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We’re still here, dammit. |
You’re in New Orleans. You need to go out to eat. You have to go out to eat. You can’t help yourself. This overwhelming desire could have been brought on by a simple need to dine on some favorite dish, the fact that your kitchen suddenly became a murky swimming pool full of kitchen implements, or simply that you just got home to late to cook and you have to eat in order to survive to the next day. Perhaps you are one of the small but growing ranks of intrepid tourists who are slowly filtering into New Orleans to see just what the deal is here and how many of your favorite old haunts are still standing with their doors open, waiting to serve you your favorite dishes and drinks. Or maybe, like true New Orleanians, you just want to go out and have a great meal with some people who are, like you, still kind of dazed and confused as a results of the last few months events but who still know that a simple meal shared with friends is one of the great pleasures of living in New Orleans. Whatever the reason, you can probably find something, somewhere, in this town that will meet your desires.
Now, I’m not saying that this will be the easiest thing that you have done lately nor will it always be the most convenient. New Orleans, this previously 24 hour a day fun filled, action packed adventure land of a town is kind of running on a different clock than it was on August 28. Restaurants generally aren’t open as late, as early, or for as long as they were before the storm and in many cases, they aren’t open at all. Or, in the wise words of local philosopher and sage Benny Grunch, “dey ain’t dere no more”
New Orleans, previous to Katrina, was probably the best city in America to eat well and eat inexpensively at the same time. Every neighborhood in this city was filled with places that were well worth a visit. Po’boys, fish plates, blue plates, seafood platters, and the like were available in small restaurants, corner groceries, and myriad other spots that were always to be recommended as someone’s favorite joint.
That situation has changed a bit since the storm. First and foremost, in order to have a neighborhood place, there has to be a neighborhood. Today, many of those neighborhoods are just not there in any meaningful way. The hurricane and the floods that followed destroyed a very large percentage of the city in a way that was so total, so devastating, that it may be years, if ever, before they come back. Secondly, for the small operators, there is the fact that many of them, even in the best of times, were pretty much living from cash register to mouth and a long-term interruption in business was not something that they could weather easily. The evacuation expenses, slow paying insurance, missing employees, the change in the general wage structure caused by competition from clean-up companies, and many other factors have all added up to make it very difficult for many of the places that we are all familiar with to reopen.
Diners have to be ready to compromise a bit in terms of time and maybe even what they eat, but this is, right now, today, still one of the most interesting cities in the world to dine in. Louisiana has the only true indigenous food culture in North America and New Orleans is at the epicenter of it. No storm, no matter it’s ferocity, can change that and while things are not anywhere close to normal (though in New Orleans, in the best of times, “normal” is a very relative term. We ain’t like everybody else, Cap.) there are many places, all across the dining spectrum, that are open for business and serving very familiar food to folks who crave the familiar and the comfortable. If there was ever a place that the term “comfort food” really meant exactly that, it is probably in post-Katrina New Orleans.
On the big bucks, fine dining end of the scale there are many places that are open and operating. Some restaurants that suffered minimal damage during the storm were able to open back up pretty early (once again, this is all relative-early in this case means within 60 days of Katrina and it’s ensuing levee breaks). Of course, it wasn’t easy.
John Besh, owner and chef at Restaurant August, got his Tchopitoulas Street place open only after serving meals for free all around town to workers, firemen, cops, and anyone else in need of a meal and once that was winding down he finally began working on his own place. Besh managed to reopen on October 16 with a total staff of 7. Water came from a truck hooked into the service on the side of the building. Besh saw a very happy, and very dependable, crowd from his very first night and as with many owners serving food to the high end dining trade, he has seen a steady upward trend in the number of people coming through his doors.
Paul Prudhomme, iconic chef and owner of K-Paul’s was another who went above and beyond serving rescue folks after the storm, was another chef who managed to get open pretty quickly after the storm-though to a little different audience than he was used to seeing-locals. Like many places that are both famous and pretty heavily marketed to the tourist trade, K-Paul’s diners, previous to the storm, were largely made up of out-of-towners who were looking for that one quintessential Louisiana meal and there was hardly a better place for them to have that experience that K-Paul’s. Local diners who were looking for some familiar comfort food found that K- Paul’s, when bereft of the tourist trade, was still a great place to dine.
These guys are just a couple of examples of people who were determined to do the right thing by their city, by their employees, and by their customers. There were many others, most notably broiled oyster king (this really should be some sort of real title) Tommy Cvitonovich, who served close to 100,000 meals is several locations around town. These three are certainly not the only ones who were able to look past their own personal troubles for the greater good of the community, but they are among the most notable.
In New Orleans, when you’re talking comfort food, you’re probably talking a decently constructed po’boy made with quality materials(dressed, extra tomato, thanks). They are here and happily you don’t really have to look far for a big, honking sandwich that might fit the bill. You might not be able to get one at your old favorite, but you can surely get a sandwich that will satisfy that po’boy craving. Domilise’s, Parasol, Johnny’s, Crabby Jack’s, Parkway Bakery, and Casamento’s are among the many places that have reopened and the good news is that there are seemingly places opening or reopening every day. You can get roast beef, shrimp, oyster, fish, and just about anything else that might be put on a French loaf with tomatoes, lettuce and possibly gravy (in the case of roast beef). Parkway Bakery was so anxious to get back in business that they started out serving only on Saturdays and only roast beef (though they are now keeping longer hours on more days of the week).Like I said, things are a bit out of whack right now.
New Orleans is, and will remain, a mess for a while. There is much to do and problems this complex take time to fix and leadership to solve them (one out of two isn’t bad I guess. We seem to have plenty of time). The restaurant business is one of the few businesses that is slowly but surely coming back. Many, most even, of the places that were open before the storm remain closed but the number of places that are open grows every day and will continue to do so. After all, New Orleans is a city that lives to eat.
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