DINING RECAP

ROSE AND RYE

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The luxuriously styled new restaurant Rose and Rye is located in an old Atlanta home formerly known as the Castle that sits high on a hill above 15th Street.

The menus — a choice of just seven small plates, seven entrees and a list of mostly Hemingway-themed cocktails — suggest an erudite touch in the kitchen. I was impressed with a bowl of asparagus, and two seared scallops and a fried pierogi were dressed with a spoonful of pickled mustard seeds and a couple of guanciale lardons.

Oddly, I had hardly begun to eat either of those dishes when a man in a suit came by to drop off my polenta entree. “That’s a little soon, don’t you think?” I asked. He told me it would be fine. But, by the time I’d gotten around to it, the polenta had grown stiff and congealed. It could have been great if it was still warm and hadn’t been deeply oversalted.

Even the salt in the dish might not have been such a problem if it had been paired with the right glass of wine. Unfortunately, I had some trouble getting the bartender’s attention, and, even after I did, he never brought the glass of wine I ordered, or even bothered to refill the glass of water that had long ago gone empty.

It is disconcerting that the service here can be so unreliable, because the food coming out of the kitchen is much better than that.

CONTRIBUTED BY HENRI HOLLIS