From The New Orleans Menu Daily By Tom Fitzmorris Originally published August 7, 2007 Bayona 5$ French Quarter: 430 Dauphine Reservations essential: 525-4455 Lunch Wed.-Sat. Dinner Mon.-Sat. AE DC DS MC V www.bayona.com A friend I hadn't seen in awhile surprised me not long ago. He always considered Galatoire's the apotheosis of the New Orleans restaurant experience. I asked him what he thought of the changes there in recent years. "I don't know," he said. "I haven't been to Galatoire's much. I mainly eat at Bayona now." Quite a shift: from one of the most traditional menus in town to one of the most innovative. But after I had dinner at Bayona last week, it made sense. Not only have my friend's tastes expanded, but Bayona has become an institution. Consistent, distinctive, excellent. And now, predictable--in a good way. The last time I wrote here about Bayona (four years ago), I noted that it had gone beyond finding a groove to the verge of finding a rut. It was thirteen then, and in an uncomfortable stage of adolescence. They learned the truth at seventeen, and show new gracefulness. As women do at that age. (My reference point is my teenage daughter; the parallels are striking.) And Bayona is a decidedly feminine restaurant. Its genius is Chef Susan Spicer, who partnered with Regina Keever in 1990 to open what was to be--and became--Susan's fullest culinary expression. She's a New Orleans native, but did a lot of traveling. After beginning a cooking career at Louis XVI, she did stints in France and California, interspersed with New Orleans gigs. Her post before Bayona was at the Bistro at the Maison de Ville; she was its first chef, and her star status registered there. Since the beginning, Bayona's menu has defied category. Its main influence was certainly French, but flavors from all the rest of the world have always show up here. Indeed, they now use that aspect of the menu as a motto: "Our restaurant gives you New Orleans. Our menu gives you the world." Nothing as slick as that would have come out of here five years ago. But now they (and their customers) are absolutely sure what they're about. Bayona returned to work shortly after the hurricane, finding no serious damage to its 200-year-old building (although Susan lost her Lakeview house). Like other restaurants, it started with limitations, but it's back up to full speed now. Most welcome was the restoration, a few months ago, of the two-sided menu. On the left is a list of signature specialties, many of which have always been here. (A few of them go all the way back to the beginning of Susan's career.) If you've never been to Bayona before, start with that list. You'll start with the roasted garlic soup, the grilled shrimp with coriander and a black bean cake, or the sauteed sweetbreads with potatoes, mushrooms, and a sherry and mustard sauce. Then on to Pacific salmon with Gewurztraminer sauce and choucroute, the grilled duck breast with pepper jelly (now widely copied, but created here), and the peppered lamb loin. All these are chiseled in stone, no less than crabmeat maison or trout amandine are at Galatoire's. All live up to their reputations. (With the possible exception of the sweetbreads; famous here, better elsewhere.) You will always be able to enjoy them at Bayona. But it's carpe diem as regards the other side of the menu, now published daily. (I recall that it was merely seasonal before the hurricane.) Much of what you find on this page comes from Susan's wide repertoire of standards; other dishes take advantage of ingredients that turned up fresh that day. Last week, I had a tasting menu from the right-hand menu that was exemplary not only of what's going on these days at Bayona, but of the currents in contemporary gourmet restaurants throughout the city. It was very good. It started with a light, tasty Tuscan-style bread salad, with cubes of fresh tomato, basil, radicchio, and slices of guanciale--bacon made from hog's jowls. (The actual difference between this and regular pork-belly bacon is about ten percent flavor and ninety percent intrigue.) Then a collection of poached asparagus, crabmeat, and wild mushrooms atop puff pastry. The night I had this the mushrooms were a kind I'd never had before: beech mushrooms, little guys about twice the size (and eight times the flavor) of those straw-like enoki mushrooms. That was followed by a fillet of tripletail, a very good local fish that you find only in restaurants that put some work into finding fish. It was cornmeal-crusted but appeared to be sauteed,  and came out covered with a collection of fresh corn and itty-bitty brabant potatoes, with a soupcon of brown butter and a blob of pumpkinseed pesto. (Didn't he used to play for the Jazz? Or was that just there to make a statement of hipness? If so, that's what I mean when I say this captures the current New Orleans restaurant style.) All good food so far, and the best was next: rabbit. Some of it panneed, some of it rolled up around some spicy Italian sausage, with some baby artichokes, heavy herb gnocchi, and a pile of broccoli raab (that's the Italian answer to turnip greens). Eating that, it dawned on me that a lot of the menu tonight (for which I let the chef make all the choices) was closer to a Creole flavor than I ever remember getting here. Indeed, there was a time when Bayona's menu gave little evidence that it was being served in New Orleans. Maybe this reflects the taste of chef de cuisine Jeremy Gresham, who enjoys free rein from Susan. Last time I tried it, the cheese selection was terrible. They're back on track with some wonderful selections, a point in their ripeness, beautifully presented. Bayona looks good. Its main dining room is as elegant as that of any independent restaurant, although it can get noisy when full. The two rooms just inside the entrance are simpler and quieter; I prefer them, myself. And if the weather is tolerable, they some times serve on a small courtyard. To be avoided: the claustrophobic upstairs room. The staff here has always had unusually high esprit de corps, and gets the job done snappily. This was a restaurant in the 2007 Top Sixty Ethnic Restaurant Countdown. To view the entire list, click here. Click here for an index of all restaurant reviews. © 2007 Tom Fitzmorris. All rights reserved. news@nomenu.com.