Being a 5th-generation New Orleanian, my family always celebrated life's biggest occasions with meals on the town, and in the 40 years I lived in the city pre-Katrina I continued that tradition, believing that no life event had been truly marked until it was celebrated in a fine restaurant. In my younger, prettier years, I worked for a time at world-famous Brennan's Restaurant and at the Roosevelt Hotel. In both places, I learned a lot about fine service and fine food. (In both places, the employee meals were out of this world!) Later, as an adult, I did a lot of traveling, and enjoyed great meals in many different big cities and several countries.
All in all, I have to say that over the years I have eaten more than my share of fantastic meals in wonderful, elegant restaurants. Many of those meals have been truly memorable, the kind of thing that New Orleanians will sit around talking about for years (usually while eating another meal).
But earlier this month, when Big Man and I celebrated his 51st birthday and Mother's Day, we shared the best meal of my life. No kidding. I'm serious -- the best meal I've ever eaten. Ever. Anywhere. So this blogpost is an open love letter to New Orleans genius chef John Besh, and a brag on our wonderful meal at Restaurant August.
First of all, August is a lovely place, elegant and romantic. The building, a former tobacco warehouse, has had many reincarnations over the years, and Besh and his partners have done a marvelous job with the renovation. The bar is dark and stylish -- it's well worth coming early for your table to enjoy a short wait there. The front room sparkles with light, with huge windows overlooking the street. The second room has been converted into wine storage and is warmly paneled with wood, with a cunning little staircase going up to where the wine bottles are on display. It is darker, more intimate than the front room, and is where we've been seated both times we've eaten there.
The August menu can drive you crazy because it is so extensive and because you want to eat everything. But eventually, reluctantly, you make your choices, the waiter takes your order, and as you sip your drinks and talk, another waiter sweeps up to your table bearing a tray. "This is an amuse-bouche -- a little gift from the chef," he says, placing before you an egg cup with a brown egg shell with the top sliced cleanly away. "It's a seafood custard," says the waiter, "with caviar foam on top." You pick up the teensy little spoon, dip it carefully into the shell, and scoop up...WOW! It's a soft, creamy, rich, and smooth savory custard with hints of seafood flavor but no lumps or chunks of anything, and the delight of frothy caviar meringue on top. Big Man breathed out a hearty, "OH MY GOD" and he was speaking for both of us.
We could've left right then and there, and while we would still have been hungry, we would've been plenty impressed. But then our appetizers arrived, the 3-way pate de foie gras for Big Man and the oysters 3-ways for me. (Let me right here thank John Besh for doing things like this. It's so frustrating to go to a fine expensive restaurant and discover they're cooking your favorite things in 2 or 3 different recipes, but you can only have one. This 3-way deal is pure-D genius and a wonderful indulgence for the diner. Now you really can have it all!) Both appetizers were generously proportioned (don't you just hate dinky appetizers?), and both were stupendous. We talked about it and we couldn't pick a favorite out of the 6 total if our lives depended on it.
On the special tasting menu, we had spied a special local fresh vegetable spring salad with barely poached egg. We ordered it to split as our salad course, and it was lovely when it arrived. (Tiny quibble: even though we made it clear we would be splitting the salad, it arrived on one plate, with 2 plates for us to divvy it ourselves. I was a little surprised by that, as most fine restaurants will do the splitting for you in the kitchen. No big deal, however.) The thing that most impressed us about that wonderful salad was that it had chunks of "Romanesque" broccoli -- a form of broccoli we had grown to love in New Jersey but had never seen before locally. (We asked and were told it was from a local farmer's market, so we'll be on the look-out.)
Then it was time for the entrees. Big Man had the lamb 3-ways (thanks again, John Besh!) and I had the sweetbreads. The food was exquisite, melt in your mouth, a total treat for the senses, each bite better than the last, everything perfect. We so completely cleaned our plates, it was a little embarrassing, as it looked like we might have actually licked them!
When it came time for dessert, Big Man asked if there was anything available for a diabetic, and the waiter said, surprisingly, "No, sir, we don't -- but they do across the street. They always have several kinds of sugar-free pie -- would that be all right?" And he named chocolate, lemon, and coconut cream as possibilities. Big Man took a pass on the lemon (he hates lemon desserts, for some reason) and said either of the others would do just fine. I ordered the chocolate candy-bar torte with dulce de leche sauce (in for a penny, in for a pound, I always say). We sat speculating about what it could mean about going "across the street" -- to the Windsor Court Hotel, presumably -- to get the sugar-free pie, and the waiter was back with my torte, and a plate with 4 tiny slices of pie, 2 each of chocolate and coconut for Big Man! Was he happy! Did we tip big or what?
All the way home, we relived the meal, exclaiming over this special touch, and that wonderful surprise. And we found ourselves talking about it, as New Orleanians will, in the days afterwards, with each other, to friends and family members, to just about anybody who would listen. The food was perfect, the service almost perfect, and the setting gorgeous. It was a meal to remember and cherish.
Thanks, John Besh. If we were more well-off than a musician and a minister can be in these trying times, we'd eat there more often (probably to the detriment of our waistlines -- it's probably just as well we can't afford to eat there more often). But we're happy to tell the whole cock-eyed world:
Go eat at Restaurant August -- it'll be the best meal of your life.
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