Ela, Fifth Group’s Newest Restaurant, Brings More Mediterranean to Virginia-Highland
Fifth Group Restaurants has opened Ela, a Mediterranean restaurant in The Original El Taco’s former space at 1186 North Highland Avenue NE. Ela’s menu focuses on mezze and communal entrees, incorporating ingredients and techniques found throughout the Mediterranean and Middle East.
“The spirit of this is that you can throw a couple of appetizers on the table, get some dips, leave the sauces on the table, skewers come. If you want, you can have it on a pita or a salad,”
Ela’s name is a combination of “elia,” the Greek word for olive, and “ela,” a common Greek salutation that means “to come.” For example, it’s often used to answer phone calls. It’s a change from The Original El Taco, a longtime hub for neighborhood families. The restaurant’s interior lends itself more to romantic dinners or casual evenings without the kids than its predecessor, dotted with globed lighting and wicker pendants.
After 13 years of El Taco, the restaurant group felt it was time to do something new and exciting, Fifth Group culinary VP Mark Jeffers says. Most importantly, they wanted to create a restaurant that the neighborhood would love.
“We wanted to do a place that’s a bit more lively. Someplace you’d wanna go hang out for brunch, someplace you’d’ wanna get not just dinner, but drinks, and then share some small plates,” he says. “I love Middle Eastern [and] Mediterranean food, and there’s not one [cuisine] that I’ve got my heart set on… We started toying with this idea of coming up with this concept that drew a little bit of inspiration from that whole area.”
The beverage menu consists of a small selection of natural wines from around the Mediterranean region. While there’s a focus on Greek and Italian wines, you’ll also see bottles from as far east as Lebanon and Turkey and as far west as Portugal. Jeffers also worked with Fifth Group beverage director Ian Mendelsohn to create a cocktail program that reflected Mediterranean staples, especially their spice profiles. Several of the wines and cocktails are available on tap.
Jeffers says Fifth Group wants the dining experience to feel communal, casual, and approachable, hence the dedication to mezze, dips, house-made pita, and larger, grilled entrees. There’s also an emphasis on customization.
Take the hummus, for example, which comes with three topping options: sweet and sour tamarind eggplant, earthy chermoula and mushroom, and classic with crispy chickpeas. Ela also offers a suite of sauces to add a choose-your-own-adventure feel to the entrees.
“If you have just one sauce, it’s gonna be a linear experience,” Jeffers says. “But if you’ve got this canvas of this great harissa chicken, and you can try [it] with a cooling, creamy sauce, and you try it in almost like a chile-garlic crunch type sauce, you can have a completely different experience with the same meal. In this format, even if you get one entree, you get to try it with a bunch of different flavor profiles.”
A few of the dishes, such as the cauliflower falafel, lamb kofta burger, and Mythos-battered cod, apply that same playful approach, using familiar ingredients as vehicles for introducing bright and unfamiliar flavors. The Moroccan “hot chicken,” an homage to The Original El Taco’s fried chicken, introduces a fried chicken thigh to red chermoula, ras el hanout, a house spice wing sauce, and diced, green pickled tomato.
The stars of the show, Jeffers says, are the skewers: think harissa chicken, lamb sirloin, mushroom shawarma, chili-garlic shrimp, and tamarind-date pork sausage with a texture like “the interior of a dumpling” — soft, squishy, savory, and almost lightly sweet. These skewers are available as a platter, with a pita, on a salad, or as a fork-and-knife set with couscous.
For dessert, choose from a sweet-tart Greek frozen yogurt with honey and crumbled baklava, or Greek doughnuts that Jeffers likens to beignets stuffed with cardamom custard and topped with cinnamon sugar.
“The spirit of this is that you can throw a couple of appetizers on the table, get some dips, leave the sauces on the table, skewers come. If you want, you can have it on a pita or a salad,” Jeffers says.
Take a look at Ela’s beverage and dinner menus below. Ela will offer brunch starting Saturday, March 2.
Ela is located at 1186 North Highland Avenue NE, Atlanta, GA 30306, and is open Monday through Thursday from 5 to 10 p.m., Friday and Saturday from 5 to 11 p.m., and Sunday from 5 to 9 p.m. Its happy hours are Monday through Friday from 4 to 6 p.m., and Saturday to Sunday from 3 to 5 p.m.
