Y'all, restaurant news has been like kudzu lately. The most recent thing I've heard is that The Branded Butcher, which it turns out is a project of Matt Palmerlee, former chef of Farm 255 and one of the Four Coursemen, is now open. Occupying the space by the Georgia Theatre recently vacated by Flight, it is, unsurprisingly, a farm-to-table restaurant and, extrapolating from Palmerlee's background and interests and from its title, will probably feature charcuterie. It's open for dinner every day, plus brunch Sunday and an oyster bar that gets going earlier than the dinner hours.

Pete McCommons sent me an email from a friend who had run into Richard and Becky Lane, who used to run Five Points Deli. Word is they're "launching their salads through Bell's Food Stores--Athens, Jefferson, Crawford--I think starting this week." So if you miss the chicken salad etc., now you don't have to be sad anymore.

Star Chefs.com has announced its 2012 Atlanta Rising Stars, which include a couple of Athens folks among them: Peter Dale (Athens Chef) and Whitney Otawka (Athens Sustainability Chef). A tasting gala and awards ceremony are scheduled for June in Atlanta, at the Goat Farm, and are not inexpensive.

Seven years after the original hubbub, it appears construction is beginning on Bruno Rubio's La Puerta del Sol project, on Cedar Shoals Drive. Amazingly enough, in all that time, the Eastside has not become much richer in Latin options for eats.