Focus: When the first banner for Totonno's Famous Meatballs (720 Hawthorne Ave.) appeared in the long, narrow building at the corner of Hawthorne Avenue and Oglethorpe/Tallassee, on the space that once upon a time housed What's Cooking Mexican Restaurant, one could easily have dismissed it as an experiment by the sign-printing company that occupied the building most recently. It's not exactly a traditional restaurant space, and the idea of an eatery devoted to nothing but meatballs seemed bizarre, even after it came out that the folks behind this new business were Stefano Volpi and Cristina Spadea (both of La Dolce Vita). Maybe in New York, as a friend of mine pointed out, such a focused concept can work (and does, as with Manhattan restaurants serving only cereal or macaroni and cheese or toast), but in Athens, in a location that's somewhat weird to begin with, it seemed even stranger and more unlikely. All that is true, plus the dining room, which contains only a few tables despite the space continuing on toward the back of the building, is kind of depressing, with baskets of cut-rate ketchup packets and a few copies of In Style magazine serving as deco. But, provided you are a carnivore and ready for some take-out, Totonno's succeeds at the task it has set out for itself.

The menu is, as would be expected, minimal. You can get meatballs plain (to add to whatever you like at home), on spaghetti with tomato sauce, in a sandwich, fried or on a Caesar salad, plus a few sides (fries, onion rings, green salad, garlic bread) and desserts (chocolate-chip cookies, gelato). Period. You also get your choice of beef, turkey, pork and lamb as far as the main protein involved in each meatball, or a sampler of all four. The key here is that the meatballs be good; and it turns out they are, although some are better than others. I find the beef and the turkey fine—plenty moist, sizable, not lacking in flavor—but for real deliciousness you want the pork or, though it comes at an extra charge, the lamb, which is best of all. The other three will run you $1.65 each ordered plain; the lamb bumps the price up to $2.15, but, my, is it worth it, with a perfect, delicate texture and a serious punch of taste. The sandwich, I must warn you, is tasty but utterly disintegrates early on in the process. You may be better purchasing your own, heartier sub roll with which to construct one. The pasta is unambitious and yet quite a step up from the standard noodles and red sauce served most places in this part of the country, with al dente texture and the acidity of fresh tomatoes. Volpi is, as usual, buzzing about, making sure customer service is tippy-top and cheerily packaging to-go orders. Will Totonno's succeed? It certainly seems capable of doing so, and its emphasis on well-sourced, happy meats is refreshing and welcome. Especially if I were hungry, tired and desirous of a meat-heavy meal, I'd definitely keep it in mind. Totonno's accepts credit cards and is open for lunch and dinner every day.

Taste of the Week: I know I just wrote about White Tiger Gourmet (217 Hiawassee Ave.), but the news that Don Chambers and Jim Wilson have recently ventured into the pie business (Pirate Pies) and that one could obtain these creations at that restaurant was too much to resist. Fruit pies have been spotted, but meat pies are available weekends, including at Night Tiger on Fridays and Saturdays from 6 to 8 p.m. The price tag was a little hard to swallow—$9 for a slice of meat pie, no sides included—but only before actually sampling a chicken pie in a gorgeous biscuit crust on a recent horrible rainy evening. Readers, I do not believe in perfume, but if Chambers and Wilson could bottle the fragrance of this pie, I would spritz it on daily. The aroma alone was nearly worth the cash outlay and, if I'm being honest, beat out the taste by a little bit. Still, the flavor is complex, meaty, mushroomy and delicious, with a nice thick crust that has a hint of sweetness without overdoing it on the honey. When paired with a few pieces of dark chocolate studded with 1000 Faces coffee beans, it should be a more than adequate meal for most appetites.

What Up?: High five to The Grit for not only finally instituting take-out containers, which are a huge improvement on the previous paper plate plus sheet of aluminum foil one used to be handed, but making sure they're biodegradable as well. While the likelihood of these things decomposing in your home compost is small (I recently raked out my Earth Machine to discover some of these containers, barely touched by the forces of entropy after several months), the chances they'll break down someday, even in a landfill, are higher than for their styrofoam counterparts, plus they're much better equipped for holding the leftovers of a golden bowl.

Hillary Brown