10 Great Comfort Foods To Eat On Miserable Days

Miss Conduck on Edgewood nails Caribbean fusion with standout dishes like hearty doubles, creamy rasta pasta, and buttery buss up shut. But the chana and potato roti might just be the ultimate warming meal for days when traffic has you stressed and the wind sounds like it’s laughing at your flimsy hoodie. Potatoes and chickpeas swim in a thick, flavorful curry sauce that thaws you from the inside out.

Giving off Waffle House-for-yacht-owners vibes, Roshambo sits between a bottle shop and a variety store in the Peachtree Battle shopping center. And the upscale diner might just be the only place you can turn to when you wake up with a taste for oysters Rockefeller with your french toast. And while there are plenty of fancy items (hello, meaty ribeyes and tender pan-seared snapper), we found love in a simple place—a classic grilled cheese with a crispy buttered crust that makes for easy dipping in tomato soup.

Jai-Ho, an Indian stall at Krog Street Market, offers a menu full of hits, from a shrimp wrap with plump shrimp tucked into soft naan to tikka masala with a velvety sauce. One of our favorites, the chana masala, is perfect for rainy, gloomy Atlanta days (which, let’s be honest, is half the week during wintertime). This tangy chickpea, tomato-based curry is smooth, rich, and warms your entire body, and there's just enough heat to clear a stuffy nose.

Beetlecat is an Inman Park seafood staple. And while their oysters and ceviche are tasty, they don't bring the type of comfort we crave on the days gloves are a necessity. One bite of their creamy chowder always warms our heart (and extremities). The chowder has hunks of bacon and a sprinkle of dill but the real draw are the clams. Beetlecat includes the whole clam (with its shell and all), so there's no mystery to when your next bite of the tasty mollusk will be. And make sure to order some fry bread too, so you can scrape up every last drop of thick chowder. Yes, it's that good.

Anyone who slanders a tuna melt is missing love in their life. Allow Fishmonger, with locations in Pullman Yards, Virginia Highland, and West Midtown, to show you love. And thankfully, it’s not the sloppy, mayo-drenched, barely held-together variety served at derelict roadside diners. Fishmonger’s version comes correct with fresh tuna, thick slices of crispy seeded bread, and sprouts mixed with fresh mint leaves for an added zing. While it doesn’t give the melty cheese pull we usually crave, it’s a fantastic, lighter compromise. Order at the counter, find a seat in the small space, then watch the two-member kitchen team behind the seafood display as they slice, chop, and assemble your melt.

Since ’99, Souper Jenny has been ladling out big hearty servings of soup for lunchtime crowds. While the menu items—and the number of Souper Jenny locations—have grown over the years, crowd favorites like Dad’s Turkey Chili remain. And whenever you see the Shrimp and Crab Chowder hit their the daily menu (which is updated online), cancel all your conference calls and make your way to the nearest location before they run out. The tomato-based chowder has a little touch of cream and is packed with jumbo shrimp, generous crab, and chunks of potato. While it's more like sipping a Southern seafood boil than a New England seafood chowder, it delights in a way that’ll send you back to the soup counter for a to-go pint. Grab a take-home cauliflower and cheese soup too, a more filling take on a traditional broccoli and cheese.

Virginia Highlands' La Tavola works on many levels during an Atlanta cold spell. For starters, things are so snug inside the trattoria that you can almost feel the heat coming off the plates on other tables. And then there’s the warming spaghetti. While the menu favorite doesn’t look any differently from something you might whip up between streams, the golf ball-sized veal meatballs work so well in the basil-rich marinara sauce that you may never try at home again.

If you head to Colony Square’s Saint + Council for lunch, you’ll probably notice the tables are filled with corporate types and couples on daytime dates. You might also notice that every table has an order of grilled cheese, which towers higher than the typical smashed after-school special. You should order one too, but so you know—the soft doughy bread stuffed with a flattened, fried mozzarella patty, smoked gouda, and tomato jam isn’t the grilled cheese you’d normally dunk into tomato soup. Yet, Saints + Council serves it with a big bowl of bisque. We say skip the soup since the tomato jam already provides enough tangy, sweetness to balance out the smokey, salty cheesy goodness. The menu also has boozy hot chocolate when you really want to warm up.

The original Highland Bakery location in Old Fourth Ward closed, and we're still unbelievably hurt by it. But their GSU and VA-HI locations are open, so our Highland Bakery love can live on. At Highland, simple things like a classic bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich get a BBL makeover since the bakery is known for their daily housemade breads. So listen to your impulse to go thiccer. “A croissant, maybe?” No, thiccer. “Yes, a heavyweight slab of their famous jalapeño focaccia.” Then, of course, play around with the cheese options and pile it higher with more meats if you’d like. Because of all the delicious, dreamy bread choices, any sandwich—from the classic grilled cheese on rosemary garlic bread to a reuben on rye—tastes like a bite of happiness.

George is housed in an old historic Downtown Atlanta building (circa 1906) and it has French brasserie vibes, so even the basics here feel like a departure from the average burger and club sandwich lunch. So if you pair either one of those with a bowl of creamy, perfectly tangy tomato bisque, then you might as well settle in and call out for the rest of the day. Just grab a seat looking out toward views of the downtown scenes. Unless your feed blows up with news about an Outkast reunion album, your day won’t get any better than this.