The first thing you notice at Luella is that no one seems to be in a hurry. Not the bartender working the circular marble bar at the center of the lounge. Not the tables lingering over a second bottle of wine. Not the room itself, which pulls you in slowly—table lamps casting everything in warm gold light, deep lipstick-red upholstery, arched mirrors multiplying the candlelight.
That feeling of time slowing down is entirely intentional. “I love a two-and-a-half to three-hour experience. I don’t like to feel rushed,” says Jamey Shirah, CEO of Revival Restaurant Group, which opened Luella at 3717 Roswell Road earlier this year.
“I like the phone to go away, the wine to come out, the conversation to start growing.” Luella is, in the most direct sense, the restaurant Shirah wanted to eat at, and that passion percolates through every corner.
A Familiar Address, Transformed
For longtime Buckhead regulars, the address carries history. The Ivy, a hometown favorite sports bar, occupied the building for approximately 15 years. Closing it to pivot to fine dining was, by Shirah’s own admission, a significant gamble.
“There was a tremendous risk to us,” he says. “Shutting down a 15-year-old sports bar that was known throughout the Southeast and doing a complete 180—turning it into a high-end restaurant in a hyper-competitive market in a hyper-competitive neighborhood.”
Shirah and his brother Benjie, co-founders of Revival Restaurant Group, bet on themselves anyway. In some ways, Luella is the Ivy’s natural evolution. Those who spent their post-collegiate years at the Buckhead sports bar are now choosing to catch up over cocktails and prime cuts—just like Jamey.
The Space
The building is a Roswell Road icon. Since the 1970s, it’s been described as a traditional Buckhead manor, and Shirah wanted to lean into that reputation. The outside was left mostly untouched, but the inside got a major overhaul in what Shirah calls a “cresidential” style: commercially built to withstand the demands of a busy restaurant, but designed to feel like a home. Interior designer Helen Hanovich executed the vision across multiple distinct salons…