By Michael E. Kanell, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution – Early on a Wednesday evening, about half the 77 seats at Bacchanalia restaurant are occupied, the upbeat chatter filling the room. Servers alternately scurry and hover, listening, bantering, pouring, fetching, delivering.

At the bar, a customer polishes off some bread and considers another slice. Before he can ask, a server places it before him.

“In our restaurant, it is mostly about service,” says co-owner and chef Anne Quatrano.

That service — and its food — have earned the westside restaurant either the city’s top rating or a tie for more than a dozen years from the esteemed Zagat Survey dining guide. And while Bacchanalia and some of its Atlanta fine-dining peers — Nikolai’s Roof, Park 75, Craft and Aria — still thrive, others have been disappearing.

The Dining Room at the Ritz-Carlton Buckhead has closed. So have Seeger’s and Joel Brasserie. In the past few months, Repast and Taurus also checked out.

The demise of each has its own particular story, of course. But there are bigger forces threatening the city’s high-end cuisine scene. Changes in Atlanta’s tastes and eating habits. Investors unwilling to gamble in a costly business. And there has also been — perhaps you’ve heard? — a nasty recession.

It’s a combination of factors that some say could change the notion of fine dining altogether.

A healthy high-end means a constant interest among restaurant-goers. It means a steady influx of talented restaurant staff. It means suppliers will have the fixings and goods that restaurants like Bacchanalia need — at a reasonable price.

“It makes me nervous,” Quatrano said. “I hope there will be more fine-dining restaurants that open.”

A fatal combination

While there is no formal definition, typically fine dining is considered to start with meals that crest above $50 a customer — about half of the average check at Bacchanalia.

“There is no specific number but in general, people know what fine dining is,” said Bret Thorn, food editor at Nation’s Restaurant News. “A place where people go for special occasions. A place where people go for birthdays.”

Comparatively speaking, Atlanta fine dining is a bargain.

Among the 20 most expensive restaurants in Atlanta, the average check is $66.30, according to the Zagat Survey. That compares to $72.06 in Seattle, $153.77 in New York City and a national average of $76.74.

Even so, fine dining represents less than 8 percent of restaurant spending, and the higher tabs haven’t kept those restaurants from struggling with the bottom line. Costs tend to be higher: The price of better ingredients, the cost of better-trained staff. And the need to hire more of them.

Higher costs plus recession is a fatal combination for many restaurants, said Thorn.

“People eat out at fine-dining restaurants with their disposable income, and with people losing jobs and taking pay cuts, people’s disposable income is down. That is especially true at the high end.”?

Business built on hope

Clark Wolf, a New York- and California-based food and restaurant consultant, says that in this unsettling economy, the way people spend has changed.

“We wanted crystal and linen because it was a replication of what we remembered at home or what we longed for at home. But look at the Ritz Buckhead — we don’t eat like that anymore, right?

“In this economy, in this time, we want something that feels real and authentic. Upscale places that aren’t really, really good suffer first.”

This mix of cultural and economic forces hits the high-end harder than other restaurants, said Darren Tristano, executive vice president at Technomic, a Chicago-based food industry and restaurant consulting firm. “The higher the average check, the worse the performance has been.”

At the high end, the business also depends on business people who are traveling or just using the restaurant to schmooze clients. And recession has killed many a company expense account.

That part of the business has improved only slightly, said Linton Hopkins, chef and owner of Atlanta’s Restaurant Eugene. “The good news has been that the majority of our business — maybe 75 percent of our business — is in the three ZIP codes surrounding us.”

He hopes that his 6-year-old restaurant has weathered the worst of the storm by appealing to area consumers and cultivating regulars. But even in the best economy, it’s a business built on hope.

“I don’t think you can be in the restaurant business without being optimistic,” he said. “Really, you just open your doors and you hope people come. It can be very scary that way.”

Not dead, but different

Going forward, fine dining will have a different definition, predicts Tim Zagat, CEO and publisher of the Zagat Survey. The newer generation of consumers simply wants to spend less on a meal and feel more comfortable doing it, he said.

“Ten years ago,” he said, “you would never have gone to a serious place without a coat and tie. Now, there isn’t a restaurant in New York City that requires a tie.”

Joe Truex has witnessed that transition. He was chef and co-owner at Repast in the Old Fourth Ward, which he and his wife closed in June after months of seeing fewer customers spending less on average each visit. Costs were not declining.

“You’ve got to spend so much on glassware, plateware, fine linens, before you even open your doors,” he said. “And the biggest cost is going to be labor. The margins are small even in the best of times.”

At Repast, checks averaged roughly $55 or $60 a person. Now, Truex is executive chef and partner at Watershed in Decatur, a spot a bit less expensive than Repast, a bit more informal, he said.

Fine dining is not dead, just different, he said. “You can succeed, but not like you used to. It really depends on location. I just think the business that we’ve known is gone.”

A survivor’s strategy

At Bacchanalia, Quatrano does not claim a secret to success. Instead, she says the restaurant is the city’s flagship in the high end partly because she and her partner Clifford Harrison do not depend solely on it — and they answer to no one else.

“That is where our situation is different,” she said. “We make no money and we don’t have investors — that is a huge point.”

Attached to Bacchanalia is Star Provisions, a retail store that sells meat, cheese, bread, pastries and cookware. Across a footbridge is Abattoir, their “meatcentric” restaurant where entrees top out at $30 a plate. Across town is the Floataway Café, upscale but more modestly priced.

“We don’t make our money here,” Quatrano said. “Clifford and I take our salaries from the other two restaurants, plow whatever money we make here back into the business. It works for us. It may not work for everybody.”

Even so, she says she constantly looks for ways to snip costs, always shopping for bargains.

And as the downturn deepened, they began closing Bacchanalia on Monday nights in the summer. The work force, meanwhile, has shrunk by about 20 percent.

‘I don’t want to be alone’

In the thick, hot air outside Bacchanalia Wednesday evening, the parking lot was full.

So were the tables across the way at Taqueria del Sol, which advertises dinner specials for less than $10. Nearby was Osteria del Figo, where a main course can be had for half that.

Both had lines of customers waiting to get inside.

Meanwhile, inside Bacchanalia, Bordeaux flowed, glasses clinked and a server described one offering from the kitchen as “a labor of love.”

Through the six large windows behind the bar, a virtual platoon of white-shirted, aproned staffers were visible shifting and swaying, methodically moving to Quatrano’s commands.

This is the way it is done in fine dining, she said. “We need healthy competition in fine dining,” Quatrano said. “I want the scene to be vibrant and I don’t want to be alone in this.”

How we got the story

After the recent closings of some of Atlanta’s top restaurants, the AJC set out to see what impact the economy was having on the city’s fine-dining scene. Reporter Michael Kanell, with an assist from AJC food writer John Kessler, spoke to chefs and owners at high-end eateries, including some that had closed, as well as some nationally known restaurant experts.