Breakfast in New Orleans
Bon Appetit
by John Fitzmorris
Breakfast is usually a perfunctory, utilitarian meal, but that doesn't stop restaurateurs in New Orleans from making something celebratory and delicious of it. Here, a little bit of Creole tradition is blended with a great deal of imagination to turn breakfast into something quite grand.
The utterance of "breakfast" in New Orleans begs to be followed by "at Brennan's." The Brennan family, jealous of the publicity created for its around-the-corner competitor by the novel Dinner at Antoine's, "created" the meal from whole cloth in the early 1950s. They justified the grandeur with a spurious tale about how they were re-creating a classic Creole petit dejeuner of yesteryear. From that day to this, breakfast at Brennan's is a unique culinary landmark.
There could hardly be a more pleasant place to start the day. Brennan's occupies a nearly two-hundred-year-old building that surrounds a lushly planted courtyard; almost every table is near a window. New Orleanians like to start off with a brandy milk punch or absinthe suissesse ("eye-openers," as the menu calls them). Pots of hot, blue-black coffee and pitchers of cream land in short order.
Breakfast at Brennan's is usually taken in three courses (if that's not enough, the menu offers a five stanza version). Soup-particularly the herbal oyster one or the spicy, thick turtle-is the best first course, although the baked apple with cream is also good. The entree frame of the menu is dominated by some two dozen different variations on poached eggs. The most interesting: the Sardou (with spinach and artichoke bottoms), St. Charles (fried trout), Nouvelle Orleans (lump crabmeat) and Owen (roast beef hash).
The ultimate breakfast here starts with a single egg Sardou and moves on to an authentic old Creole breakfast dish: grillades and grits. Grillades are pieces of veal simmered for a long time in a spicy sauce with tomatoes and bell peppers. Brennan's cleaned-up version uses sautéed baby veal scallops with a spectacular Creole sauce. The grits, served on the side, through some miracle are always hot, buttery and smooth.
Brennan's created Bananas Foster, which may be the only flamed dessert actually worth the trouble. That, along with more of that addictive coffee, wraps up a spectacular morning meal. It's quite expensive-figure on $35 per person-but your day will be hard to derail afterward.