Flying High

Planes mostly, but also trains and automobiles deliver an average of 275,000 passengers to Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport every day. They grab PowerBars and boxed salads from kiosks, hunker down for a few minutes in the food courts over fried chicken tenders and beef lo mein, or knock back a few drinks in one of the nine Delta Sky Clubs. But some of these fliers will find their way to One Flew South, by the top of the escalator on Concourse E, just past the Swarovski shop and across the atrium from the TGI Fridays. With its bottles of spirits visible through a window and its louvered wood walls, One Flew South looks like a high-end duty-free shop. It isn’t. It’s an oasis—an airport bar and restaurant like nothing else on earth.

I’ve been going to One Flew South since its opening party in December 2008, an affair I remember being replete with dignitaries and duck sliders in equal measure. An escort led us partygoers en masse from the main terminal to the restaurant, where the airport’s CEO and tall, dapper Delta suits stood with hands outstretched. I drank excellent cocktails and kept my eyes peeled for the hors d’oeuvre trays, not realizing that we’d all be sitting down for a full meal. As the chief food writer for the , I was getting all the principals paraded in front of me. Terry Harps of Global Concessions and