SIREN Opens in Brookhaven, Built Around a Wood Fire and Dry-Aged Fish

SIREN opened August 18 at 2700 Apple Valley Road NE in Brookhaven, inside the same complex as Arnette's Chop Shop. It's the latest project from restaurateur Michel Arnette, who has been building restaurant concepts in Brookhaven for two decades, and it's run day to day by co-executive chefs Stephen Herman and Matt Swickerath, both longtime cooks in Arnette's Word of Mouth Restaurants group at Haven, Valenza and Vero before taking this kitchen on themselves.

The kitchen is built around a custom wood-burning grill, and the menu leans on it: wood-roasted flounder, a whole fish à la meunière and grilled swordfish come off the fire, alongside a prime New York strip and grilled chicken al pastor for the table that didn't come for seafood. The lighter, easier way in is the raw bar side — Japanese madai crudo, cured kampachi, a Maine lobster salad, oysters on the half shell, and a shellfish tower called the Siren Plateau. Sommelier Andrew LeClair built the wine list to go with it. One detail worth knowing even if you never order it: SIREN runs one of the only dry-aged fish programs in the Southeast, which is the kind of thing that shows up in how the fish actually tastes rather than in how it's described on the menu.

Neither SIREN's website nor the local coverage has posted a price range yet, and I'd rather say that plainly than guess at a number. Given the address and the kitchen it's attached to, this reads as special-occasion pricing rather than a Tuesday seafood-shack tab. The room backs that up: a dark, moody dining room with Tom Dixon lighting, a bubble wall and bold pop-art pieces on the walls, built more for a client dinner or an anniversary than a quick bite before a showing.

It's an 80-seat space inside the same building as Arnette's Chop Shop and the members-only Associate club next door, so parking is the shared complex lot rather than street spaces you have to hunt for. That's worth knowing for clients looking at Brookhaven specifically: Apple Valley Road and the surrounding Dresden Drive corridor keep adding rooms at this level, which is a better read on where the restaurant and retail investment in that part of DeKalb County is actually landing than any rumor about it.

Hours are Tuesday through Saturday, 5 to 10 p.m., closed Sunday and Monday. Go on a weeknight for a better shot at the raw bar without a wait, order at least one thing off the wood fire instead of sticking to crudo, and treat the price tag as the cost of a kitchen that's dry-aging its own fish rather than a markup for the room.

Photo courtesy of SIREN.