November 20, 2009
Our weekly blog on the New Orleans fine dining scene
Oct 22, 2009
12:00 AM
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Riffs on Southern Themes

By Robert Peyton
Oct 22, 2009 - 12:00 AM
Riffs on Southern Themes

MiLa offers a great daily lunch special, and dessert is usually a choice of a seasonal ice cream or rice pudding with a seasonal fruit.

Photo courtesy of Robert Peyton

Chefs Allison Vines-Rushing and Slade Rushing opened MiLa in the Renaissance Pere Marquette Hotel after Rene Bajeux’s eponymous Bistrot was shuttered by Katrina. The chefs, who are married, are from Mississippi (Slade) and Louisiana (Allison), and the restaurant’s name reflects both their union and the states from which they hail. They met while working at the now-closed Gerard’s Downtown and then spent several years in New York City, the last as co-chefs of Jack’s Luxury Oyster Bar. New York, however, is not the South. (At least, that’s what I’m told. I have to confess that I have no sense of direction or geography.) The chefs returned to the area to open the Longbranch in Abita Springs before coming to New Orleans to open the long-awaited restaurant they now helm.

Where Bajeux’s food was classically French, the cooking at MiLa is an improvisation on Southern and New Orleans themes, albeit with a classic, technical foundation. The “deconstructed” oysters Rockefeller, for example, is exactly the way deconstruction should be done. All of the components are present but in unexpected ways: oysters poached in a beurre fondue and placed onto a mix of chopped, sautéed spinach and watercress and then topped with a bacon “chip” and grated licorice root as well as additional butter sauce.

There are nods to the chefs’ roots on most of the dishes; a rack of lamb may come with a black-eyed pea purée, and a rotisserie duck that is served with wilted farm greens, roasted beets and a date glaze has been soaked in a sweet-tea brine. The restaurant also serves a New Orleans “barbecue” lobster with lemon confit and thyme.

One thing that MiLa continued from the days of Rene Bistrot is an excellent lunch special. Three courses will run you $20, and there are two choices for each. When I dined last, the first course was a decision between a salad of locally raised greens with sunflower seeds and a lemon vinaigrette and a creamy parsnip soup with roasted scallops, apples and mustard oil.  My next choice was sautéed redfish with cauliflower, haricots verts and lobster sauce or a seared flatiron steak with potato purée and mustard greens. For dessert, the choices are usually a seasonal ice cream –– this time it was persimmon –– or rice pudding with a seasonal fruit.

I usually go with the soup, and this was the first time I wasn’t immediately happy with the choice. It had a slightly off-putting gelatinous quality, but it tasted good, and I ended up eating the whole bowl. I was definitely content with the redfish, which was cooked perfectly. The lobster sauce was light, with a subtle lobster flavor that didn’t diminish the fish. The fish was placed atop a purée of cauliflower and a few thin beans. The whole dish was very well-thought-out and well-executed. I am a big fan of rice pudding, and this time the accompaniment was raisins soaked in New Orleans rum. There was just enough rum in the dish to make me feel like a pirate –– which was great until I tried to “board” the adjacent table. If I go back to MiLa, it will have to be in disguise, I think. 

At dinner, a six-course tasting menu is available. It changes with the season and runs $65. The fall tasting menu, as I write this, includes a salad of figs, blue cheese and muscadine vinaigrette; a loin of venison with brussels sprouts and red wine sauce; and a fragrant pineapple salad with pineapple ice, served just before dessert. I haven’t sampled that menu, but I’m confident, given the level of competence the kitchen has demonstrated every time I’ve dined at MiLa, they can do it justice. The restaurant is located, as mentioned above, in the Renaissance Pere Marquette Hotel at 817 Common St.

You can call for reservations (and I would) at (504) 412-2580.

Reader Comments:
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Nov 4, 2009 01:10 pm
 Posted by  bookerbldg

I enjoyed your article on Mila - my boyfriend & I go out to eat often & were thinking of going there tonight.

I was wondering if you knew of a fine dining restaurant in the riverbend area, I think it would be fairly new, primarily a French style menu. I came across it last week but now can't remember the name of it & can't locate it on the internet. I thought it had the word "cote" in in but I may be mistaken.

Anyway, I will look forward to reading & keeping up w/ your blog.

Nov 4, 2009 10:16 pm
 Posted by  Robert

Hi Bookerbldg, I'm not sure what fine dining restaurant you're thinking of in the riverbend, but could it be Coquette? That's at Jackson & Magazine, and it's very, very good.

In the riverbend area, there's Brigtsen's, One, and I suppose you could count Boucherie, although it's a bit Uptown for "riverbend." If there's a new place, I'd love to hear about it.

Thanks for the comment.

Robert

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About This Blog


Robert D. Peyton was born at Ochsner Hospital and, apart from four years in Tennessee for college and three years in Baton Rouge for law school, has lived here his entire life. He is a strong believer in the importance of food to our local culture and in the importance of our local food culture, generally. He is a partner at the law firm Christovich & Kearney LLP and began writing about food on his Web site, www.appetites.us, in 1997. That is approximately 72 Internet years, for anyone counting.

In 2006, New Orleans Magazine named Appetites the best food blog in New Orleans. The choice was made relatively easy due to the fact that Appetites was, at the time, the only food blog in New Orleans.

Robert has gills, but they are nonfunctional.

He began writing the Restaurant Insider column for New Orleans Magazine in 2007 and has been published in St. Charles Avenue magazine and on the Web site www.slashfood.com. He is the only person he knows who has been interviewed in GQ magazine, albeit for calling Alan Richman a penis. He is not proud of that, incidentally. (Yes, he is.)

Robert’s maternal grandmother is responsible for his love of good food, and he has never since had fried chicken or homemade biscuits as good as hers.

Robert once ate an entire goat, but it was very small, and he didn’t feel too good about it afterward. He did, however, feel better than the goat.

He developed his curiosity about restaurant cooking in part from the venerable PBS cooking show Great Chefs and has an extensive collection of cookbooks, many of which do not require coloring. 

Certain parts of the above are exaggerations, but one thing is true: Robert appreciates your comments and e-mails, so keep them coming.

If you find that you need a more constant source of Robert in your life, you can follow him on Twitter.


 

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