From The New Orleans Menu Daily By Tom Fitzmorris Originally published October 6, 2006 Brennan's 6$ 417 Royal, French Quarter. Reservations 525-9711. Breakfast, lunch and dinner Thurs.-Mon. (closed Tues. & Wed.) AE, DC, DS, MC, V. www.brennansrestaurant.com Brennan's missed its sixtieth anniversary earlier this year. When that date passed, they were still struggling to remediate the effects of you know what. You've heard the story about other places: the contents of coolers and freezers on upper floors ran out into walls, between floors, and into everything else, and the place had almost to be torn down to get all that gunk out. Now all that has been eclipsed by the other story swirling above Brennan's. There has been another angry split in the family, this time among the three brothers who have owned the Royal Street restaurant (and no others here) since 1973. Pip Brennan and his two sons, who were the most visible family management there before the storm, are out. (Although Pip still owns a third of the place.) And there are lawsuits. I haven't talked with everyone involved, but from what I know so far, here is my perspective. The first is that it's not about Brennan's itself, but about another company the brothers own. My second impression is pure gut reaction, not supported by facts or legalities. It is held by a lot of other New Orleans diners: What's with these guys that they're always in court fighting about something? Can't they just figure it out in private and keep their great restaurant running? Or maybe just chill out a little? Really, those of us who are interested in Brennan's as an incomparably beautiful place to have a distinctive, delicious brunch or dinner, abetted by a great wine list, don't give a damn about the internecine stuff. We just wish they'd quit it. Brennan's reopened in June with all the problems that newly-reopened restaurants have had. They lost a lot of staff (Brennan's is offering waiters double what waiters usually make, for a restaurant where waiter positions have been among the most remunerative in town). And there was that wobbly feeling that come from having lost momentum for nine months. I didn't return to Brennan's for my first post-Katrina dinner until a couple of weeks ago. The operations issues seem to have been resolved, and a warm feeling of familiarity imbued the evening. Here was Chef Lazone Randolph, back in the kitchen to resume his thirty-something-year career at Brennan's, assuring us that the crabmeat was really nice, most of his main men were back on the stoves, and whatever favorite Brennan dish we wanted would be available. But there was something different. The man at the front door was one I have not seen in that capacity for many years. Jimmy Brennan, one of the three fraternal proprietors, stood at the bar greeting the locals. (Most of the customers are locals right now.) Jimmy has run Brennan's vaunted wine cellar for decades, and that what I wanted to know about. "We had to rebuild the cellar before," he said. "About twenty years ago, we sold off a lot of the wines that were going over the hill and restocked with what people were drinking. But this time, good wines are a lot easier to find. Everybody's making them, all over the world." The dining was as if nothing had happened. Brennan's is one of the few restaurants for which I mentally construct a menu days before I arrive, so well acquainted am I with their menu. It's not utterly static--some great dishes are of relatively recent vintage--but there are so many nonpareil specialties that I at least consider having them every time I'm there. On this reunion visit, I went with all of those. I started with turtle soup, long the unchallenged best in New Orleans, still everything I remember. (I am eating turtle soup every chance I get these days, because I'm convinced that its days as a common dish are numbered.) Then a half-and-half oysters Rockefeller and oysters casino. The Rockefeller recipe here was stolen from Antoine's a long time ago, and it still tastes almost identical to that original--including the unique detail that there's no spinach in the sauce. Delicious, as were the casinos. They sound impossibly low-rent (the sauce is not much more than cocktail sauce and a slice of bacon), but are somehow irresistible. I often get a half-portion of one of their egg dishes from the breakfast menu as a second course, but I saw someone at the next table do that, and it looked as good as always: the poached egg sitting up like a golf ball, with that perfect, spicy hollandaise they make here. (Sometimes I'm tempted to order a dish of hollandaise, and figure out what I'm going to do with it later.) Somebody with me had the baby soft-shell crabs with pecans, always a hit. Somebody else had crepes Barbara, very rich, stuffed with crabmeat and shrimp. My advance mental menu for this evening was to include veal or fish as an entree, but Jimmy sold me on a Whitehall Lane Cabernet, a very big-hearted Napa red, and that needed a steak. Brennan's steaks are in a league with those of the premium steakhouses, and they have a few truly unusual preparations for them. Of those, the most unconventional is steak Stanley: a filet (it's better with a strip sirloin, but those have left the menu) with marchand de vin sauce (red wine, mushrooms, a little demi-glace) and a creamy horseradish sauce. For reasons that have never come to light, the dish is set in a pair of parentheses formed by two halves of a roasted banana. This nevertheless is a great dish, and if you keep the banana bites away from the wine swallows, it works. Elsewhere on the table was chicken Lazone, one of the newer dishes, grilled with Creole seasonings and a cream sauce. And trout Nancy (made with drumfish at the moment--no restaurant buying fresh fish has trout right now), with gigantic crab lumps and capers in a beurre blanc. Dinner finished with bananas Forster for almost everybody, of course. All this has been rendered by waiters whose faces were very familiar from many previous meals in this seminal New Orleans classic. But I wish the Brennan brothers would cut the squabbling. It's disturbing the customers. Click here to return to today's edition. Click here for an index of all restaurant reviews. © 2006 Tom Fitzmorris. All rights reserved. news@nomenu.com.