The Republicans Beyond Gumbo and Beans
By Mimi Sheraton/New Orleans
Political arguments will pale beside the more enduring debates over which is New Orleans' best restaurant. Following is one Northerner's personal order of preference:
1. Galatoire's. The only legendary restaurant in the French Quarter that lives up to its billing. (Arnaud's, Brennan's and Antoine's, with their dreary, badly prepared food, need not apply, and Paul Prudhomme's newer legend, K-Paul's, is a hassle and uneven.) Galatoire's is a turn-of-the- century set piece with white woodwork, beveled mirrors and brass coat hooks. Waiters are crisply professional; they even chop ice from huge blocks so drinks stay cold and undiluted. The overwhelming attraction is the lush Creole seafood: shrimp remoulade with its brassy mustard and paprika-zapped sauce; plump oysters Rockefeller; trout meuniere amandine, fragrant with hot brown butter and almond slices; and eggplant with a gentle, rich seafood stuffing. No reservations, ever, not even for a native or the nominee.
2. Mosca's. August is vacation month, so delegates will alas miss a sui generis Creole-Italian cuisine in a no-frills roadhouse about 30 minutes from the French Quarter. Classics include cracked crab marinated in Italian vegetable pickles; oysters baked with garlic, parsley and bread crumbs; barbecued shrimp heady with rosemary; hand-rolled spaghetti with butter, olive oil and garlic; and homemade fennel-sweet Italian sausage.
3. Commander's Palace. This temple of nouvelle Creole cookery in the graceful Garden District is best enjoyed in the leafy upstairs Garden Room rather than the drab downstairs. Don't miss oysters Trufant, poached and glossed with cream and caviar; crab-meat ravigote sparkling with a Creole mustard dressing and capers; velvety, thick turtle soup; fillets of trout with crunchy pecans; roast quail with a crab-and-shrimp stuffing; and hot bread- pudding souffle.
4. Isadora. This new sensation has opened opposite the Superdome just in time for the convention. Isadora, as in Duncan, is art deco inspired, with etched glass, white papier-mache palm trees and piped-in swing music for dancing. Service is a bit rough around the edges, but the inventive Creole- Cajun dishes are generally successful. Among the best: sauteed sweetbreads with poached quail eggs, crayfish ravioli with scallops and tarragon sauce, and a basil-scented red snapper and crab meat with lemon-Cognac sauce that is this city's only good papillote creation.
5. Henri. In the Meridien Hotel, this is the bosky, intimate setting for excellent renditions of the Alsatian-accented food of its consulting chef, Marc Haeberlin, from France's three-star Auberge de l'Ill. The best dishes have Alsatian or classic French overtones: a salad of warm duckling with cabbage and foie-gras-glossed ravioli, tournedos with shallots in red-wine sauce, and braised venison with noodles.
6. Bozo's. In the glaring sprawl of suburban Metairie, this is the place to hunker down over the area's best boiled and fried oysters, shrimp and crayfish. Gumbo with chicken and smoky andouille sausage is properly peppery and thickened with a sprinkling of file.
7. Gautreau's. One of the new restaurants in the Uptown residential area, this is an urbane cafe with oxblood walls and white embossed-tin ceiling. Best dishes: batter-fried eggplant filled with shrimp and crab meat, and rabbit * fillet with sun-dried tomatoes.
8. Dooky Chase's. This attractive classic is where the indomitable Leah Chase displays paintings by local black artists. She also ladles out two authoritative gumbos -- the more delicate seafood-and-okra combination and the hefty chicken-and-andouille file gumbo.
9. Mother's. Breakfast is taken seriously in New Orleans, nowhere more so than at this self-service luncheonette, justly famous for its eggs, spicy hot or smoked sausage, and grits or biscuits with debris (the shavings of ham and roast beef left in the slicing machine) -- all rib-sticking fare for less than $5.
10. Windsor Court. For brunch, the top choice is in this impeccable hotel. Delectables include eggs Sardou (poached with hollandaise sauce on spinach and artichoke hearts) and trout with pecans.