Fulton Street. It’s more a concept than a traffic corridor. Over the last year, a handful of restaurants have opened there: 7 on Fulton, Wolfe’s in the Warehouse and, most recently, La Boca. Everyone is clamoring for a spot on the half dozen blocks that hardly anyone noticed before and plenty of people still can’t find.
Harrah’s Casino has plans for the street. The casino lured celebrity chef ToddEnglish to the new Harrah’s hotel on Fulton, where the Boston chef just opened his 18th restaurant, Riche. The street’s name may lack poetry, but those blocks promise big money.
Seven on Fulton trumpets the location in its very name. On paper, 7 on Fulton sounded like a combination that would put this street on the map. Restaurateur Vicky Bayley had run Mike’s on the Avenue and Artesia. She hired chef DavidEnglish, the rising star who headed the kitchen at Cobalt before the storm, and he was named Best New Chef of 2005 by New Orleans Magazine.
By the end of the summer, however, chef English had given notice. At press time, a new executive chef had not been named.
WhenI say that I’ve been sampling the restaurants on Fulton Street, many ofmy friends give me puzzled looks. Tell them it’s the address of Rock-n-Sake, and they instantly know the location.
Even when the sushi joint is half empty, the energy level is high. How many other sushi restaurants are dripping in neon and blasting 50 Cent? The restaurant has a rock star’s appetite for excess.
Sushi rolls seem to be expanding as quickly as the average American’s waistline.Along with the traditional fish and rice, cream cheese, avocado and more can be ordered wrapped in seaweed.
Their Warehouse Roll, for example, is filled with tuna, salmon, smelt roe, yellowtail and avocado, and is too big for a single bite.
Rock-n-Sake may favor the large and loud, but sometimes simplicity is best. The fish was fresh. The nigiri sushi, the single slice of fish atop rice, was the best thing I tried.
The month before Katrina hit, chef TomWolfe opened Wolfe’s in the Warehouse as an extension of his lakefront restaurant. Now, it’s his flagship.
Located in a Marriott Hotel,Wolfe’s in the Warehouse is part of the corporate reconstruction of Fulton Street. In the case of Wolfe’s, the money serves a good purpose.The staff is crisp and well trained. The décor is luxurious with touches of New Orleans flair. The floors are a pattern of octagonal tiles; fans spin slowly above the decorator probably spent a few long lunches at Galatoire’s.
In a city full of talented chefs, Wolfe has a style that I could recognize blindfolded. He serves his wonderful crab cakes, small disks of pan-fried lump crabmeat, over a Caribbean mix of black beans and mango salsa. Another appetizer, the braised beef short ribs in a mushroom sauce over white cheddar grits, verges on overwhelming. Shards of flash fried celery, looking like onion straws on top of short ribs, add a sharp taste to balance the richness.
ChefWolfe has an all-American cooking style. He sears freshwater ruby red trout and serves it with the rainbow hued skin facing up and accompanied by asparagus, artichoke hearts, fingerling potatoes and a sweet vermouth butter sauce. His signature Duck, Duck, Goose roasted duck breast, duck confit tortelloni and savory bread pudding with duck crackling and foie gras is a one-course tasting menu. In the tortelloni, the combination of meat and dried cherries reminded me of classic Christmas dinners.
Step into La Boca, chef Adolfo GarcÃa’s new Argentine steakhouse, and maitre d’ Orestes Rodriguez grabs your hand and offers a generous greeting. The low-ceilinged warehouse space, decorated with a few brightly colored walls and framedArgentine soccer jerseys, doesn’t look so different from chef GarcÃa’s other restaurant, Rio Mar. In fact, La Boca is the red meat version of that great seafood restaurant. It’s unpretentious, Latin influenced and, like Rio Mar, one of the best meals in New Orleans.
In Argentina you have to search for a bad meal. the country produces some of the greatest beef in the world. Judging by the way they eat, the Argentinians might be required by law to finish at least one steak a day. The large Italian population means that pastas, particularly gnocchi, can also be found at many meals.
At La Boca, dinner could begin with empanadas– savory, baked turnovers stuffed with ground beef, raisins, olives and boiled eggs. The morcilla, a blood sausage, is dark inside and grilled until the casing flakes open inpapery shreds. Perhaps the most exciting appetizer is the simplest: the provoleta. It’s an inch-thick round of provolone seasoned with oregano and grilled. A standard item at any Argentine steakhouse, it’s surprising that provoleta hasn’t already become all the rage in the northern hemisphere.
La Boca doesn’t tout the pedigree of its steak. This is beef for folks without an expense account. La Boca seasons their steaks with nothing more than salt and pepper and then grills them with an expert hand. The restaurant has the skill to make less luscious cuts of meat, such as flank steak or short ribs, into a treat. The most expensive steak, a massive 20 oz. bone in rib-eye, costs $36, while more modest cuts can be had for $21 or less.
Emeril helped launch the Warehouse District. It only seems appropriate that another celebrity chef from New England, Todd English of Boston, should lead the second wave of development. If everything follows the business plan, Fulton Street will soon be a destination for tourists and conventioneers– a miniature Las Vegas; Bourbon Street with less sleaze.
It’s nice to imagine Fulton Street as a strip of restaurants like La Boca: serving unpretentious food and taking care of their local customers. It would be the culinary equivalent of Frenchmen Street. It seems more likely that the restaurants could be brash, heavily bankrolled and angling for the outsider’s pocketbook. Let’s hope that as Fulton Street grows, it will still be a place where a restaurant like La Boca can prosper.
Let Your Taste Buds Do the Walking
Rock-n-Sake
823 Fulton St.
581-7253
Wolfe’s in the Warehouse
800 block of Fulton Street at St. Joseph 613-2882
La Boca
857 Fulton St.
525-8205
By: LORIN GAUDIN
Truckin’ Hit the taco trucks stationed around town (Claiborne at Melpomene, Mid-City and Metairie) for simple, yet delicious tacos, burritos and more. The price tag is usually under $5. If you feel like sitting down, truck on down to the French Quarter for a meal at our very first Honduran restaurant, Jazz Tacos. Ignore the touristy name and head in for unbelievably good pupusas, gooey with cheese and wrapped in handmade tortillas bursting with fresh corn flavor. The yuca con chicharron (boiled yucca, chopped into cubes and covered in shredded cabbage, pickled carrots and tomato sauce, then topped with crunchy crackling bites) is heaven on a plate. “Natural Drinks,” like the passion fruit, are a perfectly sweet and refreshing accompaniment to the food.
Cubanismo Azul Restaurant, Fredo Diaz’s latest venture, which graces the ground floor of the Ambassador Hotel on Tchoupitoulas, is cooking up a fusion of Asian and Cuban cuisines. Top on the lunch menu are Tamal Cubano– stone ground corn tamale with roasted pork and a drizzle of Asian sweet chile sauce– and the Frita Cubana; the Cuban Hamburger is a blend of ground sirloin and pulled pork, griddled and topped with a tomato-like sauce, shredded lettuce, onions and a huge pile of shoestring fries.
Gimme Buffet Two local spots are offering killer lunch buffets: Mat & Naddie’s $10 buffet is rocking the Riverbend from 11 a.m.-3 p.m., Mon.-Fri., while newcomer, the Elms Mansion on St. Charles Avenue offers a buffet lunch for $15, Tues.-Fri. from 11:30 a.m.- 2:30 p.m.
If You “New” Sushi Chef Hidei (aka Elvis), above, of Kanno California Sushi (18th Street, between Arnoult & Edenborn) is always setting trends with fun and funky ingredients for sushi rolls. Right now he’s adding “green crunchy” to his sushi. Don’t ask how he makes it, he won’t tell you, but he will say it’s made from spinach.
Noteworthy News Paula Deen, below, the gorgeous, hilarious, and talented cook/author and Food Network star, will be in town promoting her new book, Paula Deen Celebrates! She starts at the Monteleone’s Literary Luncheon on Oct. 30, and later that same day (from 5-7 p.m.) she’ll be signing and speaking at Garden District Books in the Rink on Prytania.
