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03/11/10
Meauxbar Bistro is not exactly a hidden gem. Although it may not appear on the radar of the general dining public all that often and its location at 942 N. Rampart St. is not one that sees a great deal of foot traffic, there is no shortage of regular customers who love the food, the service and the ambiance. Even if the restaurant doesn’t make regular appearances in the local media, you’ll understand why it inspires such devotion after a meal or two.
Chef Matthew Guidry is from Meaux, La., and he graduated from the French Culinary Institute in 1987. He and his partner, Jim Conte, operated Paradise, a restaurant in Sag Harbor, N.Y., from 1995 until 2000. They opened Meauxbar Bistro in December 2003. The...
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03/04/10
Xavier Laurentino is a happy man. About three weeks ago, he opened Barcelona Tapas in the space formerly occupied by Café Volage at 720 Dublin St. For the past two-and-a-half years, he’s been engaged in a monumental renovation of the ancient cottage that is impossible to appreciate unless you saw the restaurant’s former condition. Now that he’s completed the transformation and has begun to welcome guests, it all seems worthwhile.
Laurentino is originally from Barcelona and credits his father for teaching him how to cook and how to select the best ingredients for a meal. To this day, when he looks over a delivery of produce to his restaurant, he says, “My father’s voice is always in the back of my mind.”
Laurentino is a...
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02/25/10
I have had two very good meals recently at Huevos and Crescent Pie & Sausage Co. The restaurants are owned by Bart Bell and Jeff Baron and are located adjacent to one another on Banks Street. Each meal was a study in how to excel at the fundamentals of good cooking.
Huevos opened in January 2009, and Bell and Baron had plans to open their pizza and sausage restaurant around the same time. Their plans were thwarted by Hurricane Gustav, but the delay probably worked to their benefit. The original plan to renovate a dilapidated building for Crescent Pie didn’t work out, but the new structure is modern and comfortable. Huevos inhabits an older building, with stucco walls and tables out front for use during pleasant...
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02/18/10
When Donald Link and Stephen Stryjewski opened Cochon in a large building at 930 Tchoupitoulas St., they had already started curing their own meats and making sausage at Herbsaint, Link’s first restaurant. But they had bigger plans, and Cochon Butcher was the culmination. Part butcher shop, part sandwich counter, part bar, Cochon Butcher –– or just Butcher, as most people call it –– is greater than the sum of its parts.
Chef Warren Stephens is the executive chef at both Cochon Butcher and Calcasieu, the banquet facility that occupies the top floor of the building that houses Cochon and Butcher, and he’s well-suited to his role....
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02/10/10
August is one of the three or four best restaurants in New Orleans. It’s a beautifully designed space, with a classic dark wood bar at the entrance, high ceilings in the main dining room and a smaller wood-paneled room adjacent. There’s ample light from huge windows during the day and chandeliers at night. Red-patterned fabric covering the chairs recalls the brick that comprises the walls. In its décor, August would not be out of place in New York. But August is unmistakably a New Orleans restaurant.
That’s true because even Besh’s most fanciful dishes are centered on the use of excellent local ingredients. Some of those ingredients are sourced from local producers, and some come from...
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02/03/10
You won’t often read about personal chefs in this space, principally because their services are limited to a select number of patrons. But when I had the opportunity this week to interview the man who cooks for Reggie Bush, I ran for it. (Sorry.) I thought it was a fitting topic, given the upcoming game.
Chef Gason Nelson is from New Orleans originally but spent a number of years following his father around the world on various military assignments. When he was 18, his family was living in New Orleans, and he was working at a Burger King. His father was ordered to Alaska, and he had no intention of following; his father, not surprisingly, had no intention of leaving him to his own devices in New Orleans at the age of 18. Nelson knew he needed direction, and he chose...
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01/28/10
Mike’s East-West, the new venture by Mike Fennelly and Vicky Bayley, opened this past Monday at 628 St. Charles Ave., the former home of Mike’s on the Avenue. The space, in the Lafayette Hotel, has housed a few other restaurants in the interim, including a bizarre Russian-inspired vodka bar whose décor reminded me of a 1980s heavy metal hair band video. If you’re not familiar with that particular incarnation of the space, I’m not surprised.
It’s never really been the same since Fennelly and Bayley closed up shop in July 1999. In its prime, Mike’s on the Avenue was one of the most original restaurants in New Orleans, and although “Asian-fusion” is something of a punch line these days, when it’s done right, it can...
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01/21/10
The Bistro at Maison de Ville first opened its doors in 1986, though it feels as if the restaurant at 733 Toulouse St. has been around even longer. I certainly had the impression that the restaurant had been around a long time when I first dined there with my father in 1986 or 1987. The timeless vibe the restaurant possesses may be the result of its classic bistro décor. The dark-red walls are topped by cove ceilings, and a long leather banquette lines one wall of the narrow dining room. Each table is covered in pressed white cotton and adorned with a small vase of flowers. Mirrors behind the banquette give the small room a somewhat larger feel and reflect what little light enters from the street.
In...
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01/14/10
Coquette has proved that location does not always determine a restaurant’s fate. The address at 2800 Magazine St. has seen two restaurants that seemed likely to succeed come and go –– Takumi and Table One –– before Coquette reversed the trend.
Takumi was a member of the Little Tokyo family, an operation run by folks with multiple successful restaurants in the New Orleans area. It was, unfortunately, an ambitious failure. Table One was the brainchild of Gerard Maras, a talented, experienced chef who was ahead of the game where local sourcing of ingredients is concerned.
Neither restaurant succeeded to the extent that Michael Stoltzfus and Lillian Hubbard have with...
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01/07/10
I had the opportunity to get to know chef Aaron Burgau a few years ago when I was tasked with writing the “best new chef” profile for New Orleans Magazine’s 2008 dining issue. I found him to be a very nice guy, and it’s been a pleasure since to run into him at local farmers markets.
Perhaps it’s time for a brief digression here. I think it would be overstating things to call Burgau my friend, but we’re certainly friendly; I think he’s a good sort, and he seems to think the same of me. In any case, I like the guy, and knowing that, you might wonder whether you can trust my opinion about his food.
I haven’t...
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