How will you celebrate your Mardi Gras? Will you follow the Buzzards down to St. Charles and then beg Zulu for coconuts? Chase after Indians in the Treme? Or stuff yourself one last time before Lent at Crescent City Steakhouse? Me? This year I’ll take the ferry to Gretna and gorge on a boeuf gras [...]
Is Southern food just the way we eat in the South? Or is it the way we used to eat? In the lively Southern Belly (Algonquin), first published in 2000 and revised this year, John T. Edge tries to define Southern food by collecting the stories of the people who put the pork, grits, barbecue [...]
Howard Wiley’s The Angola Project is full of anger, bitterness, sorrow, joy and beautiful music. Inspired by Louisiana’s Angola State Penitentiary, which he calls “one of the last hold outs of the antebellum plantations system,” Wiley pulls together original compositions, an Ornette Coleman tune and traditional prison and gospel songs into a coherent, masterful [...]
Café Freret makes an imposing muffuletta. The massive round loaf, studded with sesame seeds and dusted with Parmesan cheese, sits on the plate like a land mass. It’s split down the middle to reveal layers of cold cuts and cheese—ham, salami, mortadella and provolone—alternating between three strata of olive salad. Before I take a bite, [...]
In New Orleans, a neighborhood restaurant is often worth a trip across town. It’s the funky joint that gets glossy press and attracts swarms of tourists, who imagine themselves to be modern-day Christopher Columbuses discovering unknown lands of gumbo and fried seafood. In other towns, a neighborhood restaurant is mainly a place to eat. La [...]
Mischa Byruck melts butter in a pan as he slices eggplant and oyster mushrooms for lunch. The butter comes from Smith Creamery, the eggplant from Christine Monica and the mushrooms from Brent Williams. They’re all vendors at the Crescent City Farmers Market. Once the vegetables cook, he piles them on a slice of ciabatta bread [...]
At Luke, chef John Besh has built himself a clubhouse. It’s a place to kick back and eat well without the fussiness of fine dining. The space in the corner of the new Hilton hotel, which used to be Cobalt before the storm, feels like a cross between a French brasserie and a manly private [...]
We know what New Orleans would be like without Angelo Brocato. For 13 months after the storm, it remained closed and there were no ices, no gelato and no fig cookies on Carrollton Avenue. Fifteen or 20 years from now, it could close forever after a century of making sweets. Arthur Brocato will someday retire, [...]
