THE FIRST TIME I interviewed Emeril Lagasse, it was 1993. His first cookbook, "Emeril's New New Orleans Cooking" (William Morrow & Co., 1993, $27) had just been released. I was a budding freelancer working on a story about game meats and my editor told me that this "guy from New Orleans" (which Lagasse isn't — he's actually from Fall River, Mass.) was going to take the food world by storm. My editor wanted to be in on the ground floor and I — with my riveting story about venison — was supposed to get him there.

For his part, Lagasse is still perhaps the most personable and funny person (aside from maybe Calvin Trillin) I have ever had the privilege of interviewing. Schlepping his first book around the back roads of Louisiana, he called me by cell (a rarity at the time) and kept calling me back whenever we lost the connection, which was about every three minutes. "I'll always call you back, Meridith," he kept saying in that unmistakable accent.

Becky Stein/SPECIAL (ENLARGE)
Banana cream pie is one of the menu's highlights, but many items don't quite live up to Emeril Lagasse's reputation.
Becky Stein/SPECIAL (ENLARGE)
Emeril Lagasse's name is on the door, but the celebrity chef isn't in the kitchen whipping up such dishes as the Georgia trout with crab and lemon caper sauce (above) or the shrimp and grits (below).
Becky Stein/SPECIAL (ENLARGE)
Becky Stein/SPECIAL (ENLARGE)
There's plenty about Emeril's décor that's bold and over the top, including the chandelier off the bar.
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Other than Julia Child, he is our first celebrity chef. And before the cookbooks, the TV show, the DVDs, the sitcoms and the sponsorships, he was a very good cook. He made a name for himself at his restaurants Emeril's and NOLA in New Orleans by throwing a penchant for experimentation and wild flavor combinations into the much-loved cuisines of the Crescent City: Creole and Cajun.

The problem with Emeril's Atlanta is that his name is on the door, but he's not cooking in the kitchen. Indeed, other than a portrait of him over the bar, his huge persona is sorely missing — from the food, the décor, the ambience. The only thing truly Emeril about Emeril's is the staff, which scurries and stoops to bring you whatever you could possibly want. They don't always succeed — sometimes the kitchen is slow, or a food term is mispronounced — but they try, believe me, they try.

This is a cookie cutter of a restaurant; it's gone through three chefs — excuse me, chef de cuisines, since, after all, Emeril is the chef — and at least two management changes since opening in 2003. That kind of shuffling around shows. The menu feels more like a feast of movable parts than a moveable feast. It's pricey — the dining room just introduced a new line of coffees from Café Richard that cost between $5.50 and $12 a cup (the $12 is for single-source Jamaican Blue Mountain, which is nowhere near that expensive elsewhere). The least expensive menu entrees are $24 (chicken and salmon).

None of this would bother me if I felt the expense was justified, but so much of what comes from the kitchen is lackluster at best; pedestrian, ill-sourced and poorly executed at worst. The best time to go is at lunch, when the feisty shrimp and grits are at their hottest and the banana cream pie and bread pudding (the two best items on the menu) are at their freshest.

There are a few timid lights shining in this otherwise dull corporate world of dining by committee. Cheese selections are interesting and varied, and a good way to start a meal here — from soft Italian robiola to the caramel crustiness of reypenaer. Andouille sausage is robust with juice and flavor, served with slightly sweet greens and braised onions as well as a hearty grain mustard. Trout, as an entree, is nicely sautéed and paired with a caper and lemon sauce, but is overburdened with an over-the-top portion of bland crab.

And smoked mushrooms taste like the smoke came from a bottle, not the barbecue, and are overpowered with salt. An andouille-encrusted redfish (how does redfish get "encrusted" with andouille?) is downright inedible — a big mess of weirdness smothered in seasonings that completely overpower the taste of the fish in a mound of shoestring potato fries.

Too many of the dishes — the beef tenderloin with potatoes and the double cut pork chop, for instance — have "conventioneer's favorite" stamped all over them, and need a time portal to transport them to this decade.

Everything — from the 200-bottle circular, glass wine cellar to the bottles of olive oil-colored green goo drooping from the chandeliers (the waiter told us it's actually Dawn dishwashing liquid) to the giant woven wood paneling — is over the top.

It's big and bold, but there's no bam.