More Reasons to Celebrate!

Seasonal menus, promotions and winter specials make fall feasting a must.

As the air takes on the crisp qualities of fallen leaves and ripened apples, minds and appetites can’t help but turn to the harvests and bounties of autumn, and stomachs start to grumble at the family feasts to come.

However, here in New Orleans, where the change in seasons are determined more by produce than weather, it’s only fitting that the feasts to look forward to the most are found outside of the home as the world’s best restaurants unveil their fall menus. Utilizing the best ingredients to design the seasonal specials on offer from November into the end of the year, it’s the goal of restaurants citywide to bring the exciting warmth of daring and ingenuity in the kitchen into the chilliness of winter, and by gosh, have they done it again!

Uptown, The Delachaise is redefining wine bar luxury with new dishes that could revolutionize the way you think about food at a place where beverages were the focus. Wagyu beef sliders need no further introduction, and the Smoked Goose Salad – complete with pecans, Fiore Sardo and quince vinaigrette – brings Christmas to the table early. Another new dish, the Cuban Twice-Cooked Pork, improves on the concept by stewing the pork in broth, then frying it in duck fat to infuse even more richness into every crispy bite.

Tommy’s Cuisine is another location where great wine and food come to meet, and this autumn is no different.

Combinations like sea scallops topped with grilled shrimp and roasted red pepper buerre blanc would make anyone’s mouth water, and Veal Picatta dressed up with jumbo lump crab meat definitely doesn’t disappoint. Unwrapping your steaming Fish Papilotte gets you in practice for the gift-filled holidays ahead, and with black drum, shrimp, mushrooms and a sherry cream sauce, it’ll be just as fun as opening any present December can bring.

Cuvée’s fall menu is as high-end as you’ve come to expect; The Duck entrée features a smoked breast and confit leg served with walnut-bleu risotto and Hudson Valley foie gras with a pear glace. Another whimsically named dish being introduced this season is the Chicken and Waffles, which is far fancier than the name implies, but still comfort food. The updated dish consists of coq au vin blanc with a bacon-Boursin stuffed waffle topped off with rosemary Steen’s syrup. The more descriptive Almond-Caper Crusted Salmon is a rendition of this favorite fish in a beurre noisette vinaigrette.

Far more fall is Cuvée’s pork chop with Bock-braised cabbage, herbed spatzle, Creole mustard and gala apples; and it certainly doesn’t get any more November than the Butternut Squash Soup with ginger crisps, toasted pumpkin seed oil, and vanilla cream.

festivus and other things
As if the fall weren’t already chockablock with things to celebrate, local restaurateurs have found more to be excited about during these holiday months. Upperline is bringing back a menu devoted to one of our most beloved founding fathers, Thomas Jefferson, and his passion for bringing French wine, techniques and delicacies to America, while taking advantage of all the fine produce the New World has to offer. In other words, this man belonged in New Orleans! One and all are invited to honor him every Wednesday with a $40 four-course dinner (accompanying wine is an additional $18) comprised of turtle soup, Drum Meuniere topped with crab, a roasted duck breast with peach sauce and pecan sweet potatoes, and crème brûlée.

But that’s not all. At the peak of the “-ember” months – a rule of thumb for oyster lovers everywhere – Upperline is celebrating these mollusks with an event of their own, unveiling an affordable prix fixe menu titled (with enthusiasm) Oysters Plus! $35 gets you two courses of P&Js, including the famous Oysters St. Claude. The main dish is a filet with oysters in a Bordelaise, and their delicious bread pudding with toffee sauce completes the night.

Café Adelaide is also making merry with limited time offers with a $55 “Broadway in New Orleans” package that includes valet parking, transportation to and from the Mahalia Jackson Theater of the Performing Arts and three courses of better-than-Broadway cuisine. Reservations are required and the applicable dates are for the weekend performances of Cats and The Color Purple, so keep that in mind when planning your date night!

Not to be left behind, BACCO is preparing for their eighth annual White Truffle Festival in December, finalizing a four-course menu that highlights this opulent ingredient, with dishes like Black Truffle Fettucini with shaved
white truffle.

deals of the season
Although white truffle-lovers need to sit tight until next month, BACCO has kindly created a wallet-friendly but still fabulous menu for the month you shop for gifts, bringing a $15 two-course pasta lunch to their dining room. Starters include a choice of their delicious Corn and Crab Soup or Lemon Parmesan Salad, and entrées offer a tough choice between the Confit Duck and Capellini with fresh ginger, orange, radicchio and green onions; Shrimp Orecchiette with imported pasta, roasted herbed tomatoes and ricotta; and Oyster Fettucini with flash-fried P&Js, leeks, pancetta, spinach and Herbsaint.

The Flaming Torch is also getting in the game of affordable luxury, offering their Early Bird specials from 5:30-6:30 p.m. until the end of the year. Three courses are being offered for only $29, with main course selections such as Le Foie Lyonnaise, sautéed veal liver with caramelized onions, and classic Steak Diane, with brandy-flamed mushrooms and peppercorn cream sauce topping two pan-seared petit filets. Newer traditional favorites added to the regular fall menu include the shrimp, lobster, oyster, fish and clam Bouillabaisse and the wine-braised osso buco.

out of the fall
Throughout the rest of the country, there’s a lull between the feast of Thanksgiving and that of Christmas, a month-long silence of gathering and gaiety, save the rumble of your stomach aching for the meal just passed and the one to come. New Orleanians, however, know of no such void: our holiday white space is colored in with the annual French tradition of reveillon. Translated as “awakening,” this term symbolizes the effect the birth of Jesus had on Christian consciousness, and is historically an elaborate feast that takes place after the traditional midnight Mass.

However, in our city, we do food large-scale and party right, and thus have filled in the gap of gorging left by the end of November with reveillon feasts that last from the beginning of December to the end of the year.

Most restaurants in New Orleans take part in this annual tradition, offering set-course prix fixe menus that boast delectable, seasonal gourmet goods at a rock-bottom rate. For example, Café Adelaide, sister restaurant to the internationally lauded Commander’s Palace, is hosting reveillon in high Brennan style with a $49 menu (exclusive of tax and tip) that features delicacies like turtle soup and Hudson Valley foie gras cinnamon toast with fragrant vanilla duck bacon and sage-infused Steen’s syrup. A salad of Cashel blue cheese, crispy walnuts, Louisiana citrus and cranberry pesto opens the stage for either sea salt-roasted red grouper with blue crab and brie risotto, luxurious champagne-poached oyster mushrooms and a vanilla vinegar reduction; or Muscovy duck with chestnut-foie
gras dirty rice and a Satsuma beurre noisette. Dessert is just as tempting with Callebaut chocolate pound cake and Drambuie Gateau de Sirop pudding.

But it doesn’t stop there. New Orleans is not a city known for its boundaries, so reveillon has naturally expanded throughout the years, lunch now being an acceptable meal to celebrate as well! The Audubon Golf Club is introducing a reservation-only four-course luncheon, to be served Tuesday through Friday for $27. The set menu includes a cream of oyster, mirliton and shrimp soup; goat cheese, Romaine and watercress salad; and classic white chocolate bread pudding as a dessert. For the entrée, the choice is yours between a roast herb turkey breast or Louisiana crab cakes with green peppercorn and crawfish sauce.

These are just a sample of what’s in store for the gastronomes in New Orleans, but we all know that it just keeps getting better as time marches on in our fair city. Like the fine wine we serve, we only improve with age,
as year after year, we eat into the chill of winter with hot food in our bellies and warm love in our hearts.
 

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