Where to Dine in New Orleans
Gastroenterology/Endoscopy News
by John Mariani
Combine New Orleans' legendary hospitality with an infectious Irish spirit and you have Brennan's. With its spectacular wine list, its lush courtyard, and its fine, traditional Creole and French cuisine, Brennan's is one of the most impressive and elegant restaurants in the French Quarter, and the food has never been better.
Paterfamilias Owen Edward Brennan opened Brennan's in 1946, making it into the most famous restaurant in the Vieux Carre, a hang-out for visiting movie stars and dignitaries and a must-see on just about every traveler's list. He also instituted the wildly successful "Breakfast at Brennan's" to compete with the "Dinner at Antoine's." Many people today think of Brennan's only for that lavish mid-morning meal, thereby denying themselves the pleasure of lunch or dinner.
There is always something breathtaking about entering Brennan's. You push your way through the gleaming front door of the salmon-pink building and look past the fine artwork, crystal chandelier, maitre d's station and bar to a leafy patio set with potted flowers and wrought-iron tables and chairs. Here you may enjoy one of Brennan's nonpareil Bloody Marys or an absinthe Suisse. Breathe in the perfume of the flowers and take in the view of the lovely verandah and brick-faced archways around you. There are a dozen dining rooms for public and private use, and a former slave's quarters of this antebellum structure now houses one of the world's finest wine stocks, overseen by Jimmy Brennan, who likes nothing better than a customer who likes to talk wine.
Most people go to Brennan's for the first time for the famous breakfast-a very lavish, formal affair that begins with a cocktail and moves on to excellent steaming cups of Creole coffee, eggs Sardou, grillades and grits, and ends with the irresistible Bananas Foster, created here back in the 1950s to honor a favorite customer.
But don't neglect Brennan's for dinner. Chef Michael J. Roussel is a master of Creole culinary traditions, and you'd be hard put to find better renditions of dishes like Oysters Rockefeller, shrimp remoulade, crawfish omelet, eggs Portuguese, and crepes Fitzgerald.
While you're there, pick up a copy of the brand new book, "Breakfast at Brennan's and Dinner, Too" (Brennan's, Inc.), which is as much a fascinating history of dining out in New Orleans as it is a fine cookbook.
Dinner for two will run about $80.
John Mariani is a columnist for Esquire and Bloomberg News, an author and journalist of 30 years standing, having begun his writing for New York Magazine in 1973. Since then, he has become known as one of America’s premiere food writers (a three-time nominee for the James Beard Journalism Award) and author of several of the most highly regarded books on food in America today. He has been called by the Philadelphia Inquirer, “the most influential food-wine critic in the popular press.” His first book, The Dictionary of American Food & Drink (Ticknor & Fields, 1983) was hailed as the "American Larousse Gastronomique" and was chosen "best reference book on food for 1983" by Library Journal. After a decade when the book was declared a "classic" of American food studies, Hearst Books issued a completely revised edition in 1994. In 1999 Lebhar-Friedman published a revised, expanded version entitled The Encyclopedia of American Food & Drink. Mariani' s second book. Eating Out: Fearless Dining in Ethnic Restaurants (Quill, 1985) was called by Food & Wine Magazine “a diner's manual to guerilla tactics for restaurant survival." His third book, Mariani's Coast-to-Coast Dining Guide (Times Books, 1986), which he edited, was widely acclaimed as the American counterpart to France's Guide Michelin. His next book, America Eats Out (William Morrow, 1991) won the International Association of Cooking Professionals Award for Best Food Reference Book. From 1989 through 1999 Mariani co-authored annual editions of Passport to New York Restaurants (Passport Press) and was editor of Italian Cuisine: Basic Cooking Techniques (Italian Wine & Food Institute), which became the textbook for Italian cooking studies at the Culinary Institute of America, and he has written the food and restaurant sections of the Encyclopedia of New York City (The New-York Historical Society and Yale University Press, 1995) and contributed entries to Chronicle of America (Chronicle Publications).