New Orleans Experiences a Restaurant Renaissance
By David Lee Simmons
For the Atlanta Journal Constitution
12:24 p.m. Thursday, April 29, 2010
When it comes to dining in New Orleans, visitors aren’t all that different from the locals. Both want to find their tried-and-true favorites where they can establish a relationship with a place and its culinary rituals. That why you’ll always run into someone who will say, “You’ve just gotta try the alligator cheesecake at Jacques-Imo’s” or, “We always get the barbecued shrimp po-boy at Liuzza’s.”
What a routine like this would painfully obscure, though, is New Orleans’ remarkable restaurant renaissance since Hurricane Katrina — one that’s provided the most consistent and optimistic economic indicator of the recovery.
So just this once, skip the crabmeat Sardou at Galatoire’s, the trout almandine at Mandina’s — heck, even the gumbo at Dooky Chase’s — and fly blind on these three new restaurants. Each of them have opened within the past two years, and offer firsthand reassurance of a culinary renaissance.
A MANO
870 Tchoupitoulas St., 504-208-9280; www.amanonola.com
Chef Adolfo Garcia is one of the truly great New Orleans restaurant success stories of this past decade. A Metairie native of Panamanian ancestry, Garcia received his culinary training in New York. He defied expectations in returning to New Orleans, eschewing the expected Creole cuisine route and tapping into his roots in 2000 by opening RioMar, a Spanish seafood gem that also anticipated the belated tapas trend. This emboldened Garcia to open La Boca, an Argentinean-themed steakhouse, in May 2006, to rave reviews and steady business.
Next comes, A Mano: an Italian restaurant not only devoid of Creole influences, but also lasagnas and meatballs, focusing instead on traditional southern Italian food where pastas know their place and salumi (cured meats) rule. Credit Chef de Cuisine Joshua Smith, whom Garcia recruited from the RioMar kitchen after tiring of Smith’s insistence he could do Italian the right way. He can. Save room for the upcoming pastas and meat/fish entrees with the Olive Mista: perfectly marinated olives. The meat options are some of the most varied in the city: chicken, duck, rabbit, pork, even flat-iron steak.
The result: Both Garcia and Smith recently were named James Beard Award semi-finalists.
