NEW ORLEANS - excerpts from an article written by Mary Tutwiler for Louisiana Life Travel magazine 2008-09
Two-and-a-half years after Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans continues to rebound, its high spirits undamaged by hell or high water. The French Quarter, the 18th-century historic heart of the city founded by Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville in 1718, beats with the joyous rhythms of jazz and stirs up the best food in America. In fact, locals proclaim with pride and delight that the cooking has never been better and that the city’s chefs and restaurants are single-handedly revitalizing New Orleans.
Cochon, opened in the Warehouse District a mere six months after Katrina, was recently named one of the 10 best new restaurants in America by the New York Times. Chef Donald Link, a native of Cajun Country, brought the traditional boucherie - a country celebration of slaughtering a pig and using every single part - to create an innovative port-heavy menu that has diners raving. Grand Isle, a recent acclaimed addition to up-and-coming Fulton Street, focuses on seafood, paying homage to its namesake island, which is known for some of the best oysters coming out of Louisiana waters. And recently the “Queen of Creole Cuisine,” Leah Chase, reopened Dooky Chase, where heavy hitters in the civil rights and political scenes have dined on her soulful gumbo and fried chicken since the 1940s.
Chef Miles Prescott at the Country Club restaurant in the Bywater area says that pre-Katrina it was difficult to make a decent living as a chef in New Orleans. “I was cooking on the line at Bayona, one of the best restaurants in the Quarter, and making $8 an hour,” he says. “I couldn’t make it and left for Chicago.” Prescott cooked in the Windy City, but his heart remained in the Big Easy, and now, post-storm, he says wages are better here than almost anywhere else in the country.
But the real reason he’s back is the creative energy in the kitchens of the city. Take his Oysters al Pastor - oysters on the half shell chargrilled under a sauce made of chipotle peppers, pineapple and cilantro - a south-of-the-border/New Orleans fusion that hits it right on the money. Prescott is innovating as he goes, smothering wild boar and then giving it a Cantonese barbecue treatment or going for broke with a completely original dessert that combines bacon and chocolate in a warm lava cake. The setting for his cooking is just as unique, a restored mansion that is a European-style swim club by day and a laid-back restaurant by night.
Another icon back on track is the St. Charles Avenue streetcar, which travels from Canal Street, which borders the French Quarter, to Carrollton Avenue, an Uptown hub of restaurants and small shops. St. Charles is one of the most beautiful avenues in the world. From the classical revival architecture of the Central Business District, past the antebellum mansions of the Garden District, to the green oasis of Audubon Park and Zoo, the streetcar rumbles past ancient oaks, giving riders a panoramic view of the gracious life of the city.
Begin a day in the life of New Orleans with a jazz brunch on Canal Street at the Palace Café, one of the famous Brennan family’s restaurants. Fuel up on turtle soup, shrimp remoulade and bananas Foster beignets before catching a ride on the swaying streetcar. Launched in 1835, the St. Charles Avenue streetcar is the longest running line in America.
The first stop is Julia Street in the city’s arts district. Once a rundown no man’s land of abandoned warehouses that had at one time housed goods shipped to town on the Mississippi River, the district came back to life when New Orleans hosted the 1984 World’s Fair. Since then, the neighborhood has become one of the hottest sports in town for urban condos, art and food. Visit such galleries as Arthur Roger, where the best of contemporary Louisiana art is on display; Stella Jones Gallery, which specializes in African-American artists; or Jean Bragg, the spot to find Newcomb Potters, a style influenced by the 1920s English Arts and Crafts movement. Emeril Lagasse’s flagship restaurant is in the heart of the district, as are Tommy’s Cuisine and Wine Bar, a New Orleans classic Italian seafood restaurant, and Argentine seafood star Rio Mar.
Stroll a few blocks to discover the city’s National World War II Museum. Dedicated as the National D-Day Museum in 2000, the immense compound highlights the American experience from the Normandy invasion to the sands of the Pacific with interactive shows and personal stories. The Contemporary Arts Center, just around the corner, showcases both the visual and performing arts. It is also the headquarters for Prospect.1, a citywide international arts biennale that kicks off in September 2008. Across the street, the Ogden Museum of Southern Arts is the place to go for a modern vision of the South through the eyes of photographers, sculptors, painters and filmmakers.
Subdivided from several plantations in 1825, the renowned architecture of the Garden District was the answer of the American settlers who arrived after the Louisiana Purchase in 1803 to the French and Spanish Colonial style of the French Quarter and Esplanade Avenue. Wealthy businessmen trading in cotton, sugar and shipping shunned the Creole building style, commissioning mansions built in a fusion of classic styles with influences of Italianate and English, as well as Greek Revival. The best way to see this gorgeous neighborhood bounded by Jackson and Louisiana avenues is on foot or bicycle.
Renowned landmarks include the cast-iron cornstalk fence surrounding the Short-Favrot home, just off Prytania Street. One famous resident, actor Nicolas Cage, took a haunted history tour of the Garden District to find out why his house was reputedly haunted. Nine Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor and former Saints quarterback Archie Manning call the Garden District home. Author Anne Rice penned her vampire series here and set many scenes in her own houses when she lived in the neighborhood.
All this walking deserves a rest, and the very best place to sip a mint julep and watch the world go by is the front porch at the Columns Hotel on St. Charles Avenue. The Victorian mansion has been refurbished as a campy hotel, and its dark-paneled bar is home to monthly literary events.
Hop back on the streetcar for the next leg of the ride, a trip to Audubon Park and Zoo, the site of the 1889 World Cotton Centennial Exhibition and World’s Fair. Named for naturalist and painter John James Audubon, who lived in New Orleans in the 1820s, the park is the center of outdoor life Uptown. Joggers, cyclists, dog-walkers and kids cool off under the branches of huge live oak trees. The 18-hole golf course is the only public course open in the city. The main attraction is the world class Audubon Zoo. Exotic white alligators and white tigers are two of the calling cards, as well as a sea lion exhibit and the Louisiana swamp walk.
A hub of casual restaurants await at Riverbend, a short ride from the park. The city’s most famous burger joint, Camellia Grill has been dishing out pecan waffles and mocha freezes to generations of post-prom teens still in their tuxes, looking for breakfast the morning after. For more upscale fare, try the shrimp and grits at Dante’s Kitchen, chargrilled oysters or crab cakes at One, or the pork roast with sweet potato dirty rice at Brigtsen’s.
Catch the streetcar once again, and let its swaying rhythms of an earlier age take you back downtown. It’s the only way to get home again in this city that refuses to relinquish its contact with the past.