When The Iberian Pig opened on Decatur Square in October 2009, most of Atlanta didn’t know what to make of it. Spanish tapas barely registered as a category in the city yet, and the confusion started with the name.
“We even had some people think we were saying ‘topless,’ like we were opening a topless bar,” John Castellucci, culinary director of Castellucci Hospitality Group (CHG), recalls. “We were like, no, no, no, definitely not a topless bar. Just tapas, with small plates.”
Seventeen years and two additional locations—and a Charlotte outpost in the works—later, the joke has aged into a case study. Atlanta’s dining scene has cycled through farm-to-table dining, chef-driven tasting menus, maximalist “experiential” concepts, and an endless churn of Instagram-bait dishes. The Iberian Pig has watched most of it come and go from the same corner of Decatur Square—and, more recently, from Buckhead and Nashville’s Gulch district, too—without changing course.
Built on Bounced Checks and Borrowed Pans
The restaurant opened on money scraped together from the family’s first concept, Sugo, with no outside investors and no cushion. Vendors accepted delayed checks in the early weeks, and even the address seemed to be working against them—the Decatur Square was a much harder sell than it is today with its recent World Cup renovation.
“We opened that restaurant very, very tightly bootstrapped,” Castellucci says. “We even used all the old pots and pans from the space before us. My brother was basically the general contractor because we couldn’t afford one. Every penny we made in sales, we were immediately reinvesting.”
The habit stuck. Early on, reinvesting whatever was left over kept the doors open. Today, with the business on solid footing, CHG can be more strategic about its spending.
A Menu That Earns its Place at the Table
What’s changed least is the philosophy behind what hits the table. Roughly 40 percent of the menu—patatas bravas, pork belly tacos, the Iberian old-fashioned that’s been poured since day one—remains unchanged. The rest is up for debate every season.
“A dish that may work in Decatur might not work in Buckhead, or vice versa,” Castellucci says.
A calamari sandwich sold well in Buckhead and stalled in Decatur; Decatur’s crispy eggplant dish outperforms the same plate in Buckhead. Rather than force parity, CHG lets each Iberian Pig diverge slightly to fit its clientele. Not every idea makes the cut. “The menu’s only so big, and it really has to be a banger,” he adds.
Castellucci applies that same discipline to trend-chasing, and he’s openly skeptical of it—including his own past instincts. Early in his career, working in Michelin-starred kitchens in Spain and New York, he leaned into molecular gastronomy. Looking back, he’s not proud of everything that made it onto the menu, including a “soupy egg” that he acknowledges made no sense with the restaurant concept.
Those missteps have made Castellucci extra protective of Iberian Pig’s menu, insisting that every dish has to fit its existing identity. The recent Dubai-chocolate craze, for example, got waved off in favor of a sherry-based drink special. “There shouldn’t be the word Dubai on any of our Spanish tapas menus,” he says.
Investing in the Room, Not Just the Plate
That self-critical philosophy extends well beyond the kitchen. After all, Castellucci believes, a 17-year-old space still has to earn a first impression. Over the past four years, CHG closed and refurbished the entire Decatur front of house—tables, chairs, banquettes, bar top, lighting—and gutted the kitchen for new flooring and equipment.
“You can’t just stay still in time and think this is fine, this is going to be good forever,” Castellucci says. “We want you to walk in and want to have your rehearsal dinner there, not feel like you’re at an almost-20-year-old restaurant.”
Consistency Over Reach
Ask Castellucci what actually keeps people coming back, and the answer is simple: reliability. An average Tuesday or Wednesday night at Iberian Pig in Decatur skews heavily toward repeat guests—locals the staff knows by name and by order.
“If you order the Iberian old-fashioned, you should know exactly what that’s going to taste like, and that shouldn’t really vary,” he says. “People like knowing they can go there and get those few things, and then maybe try one or two they weren’t anticipating.”
Castellucci argues that reliability matters more as the cost of a night out climbs. At the group’s higher-check concepts—including the roughly $90 Gran Oscar tasting experience at Cooks & Soldiers—he says he reminds his team regularly what that price represents for a guest: “That could be that person’s only night out for the next three weeks.”
It’s this idea of individualized service that fuels CHG’s brand mantra: “Passionately pursuing the perfect dining experience, one guest at a time.”
What’s Next
The Iberian Pig opened in Nashville’s Gulch neighborhood in 2023—CHG’s first move outside Georgia—and a Charlotte location is planned for South End’s 110 East tower, targeted for late 2026. Castellucci says the goal in each new market is the same one that got Decatur off the ground: a genuinely good neighborhood Spanish tapas restaurant, not an export of someone else’s idea of authenticity.
“We’re not trying to act like we’re the most authentic restaurant ever, like you could transport everything to Barcelona,” he says. “Our goal is to cook really delicious, Spanish-inspired tapas for the community.”
Seventeen years and three cities in, Castellucci’s math hasn’t changed: still one guest, one plate, one night out at a time.
The Iberian Pig, Multiple locations, iberianpig.com
