria are rated Poor.

Pricing code: $$$$ means above $35; $$$ means $20-$35; $$ means $10-$20; $ means $10 or less. ® means reservations accepted.