Chef Ford Fry Tuesday announced his new restaurant Little Sparrow will take over the JCT Kitchen and Bar space in the Westside Provisions District. Fry announced at the end of 2021 that JCT would close and that a new concept would open in its place, but at the time, details surrounding the incoming restaurant had not been disclosed.
Little Sparrow will be a casual everyday experience inspired by old Brooklyn taverns and European cafés and bistros — “a place for guests to indulge or just grab a perfect medium-rare burger and fries,” according to a press release. The neighborhood restaurant vibes will be “confident yet humble and classic, free from pretense, yet elegant and refined.”
Additionally, Bar Blanc will be the new bar and steak friterie located above Little Sparrow. The two new concepts are slated to open in fall 2022.
“We want to go eat where we know we will feel good — a place with a clean environment, and food that just works,” Fry said. “This space has always and will always cry out for an everyday go-to restaurant, so that is still our foundation, yet, on an ever so slightly more luxurious level. We have always been about providing a place where guests can enjoy each other and some great food and I don’t think there is a more perfect time for something fresh, noteworthy, and experience driven.”
Reflecting a classic brasserie aesthetic, Little Sparrow is designed to emulate one’s most romantic memory of a historic bistro on a quaint Parisian street. “Little Sparrow glows the way cafes in Paris glow,” according to the release. “Open the front door and you can expect to hear the sounds of clinking barware and hushed conversations.”
Little Sparrow is located across the bridge from one of Ford’s other concepts, Marcel, which is named for Marcel Cerdan, a French boxer from the 1940s. Following the same era, Little Sparrow is the nickname of captivating and celebrated singer Edith Piaf, who was also Cerdan’s lover. While Marcel is all about indulgence and luxury, Little Sparrow is designed to be a more casual, everyday experience. The design features historic touches of leather, marble, zinc and steel — materials that have been used for centuries.
Located just above Little Sparrow will be Bar Blanc, featuring a moody, warm and glowing inside offering focused French-forward menu of steak and frites, in a lush and unapologetically historic setting. Bar Blanc will be first-come, first-serve, guided by a host and executed by servers and assistants to control the experience. The bar itself is vintage and reclaimed from an early 1900’s Belgian place. With only 35 interior and 50-60 exterior seats, the bar will have an additional lounge to enjoy cocktails while waiting to be seated.
“We dreamt this place was the home of the iconic Harry Craddock, the most famous European bartender of the 1930’s, known for his long tenure at the savoy hotel in London and for his 1930’s book, ‘The Savoy Cocktail,’” Smith Hanes, founder of Smith Hanes Studio and designer of Little Sparrow and Bar Blanc, said. “You come here to see, and to be seen. You come for the kind of drink that’s the envy of every other bar in town. You come for a quality of food so high and a chef so confident that the menu is less than a half-page long.”
Little Sparrow and Bar Blanc will open later this fall and will be located at 1198 Howell Mill Rd #18, Atlanta, GA 30318. Little Sparrow will be open for dinner nightly and Bar Blanc will be open Tuesday through Saturday.
