After 55 years in restaurants, acclaimed Atlanta chef Gerry Klaskala announced his retirement last month. This includes stepping down as owner and chef of Aria, the Buckhead restaurant he opened in 2000 inside a converted house on East Paces Ferry Road.
But Aria isn’t closing.
Instead, Klaskala and his business partners turned the keys to the Buckhead fine dining institution over to Aria’s long-tenured general manager and sommelier Andrés Loaiza. Klaskala, who will concentrate on his love of drawing and painting in retirement, will continue to lead the kitchen while Loaiza conducts a nationwide search for Aria’s next head chef.
Speaking with Klaskala and Loaiza, it becomes clear that the two men have great respect for each other, both professionally and personally. Loaiza’s voice cracks as he chokes back tears while describing his feelings about taking over as owner of Aria and how grateful he is to Klaskala and his business partners for the opportunity.
Asking Loaiza to step into the ownership role at Aria–a plan set in motion months ago–was just the right thing to do, Klaskala said.
“I’ve worked with thousands of people in my career. That’s not an exaggeration. Andrés is a very, very special individual and it was evident upon first meeting him,” Klaskala said of hiring Loaiza 18 years ago when Aria was still a relatively new Atlanta restaurant. “He’s done nothing but develop and shine and embraced our mission for hospitality and the restaurant since the beginning.”
Klaskala likens his working relationship with Loaiza to being the parents of Aria, united in a common goal to provide an unwavering and consistent service experience for guests at every level. Klaskala handles back-of-house staff and operations, while Loaiza leads the front-of-house. It’s a balancing act of hospitality that should feel seamless and natural to Aria diners, as if they’re attending a big dinner party they don’t want to end.
“I’m on the floor all the time, so I know everybody who comes through the door,” Loaiza said. “The floor is my second home. It’s my happy place. There’s nothing like that rush of energy of seeing people come in to dine or seeing our regulars every night. It’s like a party every night.”
Loaiza knows the dynamic at Aria will change slightly with Klaskala’s departure and taking on more responsibilities as its owner.
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But after five decades in the industry, Klaskala wants to move on from the harried life of restaurants. He admits the adjustment will be difficult at first. It’s a rare day when Klaskala isn’t at Aria, joking that his car knows the way to and from the restaurant and basically drives itself. He’s looking forward to slowing down and focusing on painting and drawing again.
At 17, Klaskala abandoned his plans to become an artist and enrolled in The Culinary Institute of America. Having worked in hotel restaurants for several years in Boston and Savannah, Klaskala moved to Atlanta in 1987 to become the opening chef and managing partner of the legendary Buckhead Diner. In 1995, Klaskala struck out on his own, co-founding Canoe in Vinings, followed by Aria in Buckhead five years later with business partners George McKerrow and Ron San Martin.
Here, Klaskala cemented his status as one of Atlanta’s most revered chefs and transformed Aria into one of the city’s most celebrated restaurants. Aria is a perennial on local and national “best restaurants” lists for Atlanta, garnering numerous awards and accolades over the last 25 years. In 2018, the Georgia Restaurant Association honored Klaskala with a lifetime achievement award.
In April, the James Beard Foundation named Aria a finalist for Outstanding Hospitality, a fitting tribute to Klaskala and his fierce commitment to service. Aria is the lone Atlanta and Georgia representative at the 2025 James Beard Awards.
“We have a mantra that every day we have to get better and do things better, and that will continue under Andrés,” Klaskala said, who often makes appearances in the dining room during service, greeting regulars and guests with a hug or a handshake and a warm and welcoming smile.
Related story: Aria will represent Atlanta (and Georgia) at the 2025 James Beard Awards
Never one to sit still for very long, Klaskala is involved with several charities, including Open Hand Atlanta, Share Our Strength’s Taste of the Nation, and the Georgia chapter of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society’s Harvest for a Cure. He plans to continue this work in retirement.
Klaskala also plans to dine at as many Atlanta restaurants as possible, something he’s never been able to do with any regularity as a busy restaurant owner and chef.
The task ahead of Loaiza now is to keep Aria fresh and in step with the times.
A willingness to evolve the restaurant, Klaskala said, is part of why Aria made it to 25 years in business. When the restaurant was looking and feeling a little dated back in 2016, Klaskala commissioned an interior design revamp that included repainting the walls a soft gray, ordering custom tables and leather banquettes for the dining room, and opening up the bar and lounge area to allow for walk-ins.
He saw the redesign as an opportunity to reintroduce Aria to younger diners, who prefer a much more casual approach to fine dining and eat out more often than their parents and grandparents.
The restaurant has served as an incubator and springboard for some of Atlanta’s most talented chefs, including Christopher Grossman of The Chastain, Lazy Betty chef de cuisine Austin Goetzman, and The Deer and The Dove chef de cuisine Alan Byers. The search for Aria’s next chef, likely someone from outside the restaurant, is critical to Loaiza.
“I love what we do here at Aria and that we’ve built an experience centered around genuine hospitality that Gerry put in place. That will never change,” said Loaiza. “But there’s a lot of room to allow the restaurant to evolve further, and that includes finding a chef coming from the outside who can see things differently because they aren’t so close to the restaurant and can find ways to improve it.”
Loaiza and Klaskala recently started digging into the restaurant’s records, too, for patterns in customer feedback and Aria’s most popular dishes to ensure those remain on the menu.
“Short ribs have been on our menu since day one. And we have one customer who’s dined with us at least 250 times over the years and 249 times he’s ordered the short rib. We’re not taking that away from him. We’ve calculated that we served over a quarter of a million pounds of short rib since 2000,” Klaskala said.
Loaiza is also looking into ways to improve the service at Aria, promising that it won’t mean reverting to servers using scripts or giving canned speeches to guests that feel forced, fake, or inauthentic. Part of what makes hospitality at Aria so special, he said, is its personable servers who pay close attention to the vibe, wants, and needs of each guest. And people will see Loaiza in the dining room as they always do, greeting guests and checking on tables.
Klaskala will miss being around Loaiza and the Aria staff after he retires. He’ll pop in from time to time for dinner and to say hello to his former employees and regulars.
“I’ve learned over the years that you have to appreciate every person for what they bring to a restaurant. You nurture their talents and skills and encourage them,” Klaskala said. “I’m genuinely excited to see our staff when they walk in the back door. Going cold turkey would be tough, so, of course, I’ll return to eat because I’m excited to see what happens here.”
