Eating With Erica Supper Club: An Evening with Chef Kevin Gillespie at Nàdair Atlanta

For our Season Two finale, the Eating With Erica Supper Club dined at Nàdair — Chef Kevin Gillespie’s Morningside restaurant and one of the most decorated tables in Atlanta. Named on the New York Times list of the 50 Best Restaurants in America in 2024 and recognized by Slow Food with its Snail of Approval, Nàdair is the kind of restaurant that reminds you what dining at its best actually feels like: unhurried, deeply considered, and rooted in something real.

ABOUT THE VENUE: NÀDAIR ATLANTA

Nàdair sits at 1123 Zonolite Road in Atlanta’s Morningside neighborhood, and the experience begins before you ever step inside. The brass Gillespie clan crest mounted beside the entrance door is the first signal — this restaurant was not designed around a trend. It was built around a person, a family heritage, and a deeply held philosophy about where food comes from and why it matters.

Chef Kevin Gillespie is one of Atlanta’s most celebrated culinary figures — a Top Chef fan favorite, a 2022 James Beard Award finalist, and a chef who has spent nearly three decades championing Southern farmers, local purveyors, and ingredient-driven cooking. At Nàdair, that commitment finds its fullest expression. The name means “way of nature” in Scottish Gaelic, and the menu reflects both sides of Gillespie’s identity: his Scottish roots and his deeply Southern sensibility, united by a reverence for what grows close to home. The restaurant earned a coveted spot on the New York Times list of the 50 Best Restaurants in America in 2024, holds a place in the Michelin Guide Atlanta, and in 2024 its sommelier Ashleigh McFadden was awarded the Michelin Sommelier Award — a distinction that speaks to the intentionality running through every aspect of this restaurant, not just what arrives on the plate.

Step inside and the room tells the rest of the story. Tartan plaid carpet runs wall to wall. Tartan curtains frame the doorways. Cognac leather banquettes with tartan upholstery line the walls alongside black Windsor chairs and floor-length black tablecloths. Small landscape paintings — Scottish countryside, you imagine — hang quietly on the deep teal paneled walls. The bar is a destination in itself: dark walnut shelving stacked floor to ceiling with one of the most serious whisky collections you will find in Atlanta, antlers and a mounted pheasant presiding over it all from above. And through the large industrial windows and floor-to-ceiling glass doors, Zonolite Park’s greenery presses so close you feel held by it rather than separated from it. Every element of this room was chosen. Nothing is accidental. That is the point.

SETTING THE SCENE: THE TABLESCAPE

For this dinner, I wanted the tablescape to feel like a conversation with the room — not compete with it. Nàdair’s interior already speaks in deep, considered tones: teal paneled walls, warm walnut wood, cognac leather, candlelight. The goal was to bring something that felt equally intentional, equally layered, and rooted in the season we were in.

Working with our in-house florist Ali of Lunaria Events, we built multiple arrangements in amber and bronze compote vessels that ran the full length of the table. The florals were the centerpiece in every sense — peach and ivory garden roses, blush ranunculus, deep burgundy scabiosa, rust and red orchids, dried strawflowers, white skeleton ferns, and delicate dried branches that reached upward as if still growing. Against the deep teal wall, the warm amber and rust tones of the arrangements glowed. It was autumnal without being obvious about it.

At each setting: Lenox china in navy and gold resting on gold charger plates, deep cobalt blue glassware, gold mercury votive candles, and deep crimson napkins folded at each place. The bare walnut table anchored everything — no linens, letting the wood’s warmth do the work beneath all that color and texture. The menu card, embossed with the Nàdair clan crest and sealed with a gold KG wax seal, completed each setting. Guests picked it up before they sat down. That detail alone set the tone for the evening.

The tablescape I create for each Supper Club dinner is never decorative for its own sake. It is the first conversation of the evening — the one that tells guests, before a single word is spoken, that they are somewhere intentional tonight. At Nàdair, that felt especially true.

SHOP THE TABLESCAPE

[ShopMy/affiliate widget for Lenox china, gold chargers, cobalt blue glassware, gold mercury votives — tag @lunaria_events]

THE MENU: WHAT WE ATE

The menu Chef Gillespie prepared for our evening was a masterclass in his culinary identity — Southern ingredients translated through a Scottish lens, with the kind of technique that only reveals itself in the eating.

We began with an amuse of Cheese and Onion Tart with smoked feta and pickled onion cream — a single composed bite that immediately told you where the evening was headed. Precise. Confident. Deeply flavored.

The starters were where the menu showed its full range. The Salad of Local Heirloom Tomatoes arrived plated on the Lenox navy china like a still life: compressed cantaloupe, fried okra, smoked fromage blanc, saffron, and celery salt. The colors alone — scarlet, gold, green, ivory — were worth pausing over before you touched it. The Ragout of Local Beans and Sweet Corn came with wood grilled pancetta stesa, dried corn mousse, and cornbread crunch — Georgia’s harvest elevated without apology. The Scottish Style Cheese Dumplings, served with chili braised collards, smoked tomatillos, and a grilled onion and huitlacoche suiza, were the most quietly surprising dish of the starters — Scotland and the South completing each other’s sentences in a single bite.

For the main course, the Pan Fried Rainbow Trout was the dish that stayed with me. A long golden fillet crusted in fried peanut crumb, laid over local arugula and kale with young ginger and brown butter jus — precise and deeply comforting at the same time. The Peach Lacquered Duck with curried butternut squash, wood oven roasted cabbage, charred peach jam, and pecan dukkah spoke directly to Georgia’s larder in the language of someone who has spent thirty years listening to it. And the Vegetarian Haggis Pie — grilled heirloom potato salad, caramelized turnip cream, crispy onions — was a love letter to Scottish tradition reimagined entirely through vegetables, and one of the most talked-about dishes at the table.

The wine program deserves its own mention. Ashleigh McFadden — Nàdair’s Michelin Sommelier Award winner — curated the pairings with the same intentionality she brings to everything she pours. Ashleigh had just returned from Pinot Camp, an immersive education experience for serious wine professionals, and that energy was palpable in her selections. Her focus that evening was American wine, and she chose beautifully: Talley Vineyards from Napa and Willamette Valley producers from Oregon anchored the pairings. American wines are a point of pride at Nàdair, and in Ashleigh’s hands they felt like the only possible choice for a menu this rooted in American soil and Southern character.

Dessert brought the evening home. The Georgia Peach Melba — peach sorbet, crème anglaise, frozen shortbread, bramble fruit sauce — was a perfect Georgia-meets-Scotland closing note. But it was Grandma Coylene’s Banoffee Pie that landed hardest. Salted biscuit crust, coffee butterscotch, fresh bananas, crème de banane, smoked chocolate — and named for Chef Gillespie’s grandmother. In a menu already full of thoughtful touches, that one felt deeply personal. You tasted the intention in every component, and you understood, by the time you set your fork down, that this is a chef who has never stopped cooking for the people who matter most to him.

THE KEVIN GILLESPIE MOMENT

The kitchen photographs tell you everything you need to know about who he is. In one, he stands at the pass under the heat lamps, completely still, reading a ticket while a full row of plated heirloom tomato starters lines up in front of him — focused with the kind of quiet intensity that only comes from decades of service. In the other, he is bent over the pass with tweezers, finishing each plate himself, component by component. This is not a man who has handed his kitchen off. He is in it. Every single service.

What the photographs captured — and what I want you to understand — is that Kevin Gillespie showed up for this evening fully. Not as a celebrity chef making an appearance, but as a chef at his station doing the work.

Before guests arrived, Kevin walked me through the menu personally — the sourcing decisions, the story behind each dish, the farmers and purveyors whose names belong alongside his on that menu card. Standing beside him in that teal-walled dining room, reviewing the evening together while the tablescape came to life around us, I was struck by how completely he inhabits this restaurant. Nàdair is not a concept he handed off. It is a place he tends.

That is what thirty years of cooking in Atlanta looks like when it finds its fullest expression. Kevin Gillespie has earned every accolade attached to his name — the Top Chef recognition, the James Beard nominations, the New York Times placement, the Michelin Guide listing — but none of it has made him precious about the work. He is still the chef finishing each plate himself. He is still cooking from a place of genuine curiosity and deep personal history.

For the Eating With Erica Supper Club, an evening with a chef of Kevin’s caliber and character is exactly what this community was built for. We do not gather simply to dine. We gather to be in the presence of people doing meaningful, intentional work — and to let that work remind us what it looks like to show up fully for the people at your table. Kevin Gillespie does that. Every single service.

Hosting Tip

Whether you’re dining out or hosting at home, always know the story behind what’s on the table. At a restaurant, connect with the chef or their team ahead of time — ask about the menu, the sourcing, the inspiration behind each dish. At home, be intentional about your menu. Every dish should have a reason for being there — a season, a memory, a moment you want to create. When a host understands the meal, guests feel it. The difference between a dinner and an experience is knowing what makes it worth remembering — and being able to share that with the people at your table.

Here is why it matters:

Guests don’t remember every bite, but they remember how a meal made them feel. When you understand what you’re serving and why, that intention translates to the table. Guests sense the thought behind it. The conversation goes deeper. The evening becomes something worth talking about long after the plates are cleared. That is the difference between a dinner and an experience — and it starts before anyone sits down.

Context is hospitality. Food tasted with the story behind it is food that is remembered long after the evening ends. That is the difference between a dinner out and a dinner that stays with you — and it is a standard I bring to every table the Eating With Erica Supper Club gathers around.

SHOP WHAT I’M WEARING

For this evening I wore a powder blue coordinating set from Tuckernuck — structured enough for the occasion, effortless enough to move through an evening comfortably. It is the kind of piece that works for dinners that require you to be both polished and present.

[ShopMy link]

THE MOMENT THAT LINGERED

Look at the full table mid-dinner — every seat filled, globe pendants glowing overhead, women leaning toward one another across the florals and candlelight, deep in the kind of conversation that only happens when a room feels safe enough for it. Glasses raised in a toast, not for the camera, but for each other.

This is what the Eating With Erica Supper Club is built to create. Not just a beautiful evening, though it was that. Not just an extraordinary meal, though it was that too. But the specific conditions under which women allow themselves to be fully present with one another — unhurried, unguarded, and genuinely connected.

Chef Kevin Gillespie built Nàdair around heritage, intention, and the belief that food is most meaningful when it carries a story. Every dish on that menu — from the heirloom tomatoes sourced from Georgia farms to Grandma Coylene’s Banoffee Pie — was an extension of that belief. The Eating With Erica Supper Club gathers for exactly the same reason. On this evening, at this table, those two philosophies met — and what happened between the first course and the last was something no accolade can quite capture.

Some evenings you attend. This one you felt.

PHOTO GALLERY

[Full gallery block — insert all event photos here]

ABOUT THE EATING WITH ERICA SUPPER CLUB

The Eating With Erica Supper Club is an invitation-only women’s dining and lifestyle community built around intentional gathering. Our monthly experiences span chef-led restaurant dinners, cultural evenings, and curated gatherings — including our beloved Mahjong nights — each designed with the same attention to detail: thoughtful venues, beautiful tablescapes, and women who show up fully for one another.

Founding membership opens September 1, 2026.

[CTA Button: LEARN MORE ABOUT THE SUPPER CLUB — link to eatingwitherica.com/supper-club/]

READ NOW, SAVE LATER

[Pinterest graphic — insert here]

MORE FROM THE TABLE

• An Evening at Little Sparrow Atlanta with Glennda Baker

• EWE Supper Club at Bacchanalia: A Michelin-Starred Evening

• The Art of Hosting: Inside Our Mediterranean Supper Club at Kitty Dare

CREDITS

Tableware: @lenox

Florals: @lunaria_events

Gifts: @shoptrask