Archived Review By Tom Fitzmorris Originally published February 3, 2006 Click here for the current edition Arnaud’s Post-Storm Ratings: A, 5$ French Quarter: 813  Bienville 523-5433 Dinner only, seven nights. AE DC DS MC V www.arnauds.com When it reopened on December 1, Arnaud's claimed the distinction of being the first of the four traditional French Quarter Creole dining institutions to return to active duty. The other three are all back now, too: Antoine's since December 29, Galatoire's since January 1, and Broussard's just last week. Having all of these back in business is an encouraging sign. Getting Arnaud's back in time for the holidays was a particular treat, though. No restaurant decorates itself as well for Christmas, and the dinners I had there--one an organized event for 60 of my readers and listeners--were exceptional. Arnaud's was first in another way, too. Its reopening menu wasn't abbreviated at all. And that is saying something. Although it doesn't still print the eight-page catalog of hundreds of dishes (no exaggeration) it did in the 1970s and earlier, it still offers one of the most extensive menus in town. The current card has everything I remember eating there in recent times, plus a few I don't recall. Arnaud's is an enormous restaurant, a train of old interconnected buildings running along Bienville from Bourbon almost to Dauphine. Lots of roofs to get beat up, lots of windows to get blown in, lots of walls to get wet. Which is what happened in the storm. Most of the restaurant is still not being used; fortunately, the classic main dining room and the kitchen (almost certainly the largest kitchen of any freestanding restaurant in town) are in good shape. That front room is, to my eyes, the most beautiful of all the great antique dining rooms in New Orleans. It's a collection of trademarks: the floor of small tiles, the wall of beveled glass (they resemble the kind you'd see in a church), the dozens of ceiling fans, the pressed-tin ceiling, the wood paneling lined with coathooks. This may sound weird, but before I ever set foot in Arnaud's, I had the image of this room as what a grand New Orleans dining room looked like. (Maybe I saw it as a small child.) As time goes on, the menu here has grown more contemporary. Although the great standard dishes of Creole restaurant tradition are all here, most of the funky old dishes that were unique to Arnaud's have been replaced by more modern (and much better) fare. Much of that is the work of Chef Tommy DiGiovanni, who came here from the Royal Orleans Hotel over a decade ago. He broke a tradition of French chefs at Arnaud's, but during his hegemony in Arnaud's kitchen the food has been more consistent than I remember. You still must at least consider starting things off with shrimp Arnaud, the restaurant's most famous dish. It's a very sharp remoulade, made with Creole mustard in a matrix of oil and paprika (the actual recipe is a secret, but my attempts to duplicate it keep forcing the oil and paprika content ever higher). They underboil the shrimp a little for this, and the sauce's acidity finishes the cooking process--sort of as it does with ceviche. Some at a recent dinner found it too intense, but I love it, and consider it the last word in New Orleans-style shrimp remoulade. Or baked oysters. They make five different kinds on the shells, all excellent. One could make a meal of the five-way deal, and I have been successfully tempted to do so on a number of occasions. Among the more contemporary appetizers, the best is the cold-smoked pompano, sent out chilled and with a sauce of sour cream and capers. Although those garnishes suggest smoked salmon, the flavor and texture are completely different, and the rich, fatty quality of pompano grabs onto an ideal amount of smoke. Also good is the alligator sausage with Creole mustard and apples. Arnaud's has always been a fine soup house, with the definitive old-style oyster soup, creamier than the traditional version. The turtle soup and shrimp bisque are also delicious. The fourth soup can be so far out at times you think you've slipped into a hip bistro. Arnaud's famous entree is trout meuniere. Count Arnaud (a fascinating figure whose history is amply covered on the restaurant's web site) sold so much of this dish that he needed to rework it to speed production. So his chefs devises a brown sauce with a light roux and a little stock instead of the classic brown butter from the pan, fried the fish, and sauced it up. That spread to restaurants all over New Orleans, but this is the original version of such a sauce. It's as good as ever, but here's how to best enjoy it: order trout amandine, and ask for meuniere sauce on the side. In the last decade or so, Arnaud's entree selection has moved decidedly to the seafood side. Lots of other good ones: the spicy grilled pompano, the snapper with a tomato sauce and capers (fish and tomato sauce either doesn't work at all or is brilliant; this is the latter); crawfish with a creamy lobster bisque-like sauce over rice. The meat entrees have become very straightforward: steaks, a veal filet with mushrooms, classic sweetbreads with browned butter and capers. Birds are a little more adventuresome. On my most recent visit, I tried the quails stuffed with foie gras and mushrooms with a red-wine Bordelaise: very good. So is the Cornish hen Whitecloud, with a red wine sauce with red grapes, a better combination than you might imagine. Full disclosure: I'm partial to the bread pudding because it's named for me. (It's also very good, if not my recipe.) Arnaud's was the first restaurant in town to offer creme brulee, back in the early 1980s; it's still one of the best. A new dessert, crepes stuffed with a very rich creamy filling and topped with praline sauce, is good and light. They make the best bananas Foster in town, and present café brulot perfectly. Good wine list, if expensive. The service staff includes a few new faces, but lots of the old ones, too. And Chef Tommy is still in the kitchen. The locals prefer lunch, but until that comes back it's easy enough to have dinner at Arnaud's, always one of the most reliable of standards. © 2006 Tom Fitzmorris. All rights reserved. news@nomenu.com