Recent New Orleans Eats

Epicurean Exploits - Food and Recipes
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indeed, a bus will take you straight to Luizza’s. it’s quite a different style than the fried shrimp places, so worth the trek.

22

How so?

23

Local friends loving Seaworthy lately.

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It’s “barbecue” shrimp. It doesn’t actually ever see a grill though. It’s in a butter/Worcestershire/hot sauce sauce typically.

25

Yeah, I think Seaworthy is in the top handful of places to open in NOLA in the last couple years. It’s great.

26

Michael Coquette is normally pretty great for seafood - they heavily focus on heavily sourced proteins and produce, and so seafood is a part of that. They do a great blind tasting, and I’m thinking that if you said you wanted to focus on seafood they’d accommodate.

I think Lilette is wonderful - I live just a few blocks for it. That said Lilette and (maybe to a lesser extent) Le Petite Grocery strike me more as being higher end brasseries. I think if you went to either you’d have a great meal and a great time. But there’s nothing that will leave you walking out of there saying “wow, that’s New Orleans”.

Lilette is straight down the middle as well, whereas Coquette, while far from avant-garde, is quite creative (especially for New Orleans. I love my city but too often it trades on tradition and history rather than exploring new ideas). And as mentioned above, they really do focus on sourcing locally, which can be pretty cool, as they’ll really highlight unusual ingredients that are unique to southern Louisiana.

27

We were at Brennans in April and I found it fantastic. If a place can be renovated to look fresh while at the same time looking like it has been there a long time, they accomplished it. The food has been updated while remaining true to the Brennan’s classics and the service has been moved to the CP branch of the family level. I think the renovation was north of $12MM. The execution of the food is much more refined than in the old Brennan’s. A much lighter quality with a little more emphasis on classic preps of local food. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Best way to describe is Nouvelle Old New Orleans.

28

Brigtsen’s any good?

29

Alan: Brigtsen’s continues to fly under the radar and is very good. However, it is very “old school” and the dishes are quite heavy. Nonetheless, a great New Orleans experience.

We were down there recently and tried a couple of newer places that we really enjoyed. The redone “Caribbean Room” and “Toup’s Meatery” were both excellent experiences. “Compere Lapin” was also excellent as we were there for lunch. In the more casual vein, we really liked “Grand Isle” and the happy hour at the “Bourbon House.” I was blown away by the lines of people waiting to get into Acme when the Bourbon House, right across the street, has better oysters, at the same price, and a much better atmosphere.


Cheers!
Marshall [cheers.gif]

30

thanks, Marshall. Is corkage generally allowed in NOLA restaurants, or case by case? Caribbean Room it is, looks great. And where’s some great music–blues preferred? Thanks.

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https://www.wineberserkers.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=1852220#p1852220

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I never reported back after the trip in July, but Coquette was excellent as our finer dining meal. On Friday night we ate about several dozen oysters and a few other mixed items at St. Roche market, which was near where we were staying. Good oysters and quite inexpensive, was able to get bottles of muscadet from the wine seller in the market too at a good price. Had a po-boy place recommended by our Air BnB hosts for lunch the next day, Verdi mart in the Quarter since we were going there anyway. I demurred, wanting to go farther afield. Everyone should have listened to me, as the sandwiches were terrible. Anyway, Coquette that night was great. We did the tasting menu, three omnivores and one pescetarian. I was happy to see that they accommodated this request. I didn’t know if they would as they require the entire table to get the tasting menu if ordered. The seafood courses were all very good. The wagyu strip was excellent, though almost too much by the time it came. Probably the best dish though was fresh lima beans in a cured egg and fennel sauce. I don’t know that I’d call the meal quintessential New Orleans, in the sense that it had no hints of creole or cajun influence, nor even a very easily discernible French influence, but all the ingredients were obviously super local and excellent. Overall it was a wonderful meal and the price was reasonable (about $220 a couple, though we only split one liter bottle of wine IIRC). As noted, the biggest drawback, and something truly inexplicable to me, is the lack of proper espresso after the meal. No espresso machine? I’m baffled. The Bunn coffee machine coffee was mediocre, and a sour note after such a great meal.

33

Alan: As far as I remember , all the John Besh restaurants allow corkage. This was the first time that we did not bring any wine with us. In the past, August had free corkage but I believe they now have a nominal charge. The Caribbean Room had a very fair list and we enjoyed a couple of well priced bottles. One interesting note…The Caribbean Room has a jackets policy and they ask you to keep it on during the meal. An interesting note is that Domenica had both pizzas and glasses of wine for half price on Sunday afternoon. If you are interested, Domenica is in the Roosevelt Hotel and they make one of the best Sazeracs in town. The Sazerac Bar is gorgeous and the drinks are seriously good! Enjoy!


Cheers!
Marshall [cheers.gif]

34

I always recommend Coop’s for the assorted Cajun/Creole plate and $4 doubles of Chartreuse.

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Domenica does happy hour from 2-5 seven days a week.

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The chef/owner of Shaya is also an owner of Domenica (and the more casual Pizza Domenica). It has a similar format as Shaya with “small plates” and “large plates” -well suited for groups/sharing. I had a good meal there in August, particularly the roasted cauliflower small plate was delicious. But I get enough GREAT Italian food at home, so I probably won’t go back next time I am in town.

37

I have not yet made it to Seaworthy but we did have an outstanding seafood meal recently at GW Finns. In a city known for its boiled and fried seafood, GW Finns is a much elavated experience. It sometimes amazes me how quickly restaurants seem to go out of vogue. It wasn’t that long ago when Square Root was the next greatest local dining experience.

38

I recently saw an article that said Alon had left Shaya and Domenica.

Cheers!
Marshall [wow.gif]

39

As usual Marshall is spot on. Been away from the board and our hometown but going in November. Toups is outstanding !
Compere was really good when it first opened and will probably give it another shot. Seaworthy looks great and will probably be a good lunch spot before some of the big dinners.

Laissez le bon temps rouler !

Curious why no one has mentioned Herbsaint. One of our favorites. Reasonable corkage and a nice wine list as well.
Les

1 Like
40

Here are the current top picks from Brett Anderson. He loves Clancy’s. It’s good but don’t see it as top 10 but I generally agree with his palate and like his writing.

Will have to add Kenton’s to the list to try