Restaurant August: Is It Worth It?

Restaurant August is the youngest member of the Classic set. Compared to most of the places examined this year, August is a wee lad. The reason it deserved scrutiny is because no other chef/brand in New Orleans history, save maybe Emeril Lagasse, has expanded faster and farther than John Besh. Prudhomme's spice line and a Commander's outpost or two have certainly taken New Orleans' brands to distant lands, but Besh after Katrina was seemingly anywhere a microphone or camera was. TV shows, eight new restaurants, cookbooks, and a foundation followed. All of this took place in a roasting pan of rapidly expanding food media, Twitpics, and Instagrams, making Besh one of the most recognizable New Orleans chefs.

August's location across the street from The Windsor Court gives it access to well-heeled visitors with expense accounts and sophisticated tastes. The cuisine at August has always reminded me, in a good way, of watching the Great Chefs of the World series on PBS. Elegant, multi-component dishes which appear incredibly simple, yet impossible to recreate at home. Take for instance the amuse bouche which sets in front of a diner a hallowed out egg shell brimming with fish fumet, a truffled sabayon, a dollop of caviar, and a baton of brioche sticking out like flag planted on a newly discovered island.

Each time this amuse is delivered by one of the sharp backwaiters, I sigh and utter to myself, "this again." But by the time I am done scooping out the luscious thick mixture of pungent truffle and fish made solid, I consider ordering a half dozen of these. That and a bottle of Champagne from the well-studied list would make one hell of an indulgent list.

But alas, duty calls. The daily lunch menu (hurry only thirteen more days that it will be available for $20.12) offers a selection of three dishes each in one of three courses. I went the economical route; Lindsay decided she wanted to order off the regular menu, which can get pricey. My first course was a simple salad of pear, mizuna, blue cheese, and walnuts. The pears had been sliced thin and cooked, the heat coaxing out a rich sweetness which was a natural pairing for the sharp bite of blue cheese.

The second most famous dish in the Besh cannon is a bowl of gently ridged gnocchi united with crabmeat, truffle, and parmesan. The real value in this dish is the free drag of bread through the deeply flavored sauce. Again, you could make a whole meal out of a double order of this, but this time go with a white burgundy.

Porchetta, that rustic Italian roadside staple, receives a shower, shave, and Saville Row clothing allowance. The kitchen at august crusts the well-seasoned meat in panko and places it on a saddle of sturdy grits framed with tender sprouts and halved cherry tomatoes. Shrimp and grits removes the grits in favor of risotto and surrounds the dish with a rich shellfish stock, thin, floppy disks of gourd, and a pleasant spice.

I wish more attention was devoted to the wine by the glass program, but fine dining's number one rule is to make money on the extremities. A glass of rose which should have been bright and lively was dusty and flat, but one probably shouldn't be drinking at lunch. Desserts under the studied stewardship of Kelly Fields have veered into territory approaching avant garde in New Orleans. Witness a study in devil's food cake, which cast the flavors of chocolate into a galaxy of cherry asteroids, pistachio space debris, and coconut moons orbiting dense planets of decadent brownies and a sun of cocoa pudding.

I am not sure how much time Besh spends in his kitchen at August. But whether it is one hundred hours a week or one hundred minutes a year, his brigade is well-tuned and focused. The faux Besh signature on each page of the menu (and website) needs to be retired; its like wearing a high school letter jacket as a freshmen in college. The front of the house service is polished, professional, and well-timed. I can't help but think that a maitre d' would tie the room together like Lebowski's rug. But we are here to talk about the food, and the food at this newish classic is fantastic and faultless. At twenty bucks for lunch, it is the best deal in town.

Restaurant August: Is It Worth It? Absolutely.
301 Tchoupitoulas
299-9977

Gone Fishin' at Borgne

Many high profile chefs recognize that a banner name on the marquee and on the menu cover is of no assistance to what's going on in the kitchen. A major relies heavily on his captain to organize his troops, and in the same way a chef counts on his sous chef or chef de cuisine to execute their food. John Besh figured out this formula when he partnered with Alon Shaya at Domenica. Now he's done the same with Brian Landy at Borgne, and the result thus far has been just as successful.

Borgne fills what has been a glaring void in the downtown area: a restaurant serving fresh, high quality seafood in a setting somewhere between the fine dining rooms of the French Quarter and the neighborhood restaurants found in Bucktown. The restaurant is more casual than I expected - think Domenica with lighter color tones. Service is friendly and congenial; waiters are there when you need them and absent when you don't. The end result is upscale comfort designed to please the entire spectrum of diners.

The menu is billed as "coastal Louisiana cuisine" - think seafood and lots of it - "with a touch of Isleño influence" - a nod to the Spanish descendants who emigrated from the Canary Islands to St. Bernanrd Parish. Oysters play a prominent role on the menu, and every table should begin with an order of the baked oysters. The menu says "garlic butter" but the preparation is much more clean than the typical overload of parmesan and herbs. The bivalves are served pure and unadulterated - hot, plump and gilded with buttery crisp bread crumbs. On the entree side of the menu, the P&J oysters amandine is a dozen or more expertly fried oysters piled atop a warm spinach salad dressed slivered almonds and brown butter. And the oyster Spaghetti shows how delicious a combination of cream, pasta, and perfectly poached oysters can be.

Of the non-oyster affiliated portions of the menu, I have had the most experience with the starters. A quintet of duck poppers are a riff on the jalapeno, cream cheese, bacon treatment that has immigrated from Texas campfires to ambitious restaurants. Bite size morsels of duck breast are paired with a slice of jalapeno, wrapped in bacon, bakes and placed atop a cream cheese sauce. Yes, they are awesome. A quintet of thin crusted empanadas are stuffed with roast suckling pig that tastes more like pulled pork than cochon de lait and served with a thin pink dipping sauce. The crabmeat croquetas are a smooth mixture of crab and cream cheese in a two-bite sphere. Shrimp toasts have now morphed into shrimp fritters; I have not had the newer version yet, but I am a huge fan of the sambal aioli underneath, which would make a great dip for french fries (hint, hint).

The Spanish influence on the menu is easily recognized by the "a la plancha" description, which roughly translates into "grilled on a metal plate." Both black drum and the rice served with the twice cooked garlic chicken (a riff on a classic paella) are given the treatment. The goat cheese “a la planca” is griddled and sauced with a Christmas color combination of mojo verde and roasted red pepper and topped with crushed pistachios. The blue crab bisque has a rich, creamy base with great flavor. Green salad with blue cheese and the pecan vinaigrette is a less refined (but nearly as tasty) version of the salad at August featuring pumpkin seed brittle and Point Reyes.  The seared tuna salad is a sleeper. Slices of rare tuna are placed atop a base of Italian artichoke salad which more resembled a spicy, crunchy giardiniera. And that was a good thing.

The dessert list has been in constant flux since Borgne's opening, with different selections available on each of my visits. The Hummingbird cake has plenty of crunch with loads of pecans pressed into the sides of the cake which is iced with a whipped cream cheese frosting. The oatmeal cookie ice cream sandwich is the new hot ticket item, but the cookie was hard and tough instead of soft and chewy on my only taste test. The Prince Albert (LOL!) has already disappeared from the menu. The chocoholic's dream dessert was a thin, moist round of chocolate cake topped with a chocolate mousse double the height of the bottom layer, a quenelle of cocoa ice cream and squiggles of chocolate and caramel sauces. It was divine. I never had a chance to try the mini fried pies, which were supposedly spectacular.

But the empty space left by the now-departed Prince Albert has easily been filled by my new favorite dessert. Many of you are aware of my love for Nutella, but the hazelnut flan at Borgne is evidence that hazelnut need not rely on its longstanding partnership with chocolate. The rich, thick, silky, smooth flan is out of f*cking bounds, and the accompanying condensed milk sorbet and peanut brittle are no afterthoughts.

We hesitate to pass judgment on new restaurants in their infancy stages. I have been to Borgne 5 times since it opened 2 months ago and have now written about it twice. It should not be too difficult to figure out how I rate the food.

Borgne

601 Loyola Avenue

(504) 613-3860

Open Daily 11am - 11pm

A Vintnerview with Michelle Gueydan

Michelle Gueydan left New Orleans after high school for college in New York. After college she worked for then gubernatorial candidate Mark Warner and then a job as a private event manager eased her into the wine world. She returned to New Orleans where she is in an integral member in three wine related businesses. At Swirl, she is a "wino" helping customers choose a wine to take home. As the principal in VinoSolutions she outsources sommelier expertise to restaurants and home collectors to organize and build their wine holdings. Recently, Gueydan partnered with Brian Dias to start NOLAWineSpeak, a wine education company. Twentyish questions on the clock....

I was in college in upstate New York. Had done most my partying in high school so when I got to college found partying sort of boring and focused more on studying. Close to college was the Finger Lakes region which makes a lot of wines, so one day I just volunteered to help pull leaves at a vineyard. It was there I first learned wine could be art and not just pink stuff that got you drunk.

I had been working for a few years as the event planner for a guy who owned a real estate asset management company. My boss also did a lot of philanthropic work with Quincy Jones so we were always planning dinners of some sort. Or we were flying to a dinner and talking about wine while reading food and wine magazines. So originally pairing was something of a foray into an unknown world, but I still knew very little about wine. After a series of events on the Mediterranean, I hadn't slept in a week. I was sitting on a yacht and the steward came over and asked if I'd like a glass of wine. I said sure, whatever you have. She brought a white wine that was so perfumey and unctuous that I asked what is this. She said Chardonnay and I didn't believe her. From then on, wine became a side passion and then an obsession.

Well, that bottle of Meursault on the yacht. But I don't remember the producer or vintage or anything like that. The other bottle I chase and will never catch again was a 1905 Chateau La Tour. I was in Colorado helping my boss organize his cellar before leaving to start a job in a tasting room in Alexe Corton when I got a call that the French government would not allow an American girl such a prestigious job. So I was pretty despondent and my boss cheered me up by asking, "What should we open?" I told him the 1905 La Tour was leaking a bit. So he pulled down that bottle, a 1929 Mouton, a 1950 Haut Brion, and a 1961 Petrus. Of all those bottles, the 1905 was far and away the best with the fruit still prominent after over 100 years.

I never thought I wanted to come back to New Orleans. All of my family here has died, so there was nothing to come back to, until Katrina. And then I felt a really strong urge to come home. At the time, I was the sommelier at the Inn at Little Washington. Came down here and got a job with John Besh as sommelier at August. In general the position of sommelier in New Orleans is not as supported as a free standing position in a restaurant as in other cities. In other cities, if you are the sommelier on the floor, it is your job to help guests select wine and manage the wine list of the restaurant. As a sommelier in New Orleans you are expected to be a manager as well. So I've had this idea of a sommelier education program to make more sommeliers truly sommeliers in New Orleans. But it was just an idea until I met Brian. The goal is to see be progressing with our wine thought in New Orleans. And that is what we want to do with NOLAWineSpeak.

I can't stand formulated wine descriptions. The one I hate the most is gooseberry. I didn't have the slightest clue what a gooseberry tasted like when I started learning about Sauvignon Blanc as tasting of gooseberry. I still dont know what a gooseberry tastes like. But people use that term as if everyone is eating gooseberries all the time. Other thing I hate is wine descriptors that are awful images but used in a positive context like "wet dog" or "barnyard". Who wants to drink a wet dog?

Best way to ease the tension with customers who are apprehensive about wine is just to start a conversation with the guest. Find out what they are interested in, what they are in the mood for, what do they normally prefer to drink. Sometimes people ask me what I like to drink and I tell them it depends on the day.

Rose. Across the board there is no wine better suited for New Orleans cuisine. A dry rose, with good fruit, good weight, and good acidity is nearly perfect match for the spiciness of our food. Always enjoyed rose, but I really started liking them with food when I moved back to New Orleans.

I hate the single palate based point systems which dominate the wine world. There is value in ratings that are group efforts but just go to off a single palate? I don't like that. I went to Bourdeaux to barrel taste the '05s. We were tasting 200 wines a day and there were a lot of us. But every winery was waiting for the scores of Robert Parker before prices could be set. You could sense the stress in the room and in all of the producers while awaiting Parker's judgment.

If I made a wine, it would be an eclectic, off the beaten path varietal that would challenge me to make it into a single varietal bottling. Turning something that is usually just blended with other grapes into its own wine that is what I love and it would be a limited bottling all hand sold.

Windows on the World. Extremely Pale Rose. A great book for the intro level person is The Wine Bible. Karen MacNeil does a very good job of adding fun tidbits and making wine an interesting read. All that said, I prefer to read magazines and newsletters like Decanter and Food and Wine for wine info. Mostly because wine is always changing and books are sometimes outdated by the time the fifth chapter is written.

I like that people are more adventuresome with their palates. Nowadays, people are open to try other varieties other than Chardonnay and Cabernet. On a winemaking level the focus on sustainability and artisinal approaches are things I really like.

To enhance enjoyment at home, try new things but try them with food to make the daily task of having dinner a grander experience. Really try and think about how the flavor profiles of wine and food could work together.

Yes, but I have been pretty fortunate in that I've normally been offered a taste and not have to think, "Man, I wish I could drink that." But I found that while at August, visitors, New Yorkers specifically, thought their expertise outshined that of any local sommelier. So they would often not offer me a sip.

Vietnamese - Riesling. Tex-Mex- Tequila, my second favorite thing to drink. American Chinese - An Austrian Gruner Veltliner. Crawfish Boil - Rose.

I've pretty much drank through most of my collection I had built up. Former employer called and said he had been diagnosed with cancer and wanted to know what the most expensive bottles in his cellar were because he was going to drink them, chemo be damned. So I thought, why am I holding all these wines that one day I may never be able to drink? I had First Growth Bourdeaux and Italian wines that I drank. I still have some 1982 Margaux, Lafitte, Mouton, older Pahlmeyer. But what do I drink? My heart is in Burgundy, my pocketbook in Spain. I drink Tempranillo and Albarino. Also, drink a lot of boxed wine. James Moises is releasing a boxed Oregon Pinot (at right) that is pretty amazing in my book. Higher quality boxed wine with no chance of spoiling is on the rise.

Boucherie. Nathaniel (Zimet) and James (Denio) have managed to build a wine list that presents wines off the beaten path at an affordable price point that don't intimidate. And then of course, Commander Dan at Commander's Palace. From a revered wine list stand point, Commander's Palace best in town. From a consumer's point of view, Boucherie.

Boucherie, Cowbell, Herbsaint, and Coquette. Ohh and can I add Patois, I can't just pick four restaurants?

Hall and Oates - Chardonnay. Not because it is cheesy, but because it is a wine that was really popular back in the day. Mozart- German Gerwurtztriminer. Dr. Dre- Australian Shiraz.

Most memorable food and wine experience was at 2941 Restaurant in Virginia. The wine was a Madeira. The dish a soup sort of similar to our version of turtle soup but not quite the same. Madeira was new to me and the combination of it with the food created a third flavor, different than either the soup or the wine  which enhanced both the soup and the wine. Just a great pairing.

Desert Island wines? That is tough. 1905 Latour. 1990 E. Guigal La Landonne. Aged Vouvray-Huet would be first choice, but it doesn't matter. I just love aged Vouvray and we need more of it. Sake Daiginjo. Meursault, nothing specific because I like to many producers.

Talking with Talbot

Jeffrey Talbot grew up in Venton, Louisiana, just outside of Lake Charles. From there, he worked in high end  kitchens in Florida, Pennsylvania, Louisiana, Europe and California. But he left all that behind a few years ago to focus on a side job that became a passion: pizza. Quiet and monkish, Talbot is well-versed in the profanity laced patois of the kitchen. Let's put twentyish questions on the clock and get to know the pizza monk who tends the oven at Ancora. All photos courtesy of the new staff photog here, Renee "Peanut" Bienvenu.

Cooking is the only thing I can do. After high school I moved to Florida for a few months where my cousin was running a restaurant. Worked there for a few months and then went to Philadelphia to work with Tony Clark.

I worked for John Besh at Artesia, then he sent me to Europe for a year and three months. Came back and opened August. Always had in my mind that I wanted to work in three star Michelin type places. So left for California, where I worked at Cyrus. While I was at Cyrus, we started a bread program. That is when I began my starter, which is now six year's old. Was there for three months and became sous chef.

I kind of fell out of love with cooking. My mom had had a few strokes and so I moved back home and built a pizza oven in the backyard.

The pizza obsession is one of those things that my family didn't really understand. I first ate really great pizza when I was out in California and it was done perfectly. That pizza was an emotional experience. I wanted to take the craft I had learned in great restaurants and put that style of food into pizza. In a way you become more creative by limiting what it is you are doing.

I love making bread. We do three things here: cured meats, bread, and pizza. To me pizza is bread. But the actual bread we do here is pretty fun to make. Bread making is a very meditative process that requires focus to get the shape and texture we want. We don't use any commercial yeast. On some days there is high humidity, so you have to account for that. Other days, lower humidity. Sourdough is a whole different ballgame than using commercial yeast.

I don't know if I have a least favorite kitchen task. As a cook you take the good with the bad. What I hated doing five years ago, I love now. I even like cleaning, who the fuck likes to clean?

We cooks talk about memorable meals all the time. I have two. Cooks are always poor. I've been married for nine years now and my wife and I always make it a point to go and have one really nice meal a year. One year we went to The French Laundry and had the private dining room all to ourselves. I remember the maitre'd came in and said, "the other people who were to join you, have canceled. You have the room all night." That meal was great because we were treated so specially. Other meal was at Manresa. We ordered the entire tasting menu and the entire a la carte menu. We were there for five and a half hours and did twenty-one courses. It was fucking insane. Ohh, and we did all the wine pairings as well. At one point, my wife said, "Fuck, we are still on white wine. We have a long way to go." I think Manresa is serving the best food of any restaurant in America.

I like cooking for my family the most. As a cook we are constantly trying to justify our craft to our families. We arent ought saving the world, we aren't curing cancer, we just cook food for people to eat. So there is still that drive to make your family very proud of what you do. And cooking for them let's us do that. I'd love to cook for Douglas Keane. I have a tremendous amount of respect for him because I worked for him for so long.

I remember the first time I saw an ingredient you find on candy bars in a high end restaurant kitchen. Soy leciethen was the ingredient. I hate that high end restaurants are using that shit and charging people a fortune for that. You aren't a chef if you can't make great plates from food that grows in the dirt, swims in the ocean, or grazes in the fields plus a little salt and pepper. Technique is what great cooking is built on. I want a potato to taste like a fucking potato. Cryovacs and immersion circulators in my mind are no different than microwaves.

Fucking texting. I hate people texting in my kitchen. When you show up to work, work. Text when you get home.

What we do here is so simple. We don't get any produce delivered. We go to the market and what we find there is what we cook with. So you won't see anymore Creoles soon and we aren't going to serve Cauliflower in summer. That forces us to be creative.

Within three months, we had moved to New Orleans, had a baby, and opened a restaurant. We put up the lights, finished the floor, built this space. So there is an emotional attachment to this restaurant fueled by those hardships. After we opened, we discovered people have a preconceived notion of what pizza is supposed to be. We fight that everyday.

I put my hands on every single pizza that a customer eats. If they don't like it, it means they don't like what I did. And that is humbling.

Wood, sea salt, and Double O flour are my essential kitchen tools. Most of what we do, that is all we need to do it. All of our breads are just flour, sea salt, and water. Those are the most important ingredients.

After a long day, I like to eat cheese and bread and drink beer. I really love St. James which is one of my favorite places to go. Even coming from Bay Area, where there is a cheese shop on nearly every corner, St. James stands out.  It is the best cheese shop I've ever been in. I love everything about it, especially the smell.

The biggest influence in my career was traveling in Europe. Not neccessarily working in the kitchens, because all high end kitchens are pretty much the same. But being able to drive an hour and eat at a place like Auberge du Lac which has had 3 Michelin stars for like 50 years.

From My Grandmother's Kitchen. Marco Pierre White's White Heat is very motivational, but I have never cooked anything out of it. I just love the way he talks about food in that book. Flavors of Tuscanny. I read that book cover to cover. No chefs buy cookbooks for the recipes. You buy it to put you in a frame of mind. So when you are wanting to "Be Italian" or "Be Rustic" you read a book that takes you there and shows you the thought process of how to prepare food in that manner.

Probably the cooking of Northern Italy is my favorite Italian cuisine. The further north you go in Italy, the more it falls in line with the cuisines that surround it. As you go south, even into Tuscanny, you start finding poor man's food where they aren't relying on eggs and butter as much.

No shit, I ended up in New Orleans because of a Mano. We went there like five times before even partnered with Adolfo. I just love what they do there. Then of course, we are eagerly awaiting the reopening of Casamentos. And I love Hansen's, before we opened I went there everyday. My favorite flavor is The Thai Trifecta - ginger, limeade and cream of coconut.

I'd start with the cured meat plate definitely, the affetati misti. My favorite pizza here is the marinara. Two years go I loved the margerita, but now I see less as more. When you start putting too much stuff on pizza, it suffers. Our marinara is just dough, wild oregano, shaved garlic and the best possible tomatoes we can find. That is it. For dessert, I'd have the daily sweetbread. Again, simplicity it is just sourdough with dried fruits, nuts, marscapone cheese, and honey.

Never liquor with pizza. Beer or wine. Beer with some things, wine with others. But as I get older, I find myself drinking more beer.

I used to work on a fishing boat so I would be bringing fishing shit with me to a deserted island. If I wasn't doing pizza, I'd be cooking fish. I'd bring some seeds so I could grow stuff I needed to cook. Something to take salt out of the water which would also leave me with a huge supply of sea salt. Pepper. And I'd bring my knives. Be pretty set with all of that. Ohh, can I add something unfucking practical like ice cream just because?

Tale of the Tape

The other week Peter and I debated the merits of fine dining vs. casual dining. One of the points made was that casual dining is no longer casually priced. As an example, I mentioned that a recent casual meal at Domenica set us back $200.Chefs keep opening casual spots because they tell us, "This is what the public wants in these tough times" or "I just want to serve food without all the BS". These are noble goals, but are we as consumers getting hosed on value?

For comparison sake, let's compare and contrast the two meals using the Warren Buffet definition of value v. price wherein, "Price is what you pay, value is what you get." Both meals were very good to excellent from a food perspective. Both Domenica and Restaurant August are headed by talented, young chefs, Alon Shaya and Michael Gulotta, respectively. This comparison only uses the experiences to compare the cost to find out which meal had a better value.

Opening Impressions

Domenica - Placemats double as menus, hard surfaces predominant, and room is loud in a good and festive way, bottle of water placed on table.

August - Cloth bound menus, although one seam of my menu was nearly split, tablecloths, noise level moderate, bottle of Cava to start.

Food

Domenica - Starters included the always delicious octopus carpaccio ($12) with its thin coins of briny tenderness offset by shards of fennel and citrus. Also had the crema fritta ($14), an Italian mornay sauce essentially, that is cooled to a consistency harder than a pudding but softer than a solid, then fried. The braised goat ($28) came out in a cauldron studded with baby vegetables and was delicious and filling. The other entree on the table was a simple pizza, the tutto carne ($13) loaded with fennel sausage, bacon, salami, and Cotechino cheese. Dessert was the always reliable frittole ($8).

August - After placing order, the first course to arrive was an amuse bouche, cubes of pork belly with a spicy glaze (gratis). Next up was a shared first course baby beets ($17) split into quarters sitting atop pristine jumbo lump crab, all accented by baby greens and a tart vinaigrette. Then a bowl of ramen with a pork and shrimp broth ($14) and a tortelli with chanterelles and bone marrow ($16). Entrees were next and included an overcooked duck breast ($37, the only dud of the night) and the pork three ways ($36), the pork tenderloin wrapped in crispy dough, being one of the best things I've eaten in 2010. No dessert, but mignardises of chocolates, pralines, and other candies.

Wine

Domenica - Asked the waitress for a recommendation of something different and she suggested an Italian pinot noir ($65). Unfortunately, the wine lacked acid or structure to stand up to the gutsy cooking. Blame myself though, pinot is a French grape. The glass of limoncello at the end, however was perfect.

August - Juve Y Camps Cava ($45) to start, which was lovely with all of the starters. And then the sommelier suggested an '08 Hautes Cotes de Baune ($90) to round out the meal. I'd order both wines again, but if pressed two bottles of the Cava.

Service

Domenica - The service fits the restaurant. It is unpretentious and driven to make you happy. Any hiccups are readily fixed. Of all the Besh satellites, this is the most complete.

August - Despite the frayed menu (yes, it is stupid to dwell on, but so simple) service was flawless. The courses were timed perfectly and anyone on the floor could answer any question with ease and grace.

Final Cost with tax and tip

Domenica - $200

August - $325

Value winner? August, hands down. Now listen, I spend a lot of money on restaurants. Money that could certainly be put to better use elsewhere. I know that spending this much money on food goes against the teachings of at least three major religions and two political theories. But dining out is a hobby. Given the option, I'd forgo one and half meals at Domenica for one at Restaurant August. Your values, may and will differ. What is your definition of value in a meal?

Stoltzfus

Michael Stoltzfus came to New Orleans from Maryland to work at John Besh's August. Not long after,  he and then girlfriend now fiancee, Lillian Hubbard opened Coquette on the corner of Washington and Magazine in December of 2008. Within a few months they had Four Beans from the Times Pic and the restaurant was well on its way to joining the roster of restaurants one has to eat at in New Orleans. In December, Stoltzfus will open his second eatery, Sweet Olive in The Saint Hotel. Let's put twentyish questions on the clock and get to know Michael Stoltzfus.

I was about to go to college and my mom opened a bakery. She said, "why don't you work here for a few weeks before school starts?" I never left for college. Started cooking breakfast and lunch in the back of the bakery. Got an Alain Ducasse book and just taught myself from there.

While I was working at my mom's in the morning, I was spending nights working at a fine dining restaurant in Chestertown, Maryland. Then I went to work at Julia's, probably the best restaurant at that time in Maryland. At Julia's I worked every position in restaurant- waiter, cook, manager- save bartender. After that, I went to work at August. Stayed there for a year and a half before this opportunity fell in our laps.

Losing all my money (laughs). Actually the thing I was most afraid of was not being able to cook. When you work for someone else, there is always a way to do things. Their vision, their recipe are what you use. I was afraid that I wasn't going to be able to cook food that was any good. When we opened, we had no idea what was going on with national economy. Luckily, Louisiana was pretty recession proof at that time. We were steady for the first five months, and then Brett Anderson reviewed us, and we took off from there. We had no idea he had been in, no idea we were on anyone's radar, and then the Times Picayune called to do a photo shoot for a review. We were shocked.

My approach to food has changed a lot. When we first opened, I was trying to emulate the cooking of the people I had learned from and so there was a heavy Besh presence to my food. In a way this was detrimental to my growth as a chef. A few years ago, something switched and my cooks and I started focusing our menu on what we would like to eat. How would we like to eat this ingredient. My cooks create more than I do now and in the last year we really started to focus on local products and purveyors. I'd say right now we get 80% of our produce locally and hopefully with Sweet Olive we will get that number to 100%.

I've become much more laid back recently. My biggest kitchen pet peeve is probably watching a cook turn a burner on high and try to cook something. The only time a burner should ever be on high in a kitchen is when you are trying to boil water. One of the most important aspects to cooking is controlling your heat and you can't do that on high. Also, I need a really clean kitchen. But all chefs are like that.

I love making bread. Making bread everyday for the restaurant can be monotonous, but there is nothing more rewarding than baking bread. What is funny is that at my mom's bakery, I never baked anything. Now I bake 60-70 loaves a day. Pulling a loaf of bread out of the oven is super rewarding. It is just flour, water, and yeast, but what comes out is so much more.

Hardest part of opening the restaurant was that neither Lillian nor I had any business background whatsoever. We had no idea of what we were getting ourselves into. I learned I was halfway decent at business things.

The French Laundry Cookbook- It is sort of the template of most cooks for the last 10 years or so, but I really love that book. Bread Baker's Apprentice. The Gift of Southern Cooking by Edna Lewis and Scott Peacock's. And I really like the NOMA cookbook, because it is so different and revolutionary. His emphasis on foraging and cooking ingredients I've never heard of is so different, it is really cool.

These days my favorite kitchen tool is my Sharpie. But always the knife. I use an 8 inch Misono chef's knife for just about everything.

Had a cook on maybe his third day. Right before service on a busy Friday night there was a huge stock pot on a table by the dishwasher's station. The leg of the table gave out and the cook rushed over to save the stock. 15 gallons of near boiling hot stock went everywhere including all over him. That was a pretty gruesome thing to see.

The food at Sweet Olive is going to be updated versions of New Orleans and Southern food classics. We are going to take a similar approach there that we do at Coquette and have a good time with the food. I've been obsessed with collard greens lately. One idea has us cooking whole leaf collards sous vide, then treating it like a grape leaf and wrapping it around boudin. We are also going to do bar food for the bar, a really great Continental breakfast, and maybe a tiki bar themed rooftop bar. We've got 3-4 months to put together the menu; when we opened Coquette we did not have that luxury.

I get really nervous cooking for people, especially chefs. Cooks all have different approaches to foods, so I am always nervous when I serve a chef he is thinking, "This is not what I would have done." I'd probably just want to cook for friends and family mostly. I love when people come in and I can cook on the fly, just make new things with the ingredients we have in our kitchen. If I spend weeks on a new menu, it is invariably crap. But if I just throw something together it is always great. Desperation plays a critical role in this kitchen.

When not in my restaurant, I like to eat. I eat out a lot. When we first opened, we ate out whenever we could, in order to scope out the competition. But now we do it because we love to eat.

Most memorable meal was at Babbo. We had gone to New York to eat. One night we ate at Corton, Paul Liebrandt's restaurant. While the food was good, it was nothing special. You could tell that a lot of time had been put into each dish, but it was just lacking. Plus it was a very expensive meal. The next night we went to Babbo and did the pasta tasting for like $60. Everything was so simple, but so well done. The sommelier waited on us and halfway through switched pairings to grappa, there was rock music in the background, just a great meal.

Mike Gulotta of August, probably. He taught me how to make food taste good and how to run a kitchen.

Truffle oil, but thankfully that is going away anyway. I can't stand the stuff and will never use it here. That is disgusting stuff. And of course, I wish restaurants would get away from commodity meats and the like. I am not preachy about it, don't plaster farms all over the menu, but that is really important to me. As cooks we have a duty to our customers to give them healthy food- not just for their bodies but for the environment also.

Right now, I am really being influenced by Spanish and Vietnamese flavors and cooking. One of my cook's is from Miami and so he has a huge love of Spanish cooking. Another one of my cooks is absolutely obsessed with all things Vietnamese. Eventually I'd like to have a really casual spot that just serves awesome food without worrying about plating or dining rooms. I cook to make people happy and casual food does that better than anything else.

Usually the last thing I want to do when I get home is cook. Lillian is an excellent cook, so usually she has something ready. If not, I like to grill. The other day picked up some boudin stuffed quail from Butcher and threw those on the grill. If nothing to grill, Lillian hasn't cooked anything, and nothing in fridge, I just eat almonds.

La Boca is my favorite restaurant in the city. There is absolutely no pretension there. I love that they can serve me an appetizer that is just a piece of sausage and an entree that is just a piece of meat. Lillian is an occasional vegan, but even she loves La Boca. Adolfo thinks I am stalking him because I go to a lot of his restaurants and he is always there. Nine Roses, we go here pretty much every Sunday night in the winter. Horinoya is the only good sushi I've found in the city and their service is incredible. And Butcher, that place is an anomaly. Every time I go in there, it gets better and better. I love Butcher.

On a deserted island, I would need sparkling water. I go through 3 liters of the stuff a day. Something to dip ranch into, along with ranch dressing. Marconna almonds and crispy pig ear. We fry it up to order at the restaurant, and there is always a few bits for me to snack on. I figure I eat pig ear all night. Probably not healthy but hey it is good.

All Alon the Watchtower

Chef Alon Shaya heads up the kitchen at Domenica in the Roosevelt Hotel. He is also an actor who has received critical acclaim for his role in Treme as the dans le merde grill cook. A native of Israel, Alon spent a year in Italy before opening Domenica with his partner Chef John Besh. 20ish questions on the clock.

I was really young when I got into cooking. My mom worked two jobs, so I became in charge of cooking for the family in 1st grade. Always looked at cooking as necessity...to do my part to help the family.

After graduating from the Culinary Institute of America, I went to work for Jean Louis Palladin in Las Vegas. Spent three years out there working in a variety of restaurants inside the Rio Hotel. Then worked in an Italian place in St. Louis where Octavio (Manilla) worked. Then, came to New Orleans and worked at Besh Steakhouse.

The idea for a John and I to do an Italian place came about before Katrina. I had always cooked Italian food and it was my dream to open an Italian restaurant. John also had passion as he had visited often while training in Europe. So, Katrina hits and all that, took us a few years to get Besh Steakhouse back on track. Then time came for me to go to Italy and so off I went for a year. Knowing we would open Domenica when I came back. Originally we wanted to do a real family focused place with spaghetti and meatballs and the like, but then when Roosevelt had an opening we refined the idea.

First stop in Italy, was in Bergamo. Marc Vetri flew to Italy with me and took me to the family in Bergamo that he had worked with. Bergamo lives very much in the past and culinararily they never really had much of an identity and borrowed from many other regions. Then after a few months I went to Parma, where I worked from 6 am til 3 learning how to make salamis and then from 3 til midnight in the family's restaurant. I stayed in Parma for 7 months and that family became my second family. Then I went to Bussetto for a few months.

On my days off I would explore restaurants, or other villages or towns, or we would all just gather and eat. Sunday's were the time when family and food came together, and I wanted my restaurant to have a similar vibe. What is so interesting about Italy is that in many things like style, architecture, technology they are fashion forward. But in cooking, they are all about preserving the past. For instance, you will go into someone's modern kitchen and they make lasagna bolognese. In some ways the interior of Domenica reflects that.

Anolini filled with nutmeg, Parmagianno Reggiano, and mortadella is a textbook dish from Parma. The Bolzano pizza represents my time spent in the Alto Adige, where you get lots of smoked meats, specifically pork. That pizza has roasted pork shoulder, fennel, bacon and fontina cheese. The panna cotta on our menu is the recipe from a panna cotta I had in the Piedmote which was just the best panna cotta I'd ever had. The culatello is from Bussetto.

The anolini is traditionally served in broth in Parma. When we did that here people did not like it, they found it very underwhelming. So now we serve those anolini with tomato sauce and people love them. Another example is there is a Venetian dish of fish in a sour sauce with pickeld veggies. I love it, but I think I was the only person. So we try to stick to simpler, which I find always translates to be best.

Peaches are coming in soon as well as blueberries. So thinking of putting those peaches on a pizza with gorgonzola cheese. Watermelon and goat cheese salad will soon go back on the menu. And in summer we start pickling things. There will be fried artichokes and asparagus, prosciutto with melon. We try and take a micro-seasonal approach to cooking here. That is how the Italians cook as well.

My culinary approach is not to do much inventing. I pull from my time in Italy where regions have had the same dishes for centuries. These dishes never change and are unique to each region. Our menu is based off of first what is seasonal and then doing the best you can with that ingredient. I like taking those old dishes from Italy and introducing them to New Orleans. For instance, octopus carpaccio is a snack on the beaches south of Liguria. Or the passover meals. I love doing those meals. In fact, many of our guests for those meals were Catholic priests who wanted to eat these foods they had studied in the Old Testament.

I don't like not having as much time to spend with my girlfriend. She is awesome, graduated from Tulane a few years ago and is originally from Georgia. She spends time with her family back in Georgia and being a head chef means many times I can't go with her because it is NOWFE or Mardi Gras or Easter or whatever.

My favorite part of being a chef is mentoring young cooks or disadvantaged people jobs that lead to careers in the food world. Angel, one of our cooks, came from Cafe Reconcile and she has become such an integral part of our team that I can't imagine our kitchen without her.

I really like making pizzas. Working with with the wood burning oven (at right) and the dough is more akin to dealing with people than cooking. The dough is alive and each day it needs to be treated differently.

The wood burning oven is my favorite kitchen tool. You can do everything in there from breads, sardines, roast goat, spinach and ricotta crespelle, you name it, I would like to cook it in that oven.

The Encyclopedia of Italian Cooking which is 1,000 pages long and all in Italian has references to every Italian dish. Marc Vetri's cookbook, il Viaggio. Salumi, another 1,000 page behemoth that I use all the time for salumi making. And then my mom sends me all these Jews in Italy books which chronicle the food of Jews in Italy. Reading those always makes me fall back in love with being Israeli.

I'd love to cook and eat with Mario Batali for obvious reasons. Marc Vetri who has been a big influence on me. Jean Louis Palladin, who although he is dead, first saw me as a poor fish cook and I 'd love to show him what I've accomplished. And Watch Chupal, a Thai chef from Vegas I worked with. I haven't cooked for him in at least a decade and I'd like to do so again.

I don't like crazy fusion. Cooks are bastardizing culture when they combine traditions. That and the trend of trying too hard. They just end up screwing it up.

Parma. I spent so much time in Parma that I am really drawn to that regions' style of cooking. Parma swears it is the best region in Italy. The people never get tired of prosciutto or Parmagianno cheese. I love the fact that these people live off of these ingredients. You know here in America, you have success with a restaurant and everyone asks, "What is your next restaurant?" In Parma, and Italy on the whole, a family has one restaurant, and everyone works there, they aren't opening any more restaurants. I plan on Domenica being a restaurant I have for the rest of my life.

I love Vietnamese food. I go all over. Dong Phuong for the pork pastries and banh mi. Ba mien for squid. 9 Roses for the BBQ grills. Kim Son for fish. Tan Dinh for shrimp in house sauce with pickled veg and rice.

No. Uh oh. No music in my kitchen.

Love that I don't feel like this is a job. This is my livelihood. Making people happy through food. It is a good calling to have.

No, never worked in the front of the house. But have always had a strong connection with customer experience. I never want to lose touch with their experience because their experience influences what happens in the kitchen. The back of the house works so hard, I need to insure that translates to a great experience in the front of the house.

After work, I love going home, hanging out with girlfriend and dog, having a glass of wine. In general, during my time off I don't go out on the town, I much prefer to spend time with the people I love.

Luke Has Seen Better Days

We try as a general principle here at Blackened Out Metal Fabrication and Casting Agency to avoid writing about restaurants we just don't find to be up to par (pun obviously intended). While we are both getting better at writing critical reviews that don't just sound like "this was awesome," bashing a restaurant is not really what we are into 'round these parts.

But sometimes you have to scold. And right now, Luke is the most under performing restaurant in the city. Perhaps, he is in his adolescent stage. A period marked by apathy, rebelliousness, and confusion about who he really is. If so, please hurry and grow up.

When it opened in the Spring of 2007, Luke was an exciting return to good old fashioned German and French focused lunches that blanketed the CBD. Luke had some opening glitches, service most notoriously. However, the restaurant stabilized and became my favorite place in the city to eat lunch. Luke was also a treat if you had missed lunch. On such days, I'd wander over there around 4pm for a dozen cold oysters and a cocktail or beer before heading home.

The last few visits at Luke (two in 2011 alone) have been dumbfounding. On one, I was served a bowl of tepid chicken stock with an ice cold matzoh ball. By the second bite, the soup was cooling off rapidly than Brody Jenner's career. Admittedly, when this was brought to the staff's attention, it was remedied. Lucky for us, this would be the first of many hiccups.

Take, for example, the fried oyster salad on one visit. The oysters, saggy and wilted, had none of the vibrancy or crunch that makes them a salty stand-in for a crouton. Either the dressing or the lettuce was gritty. Doesn't matter which one, as it didn't matter to the kitchen either.

I vaguely remember a chicken breast that was tough, stringy, and devoid of any flavor. It too sat under a salad marked by limp, unwashed greens and flavorless dressing. A stale crouton (it is possible) made it clear that no one could be asleep at the wheel because no one was even at the wheel. But maybe, I thought, it was just a bad day.

On another recent visit, I decided to go back to a basic favorite: the Cochon de Lait pressed sandwich. To describe how bad this was we need to take a slight tangent. For some reason, growing up we always had these 2 inch slices of French bread in the freezer. I'd come home from school, take out three or four, throw them in the microwave, and lather them up with butter. High class, of course. The flavor of those little cradles of butter always tasted of the deep, cold of the freezer. I know that means nothing to you, but frozen bread which is rapidly defrosted has a specific taste.

Like Proust's madeleine, one bite of the bread at Luke immediately took me back to fifth grade after school snacks. This is New Orleans. There is a devoted bakery portion of the Besh Empire. Such a shortcut should not happen here. However, maybe the tastebuds have deceived me and the bread was not in fact frozen and rapidly defrosted. If so, it may be time to hire a new baker, Chef Besh.

The rest of the sandwich was equally disastrous. The pork was dry, brittle, and bland where it should have been moist, supple, and flavorful. But the real showcase that someone just doesn't give a damn anymore was the caramelized onions which were all piled on precisely 1 inch of the 8 inch long sandwich. There was one bite full of onions; the rest of the sandwich, nothing. I felt bad for the pig.

Service woes have returned. To wit, Luke serves Cokes in cute little glass bottles. I have no problem with this affectation, but realize one of the benefits is that it makes free refills impossible. Well, when a waiter knocks over a full bottle and spills its contents on the table, replacing the bottle at no cost is the correct move. Ignoring the situation is not.

Prices at the bar have crept up to the unjustifiable realm, especially the beer which, despite being made across the lake, is priced as if it is made across the pond. And I am still mad they got rid of the Thursday lamb shoulder pasta dish.

Step up your game, Luke.

Luke
Bogey, and you are really close to Double Bogey

333 St. Charles Ave.
378-2840

The Post-Katrina Top 20: #5 - #1

Today, we unveil the Top 5 additions to the New Orleans Dining and Drinking Scene Post-Katrina. We knew this was a cliche idea. However, going through the exercise provided us with an opportunity not only to examine the New Orleans restaurant scene in toto but also to look with special favor upon what came after the storm. Those restaurateurs, bartenders, and shopkeepers who chose New Orleans to hang their shingles or branch out, despite the odds.

First off, we realize many great restaurants struggled to return to New Orleans. They found their cooks, bussers, and waiters all over the country and brought them back. They dealt with insurance adjusters and new regulations. They reopened with skeletal crews and out of whack balance sheets. To them we owe a lot. For if they don't come back, these places don't exist. So a big round of applause to all the restaurants in New Orleans that reopened after Katrina.

We also know there are many great places that didn't make the list. Places like Il Posto, which Rene refuses to write about because he doesn't want to fight crowds on Saturday morning trips for a cappuccino and a California bagel. Places like Meson 923 which have returned to New Orleans a prodigal chef in Chris Lynch. Places like Mondo and Coquette which are putting good food in great neighborhoods and watching the lines form. And restaurants, stores, and bars that have yet to be conceived, developed and opened.

Cue the Chairman of the Board, "The Best is Yet to Come."

#5: The Sun Rarely Sets on The Besh Empire - In the days after Katrina, John Besh and his trusted cooks Blake LeMarie and Alon Shaya used the Katrina trinity (propane tanks, flatboats, and ice chests) to serve loads of hungry refugees and recovery workers. Nearly five years later, Chef Besh was once again at the forefront, this time in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon disaster. In between those times, he did little more than open 3 new restaurants and continue the legacy of a 4th. Not a bad stretch, if you ask us.

But it's not so much the quantity as the quality and diversity of the Besh family of post-K restaurants which warrants high praise. When Cobalt failed to reopen after the breach, Besh seized the opportunity to reinvent the first floor of the Masonic Temple into an Alsatian brasserie, complete with pulley and belt-driven fans which were a trademark at Kolb's. Enter Lüke, now the most popular restaurant for a business lunch in the CBD.

The dichotomy of forward thinking paired with a nod to the past was exemplified in two of Besh's post-K acquisitions. When his former mentor Chris Kerageaorgiou was in search of someone to pass the torch to at La Provence, Besh took over the reigns and revived its farm-to-fork history by growing vegetables and raising livestock on the grounds, while continuing the tradition of rustic French cuisine in a country house setting. Similarly, at The American Sector, Besh honors the greatest generation by serving World War II era food using contemporary ingredients and techniques.

And if three is good, four must be better. New Orleans has always had its own distinctive Creole-Italian cuisine, known for smooth, sweet red sauces and an unconventional bordelaise comprised of olive oil and garlic. But with the opening of Domenica, Chef John Besh and Alon Shaya ushered in a new era of Italian dining in the city. House cured salumi and wood-fired pizzas share menu space along with exquisitely made pastas, with no "red gravy" to be found.

#4: Sucre - Tariq Hanna, chef of Sucre, said it better than we ever could. When asked about why people like sweets he responded, "You only eat sweets for two reasons: because you are seeking comfort or soothing guilt."

No matter where you were when Katrina hit, or how you have lived your life since then, those descriptions fit. When Sucre opened it set off an only in New Orleans brawl between supporters of Sucre and supporters of La Divina Gelateria. The Jets and Sharks, Bloods and Crypts, and Hatields and McCoys look like catfights compared to the Blue Bloods and Hipsters.

Sucre has distinguished itself in our eyes. There are airy, pastel colored macaroons, petit fours with layers of raspberry, chocolate, and more chocolate, milkshakes spiked with Bailey's, espressos, truffles with sea salt, and of course cakes resembling whichever team the Saints are destroying that week.

Joel Dondis always had a sweet tooth. But it was while living and working in Germany, he first decided to one day own a pastry shop. He found going to the bakery down the street provided relief from long hours and low pay as a cook. Dondis and Hanna teamed up to open Sucre in April of 2007. Since then the childhood inspired, sweet shop on Magazine has expanded to include a pastry factory near Broadmoor, where the cakes, truffles, ice creams, and baked goods are made by a dedicated staff. A staff that includes many graduates of the Culinary Institute of America. The word is out among the nation's up and coming pastry chefs. If you want to be somebody, you need to work at Sucre.

Soon a location will open in Lakeside Mall with an espresso machine called the Slayer. "This is going to revolutionize the coffee drinking experience in New Orleans," Dondis explains. "You will be able to choose your blend, grind size, water temperature, pressure, all of it."

To steal from Rick Pitino, "McKenzie's isn't walking through that door."

But that's OK. We got Sucre now.

#3: St. James Cheese Co. - "People said we were insane to open a cheese shop in New Orleans," Danielle Sutton says. "We are glad to prove them wrong."

Prior to Katrina, Richard Sutton worked as a cheesemonger in London. He and his wife, Tulane alums (we hear it is a college), returned to New Orleans with the idea to open a quiet, little cheese shop uptown. When they opened in November of 2006, the plan was to only have one or two sandwiches and to build a small niche as a supplier of fine cheeses. That plan soon changed once the public got a taste of their sandwich creations.

In winter crowds clamor for the raclette and croque monsieur. And last summer, the removal of the BLT with Serrano ham replacing bacon caused an uproar. "We had customers call and ask if the BLT was on the menu. When we would say no, they would hang up on us," Danielle recounts.

But still, the staff at St. James focuses on delivering the best cheeses and charcuterie from around the world. To witness, walk in to St. James on a Thursday around noon. The line will snake from the register down the display cases filled with people drooling over the selections. Richard, or one of his able staffmembers, will come over to and ask you what you want. "What is new," you ask.

Their eyes light up like a kid on Easter Sunday who spies a basket of candy on the mantle. "Have you tried the new aged gouda? Or the Ste. Marcelin? A delicious Triple Creme is in, layered with truffles, try it. What about this blue from Humboldt?"

And off they go dispensing samples of cheese, pates, and cured meats, while taking an order for a Mozzarella sandwich, and uncorking a bottle of rose. Recently, St. James added an online presence via a partnership with Taigan.com, the high-end, luxury online shopping center (backed by First Street resident Julia Reed). Previously they only accepted phone orders for out of town shipments. Which is a great gift to give a sister, should you have one living in say DC or New York.

St. James is also a great spot for dinner. Let us explain. You know those Fridays, when there is no food in the house and you don't really feel like going out to dinner? Swing by St. James, pick out three or four cheese, a pate, some slices of Jamon Serrano (or Iberico if you got that cash money), and a baguette. Take it home and lay it out on the biggest cutting board you have. Open a bottle of wine, put your feet up, and graze the night away.

With Andy Scurlock manning the charcuterie and turning out impressive truffle-studded pates and English meat pies, the future of St. James is bright. But it is the last four years that are special for Richard and Danielle. As Danielle explains, "We love the feeling that we have become a neighborhood spot in a city of great neighborhood spots. Our customers have become our friends, they go to Italy or France and bring us back treats. That really means a lot to us."

When the Sutton's came to New Orleans, they did not know what to expect but what they found has warmed their hearts. "New Orleans has been so supportive and welcoming to us. Even dealing with City Hall was enjoyable," Danielle says.

If that isn't a sign, New Orleans is back. We don't know what is.

#2: Cochon/Cochon Butcher - Chef Donald Link said it best during his segment on No Reservations: "You respect somebody for staying here. Staying here after the storm and raising your family here is making a statement."

Not only did Chef Link stay in New Orleans to raise his family, he and partner Stephen Stryjewski also moved forward with their plans to open Cochon, the porcine mecca on Tchoupitoulas Street. Beside introducing New Orleanians to the wonders of rustic Acadiana cooking, the media frenzy surrounding Cochon sent an important message to the rest of the nation: New Orleans and its food culture still matter and are worth saving. While some members of the press were kicking us while we were down, restaurateurs like Link were too busy raising the city up to even bother with the naysayers.

But all of the press and accolades were no reason for Link to rest on his laurels. In early 2009 the Link Restaurant Group launched Cochon Butcher, the forerunner of the salumi movement that has swept both the local and national dining scenes. Many people don't realize that before ABC Restaurant in NYC began curing its speck in house, the coonasses of Cajun country had about a 250 year head start on them. Butcher has brought those time tasted crafts to the Big Easy, which in turn launched this artisan movement onto the national level.

#1: La Boca - The worst kept secret in New Orleans is that it is a wonderful place to get a steak. For years Ruth Fertel's halfway eponymous restaurants showed the world how to cook and serve a steak. Ruth's Chris Corporate Office left the city with the flood waters, pissing a lot of people off. Into this vacuum stepped La Boca, which has established itself as the city's best steakhouse.

Nick Bazan and Adolfo Garcia came up with the idea of La Boca prior to Katrina. Originally they wanted a 150 seat restaurant devoted to all things Argentinian meat. But the federal flood caused them to change their plans. Luckily, Taqueria Corona never returned and they got a good deal on a 47 seat restaurant. They also had to focus the menu to what ingredients they could get reliably day in and day out. As chef/partner Jared Ralls puts it, "Adolfo and I always talk about keeping dishes simple and singularly focused. By lessening the stuff on the plate, we can increase our chances for success."

La Boca opened on June 1, 2006, which as you are well aware is the first day of hurricane season. "It was a way of saying 'Screw it, we aren't going anywhere.' We had faith in New Orleans, faith it would come back, faith people would get what we were trying to do from a culinary standpoint," Ralls recounts.

It took about two years for the restaurant to really catch on with both locals and tourists. "Business was always good, but then all of a sudden at the beginning of 2008, we just exploded," Ralls says. The success has not stopped La Boca from doing a Service Industry Night every Thursday, when you can spy some of the city's best chefs digging into steaks and slugging red wine long after the customers have gone home.

La Boca has all the classic grill marks of a steakhouse, with subtle nods to more contemporary dining. The interior of La Boca is like eating inside a large brick fireplace, with red masonry, wood timbers, and a warm glow from the kitchen. In other steakhouses the walls are lined with pictures of sports stars from year's past shaking hands with the owner. Here, are Boca Junior soccer jerseys and paraphernalia from Argentina.

Rather than beat you over the head with bottles you can't afford, the wine list at La Boca offers an all Argentine selection of toned, lean whites and muscular, lusty reds. Affordability is the main link. Hell, there even is a surly maitre d', albeit one wearing a Marilyn Monroe tie, Scarface suspenders, and saddle oxfords.

The vibe of La Boca has nothing on the food. Gooey provoleta smeared over those rolls and lacquered with chimichurri make the grilled cheese seem juvenile. The plump, tender sweetbreads, grilled whole and served with just a squeeze of lemon, have no equal in the city. The gnocchi is like eating a potato that just made love to butter and cream. Even the heart of palm salad makes a compelling argument to eat more veggies.

Then we come to the main event, the steaks. Sourced from places with cool names like Snake River and Painted Hills, this is not the place to order a filet (although the bone-in job is pretty good). Go with the hanger, the skirt, the skirt with skin, or the flank. All of the steaks, save the bottom sirloin flap, get only a sprinkling of salt and pepper before hitting the grill. This absence of fussing around means you taste the beef in all of it's glory. The three chimichurris are the colors on your palette wheel. Paint as you will.

Don't forget an order of the fries, or the mashed potatoes, or the corn pudding or the asparagus. Go ahead and linger for a while. If it is a nice March or October evening, the windows to Fulton St. will be open wide. Sit, swirl, and sip that Malbec. It should be loosening up about now, as should your mood. Stick around long enough and the Red Eye will open. Go ahead and go, we won't judge. Lord knows we've all been there once before and soon enough, will be again.

We chose La Boca as our favorite Post Katrina addition to the New Orleans food scene for a few reasons. First, we love steak and feel it is the best steakhouse in the city. Secondly, although La Boca is a few years old, there is still a feeling of excitement every time we go. One of us will go and text the other, "Heading to La Boca." Instantly a wave of jealousy spreads over the other Blackened Out twin.

Third, the Warehouse District has become the post-Katrina center of dining in the city. The sheer volume of excellent restaurants within a 6 block walk keeps each operator on top of their game. And in this area, there is no better place we like to eat than La Boca.

Finally, we all lost nouns in Katrina - places, things, and people. Whatever it is Katrina took from you, what you really lost was the memory of the noun. Your kids walking down the stairs on Christmas morning, the picture of you and your cousin in Destin, or the restaurant where your husband proposed. Restaurants in New Orleans have always been more than places to get a meal. They are links to the past. Memory place card holders which evoke not only good food but also great times. Maybe it was eating at Ruth's after either your First Communion or high school graduation. Maybe you never went but always wanted to go to Christian's. Restaurants matter here almost as much as the World Champion Saints.

But what Katrina didn't take was our ability to dine out. To eat well with friends or perfect strangers. To create memories which will live on past the latest fad in cooking or the bonds of any friendship. La Boca has become our favorite new place to create lasting memories. The restaurant has accomplished this by borrowing from the past while being truly original. By extension, La Boca feels like it has always been a part of New Orleans. For that, it gets our nod as the best addition to the New Orleans food scene Post-Katrina. Here's wishing it stays a treasure of New Orleans forever.

The American Sector

A plate of pork cheeks with a sauce of black eyed peas sits on top of crumbled cornbread at John Besh's latest venture, The American Sector in the World War II museum.

Initial Impressions

Peter: Lots of natural light with the walls of windows on both ends of the dining room. High ceilings and well-spaced tables allow for easy conversation even when the dining room is slammed.

But what is with the low chairs? I feel like I am eating in a grade school cafeteria - just call me Billy Madison. Also, much like Billy longing for a snack pack, there were no complimentary pickles on my visit.

Rene: A bright, open space, The American Sector calls to mind a well-designed aircraft hanger. Lining the walls, photos of Louis Armstrong, Bob Hope, and Generals from yesteryear oversee a line of tables, an indoor patio area, and a horseshoe shaped bar. Behind the bar is a gentlemen adorned with a handlebar mustache and tight sleeves, predating the Forties by about 35 years.

As a history major in college, I am enamored with most things World War II. In fact, I once broke up with a girl because she didn't know what century WWII was in... among other things. That is right, century; the punishment fit the crime. So from the outset I am predisposed to like the joint because it is in the WWII museum. While I have never eaten anything besides a pre-packed lunch for a field trip in a museum before, this looks promising. The house made pickles (below) quell your hunger as you peruse your menu.

Order

Peter: Rabbit pâté; onion rings; slow cooked beef tongue on sourdough (below); sample bites of the Sloppy Joe and Vietnamese po-boy.

Rene: Fried chicken gizzards with mustard sauce; chicken wings; meatloaf with mushroom gravy, mashed potatoes, and green beans; and pork cheeks with black eye peas and crumbled corn bread.


Food

Peter: The rabbit pâté is served in a flat can from the era and with saltines. A thin protective layer of fat protects a relatively smooth spread with shreds of rabbit meat immersed throughout. I taste a pronounced flavor of cognac or brandy, perhaps. The onion rings are coated in a thick, donut-esque batter which you can sink your teeth in. Served in a towering stack, these rings are different, if not excellent.

The slow-cooked tongue reminded me of chipped beef on toast. The meat was tender but needed more salt, and I think this would have been better served over mashed potatoes or mac and cheese instead of in sandwich form. Banh mi had a strange sweetness to it. Sloppy Joe was very good - tender shreds of beef in a nice tomato sauce. Thick-cut housemade potato chips were addictive.

But there were two overarching descriptions for all of the food: heavy and messy. The food lacked the polish I (perhaps erroneously) expected from a Besh restaurant, but I guess it fits the WWII era stick-to-your-ribs type of food which the menu is supposed to be emulating. Still, the food was a little too soft for me and difficult to eat, a situation which was exasperated by the low chairs and wooden butcher blocks that the sandwiches are served on.

Rene: Some dishes you just want a whole bucket of to snack on with some ice cold beer. Case in point: the gizzards. Wow. The crackly batter is seasoned judiciously to showcase the sublime gizzards. The mustard sauce provides a nice punch back against the richness of the main attraction. Ditto on the chicken wings. Its nearly impossible to find a well-made wing in this town. Too often the damn things are doused in some sort of hazardous substance and sent out flabby or dry. Not here, the chicken wings were succulent, crunchy and coated in a sauce more resembling a reduced pepper jelly than poor man's version of hot sauce beurre blanc.

The meatloaf could have entered and won a meatloaf contest. A sturdy top and bottom surrounded a tender interior studded with brunoised bits of carrots, celery, and onion. The contrasting sauces - the bright, spicy tomato based topping and creamy, earthy gravy- got along very well together. The potatoes were smoother than a cot on a Navy vessel, where the overcooked green beans would have been at home as well.

The pork cheeks came to the table with theatrics. One server drops a bowl filled with chunks of cornbread and those delicate cheeks. Then a second server comes by and pours over the whole dish a steaming serving of black eyed peas cooked with a solid dose of bacon. If the circus seems a little silly (and it is), the creamy, porky, corny goodness washes away that feeling. But we should have ordered lighter as we were stuffed at this point.

Service

Peter: Our server was cheerful and helpful without being overly caught up in the theme. The staff on the whole is quite young, which makes me wonder if the American Sector is training ground in the Besh empire. Even if that is the case, the service is more than satisfactory.

Rene: The vibe is kitschy with servers dressed in period costume - think polka dotted dresses and starched white shirts with black bow ties rather than jump pants and bomber jackets. For the veteran heroes who dine here, it must be quite enjoyable. The servers do a pretty good job of moving courses in and courses out, but there are some struggles when the place gets busy.

Closing Thoughts

Peter: I wanted to like this place from the second I walked in the door. The ambiance and decor are unique and engaging, and the attraction of the museum is a great addition to the city in terms of both educational value and entertainment. But the food was disappointing, perhaps because of my own flawed expectations. After reading Rene's thoughts, I want to go back and order from the main course offerings.

Rene: The busy times seem to be right after the show in the Victory Theater or Stage Door Canteen lets out. So plan your visit accordingly. The Besh Group has given New Orleans another concept restaurant which works where it is. And if you find yourself in the World War II museum (as you should), a meal here sure beats a peanut butter and jelly sandwich in a brown bag by a long shot.

Rankings

Peter: Bogey/Par.

Rene: Par/Birdie.