So. Fox earns Virginia-Highland's first Michelin star
Chef Myles Moody and sommelier Rachael Pack wrote the business plan nine years ago in New York; three months after opening, Atlanta's Michelin inspectors came knocking.
So. Fox, a three-month-old restaurant in Atlanta's Virginia-Highland, has earned the neighbourhood's first Michelin star, recognising chef Myles Moody's Southern-rooted menu and his wife Rachael Pack's wine list.
The star arrived on 21 October, one of the fastest turnarounds in this year's Michelin Guide American South selection, which now runs to 266 restaurants across 44 cuisine types. Moody said the couple were "over the moon" when the call came.
A plan nine years in the making
We were over the moon.
Moody and Pack met while working at Aska, the two-Michelin-star restaurant in New York, and wrote So. Fox's business plan nine years ago, while still living in the city. It took that long to bring the project home to Moody's native Atlanta.
The restaurant sits on the corner of Virginia and North Highland Avenues, next to Kinship Butcher and Sundry, the butcher shop the couple opened in 2021. Its many windows open the dining room onto the street, giving diners a clear view of the neighbourhood around them.
Pack, a self-taught sommelier, runs the wine programme herself. Moody's seasonal menu is rooted in Southern cooking, built around the ingredients the couple already source for the butcher shop next door, a link between the two businesses that shapes what reaches the plate.
A quiet corner of Atlanta's dining map
Virginia-Highland is better known for bars and brunch spots than fine dining. Resident Sydney Droze called the neighbourhood "relatively small" for serious restaurants and said she hoped the star would draw more.
So. Fox becomes the latest marker of a city whose Michelin presence keeps spreading past its downtown core; nearby, chef Gary Caldwell recently took over the kitchen at One Flew South, another Atlanta address pushing past old boundaries.
A star three months after opening is rare anywhere; inspectors typically wait for a kitchen to settle before they call. For Moody and Pack, it arrives just as the restaurant finds its footing, barely through its first season of service. What changes next, for the kitchen and for the queue at the door, is what Virginia-Highland will be watching.
