Archived Review By Tom Fitzmorris Originally published January 13, 2006 Click here for the current edition Cuvee Post-Hurricane Ratings: A, 5$ CBD: 322 Magazine Reservations: 587-9001 Dinner Mon.-Sat. AE, DC, DS, MC, V. Cuvee has always been low-key. People who have driven in front of it hundreds of times aren't aware that it's there, and may never have heard of it. Chef Bob Iacovone's name doesn't come tripping off the tongue of the average person asked to identify great New Orleans chefs. But ask the most avid lovers of food and wine about Cuvee, and you'll almost always hear it placed among the best of revived restaurants. It would be in the middle of my top five. Cuvee was one of the first gourmet restaurants to reopen in Orleans Parish following the storm--in the first week of October, when the water was still allegedly unusable even for washing hands. After a brief sympathetic period of serving down-home dishes to accommodate relief workers whose numbers were overwhelmed by local regulars, Cuvee picked up where it left off, with its sophisticated approach to Creole cooking. The menu here has always been designed with tasting dinners in mind--the kind with matched wines. The wine emphasis is hard to miss: the name of the restaurant itself is a wine term (it's most used in Champagne to refer to the art of combining many wines to create a harmonious whole). Large-format wine bottles were made into chandeliers, and other wine-related elements are in the decor of the brick-walled dining room. Most convincing is that the wine list is brilliant. It's not a Can-you-believe-they-have-this? cellar such as Emeril's and Brennan's have. But if you're infected by an insatiable curiosity about wine, you'll have a lot of fun going through Cuvee's list. Here will be many labels you've never heard of before, let alone tried, filled with wines made from equally unfamiliar grape varieties, often from very offbeat places. More often than not, a tasting dinner here for me comes with a complement of four or five wines that are utterly new to me. The standard tasting menu is a five- or six-course parade of small dishes for $65. If you want the wine pairings, that takes the nut up to just over $100. That certainly makes Cuvee a deluxe evening, but it still qualifies as a good deal, given the quality of the foodstuffs and the wines, as well as the generosity of the plates and the pours. Before getting into details, let's look at this tasting-menu business. I think it's a great idea. It eliminates indecision and encourages one to sample dishes one might not have ordered by free will. The chef knows what he does best, and knows what's the best food in the kitchen; that's what makes it onto the tasting menu, if it's as artfully assembles as it is at Cuvee. This means that you never know what's going to be up. But here are some goodies from recent meals here. Some have been here for awhile; others are relatively new. • Frog's legs. So few restaurants serve these delicacies that I order them whenever I see them. Here they are, fried and served warm with blue cheese and spinach and yes, somebody must have been thinking about Buffalo chicken wings when they came up with this. The garlic that's almost always partnered with frog's legs is there too. • Wild mushroom ravioli. Nice. This is always a good idea, but the textures and flavors work especially well here. And these really are wild mushrooms. The sauce is mostly olive oil, with droplets of reduced port. • Napoleon of mirlitons and shrimp. It's a sandwich of panned mirliton (the best thing you can do with that vegetable, if you ask me) and shrimp sliced end to end and sauced with a red remoulade and spicy butter sauce. • Tapas. It's an assortment of little cool nibbles, a kind of Spanish antipasto, with an emphasis on salty things. And foie gras, of course. That comes out two different ways, in case you're getting bored with foie gras. One entree hung over after the comfort-food period right after the storm. It's a combination plate of meatloaf and braised pork belly, which the chefs of the area continue to urge upon us as if it's actually something good. Someone I dined with one night had this and liked it, though, especially the meatloaf part, which she said was spicy. Also in the realm of Things We Do Because The Word Is That It's Cool is the "deconstructed" (I've seen this word on four different menus since the storm) osso buco. In other words, you don't have to winkle the marrow out, because they've merged it into the mashed potatoes. I didn't get that, either, but someone else did, and pronounced it tender and flavorful. Just like a still-constructed osso buco. More to my liking is whatever it is they have today that smacks of bouillabaisse. On the most recent menu, that was grilled redfish with blackened shrimp, all wet down with a tightened-up bouillabaisse broth: fabulous. The mustard-and-herb crusted salmon, a standby here since almost the beginning, is also beyond reproach, as good a salmon dish as you'll find around town (with the exception of those times when somebody brings in some unusual Pacific salmon). Pan-seared sea scallops with squash ravioli and browned butter flavored with sage: delightful. The triple duck dish--smoked breast, confit leg, and foie gras--is an idea from a decade ago that has crossed over into the realm of permanent classics. It's done as well here as anywhere. They have a chicken dish I have my eye on for a future visit: coq au vin blanc, with a semi-panneed chicken breast. Boursin-stuffed waffle? I've got to see that. Sounds good. Cuvee opened with the same minimal staff that every other restaurant in town has had to suffer with, and they stay they're still not up to full crew. But you would not have known this to dine there. Ken Lacour, who owns the place along with chef Kim Kringlie (they also own Dakota), has a long record of training his dining room people so well that they are gourmets and oenophiles in their own right. The only problem with Cuvee right now is that parking in the CBD at night is a fright. I don't think they have their valet service (although they might by now), and every lot is full with various people camped out in downtown hotels working on the recovery. Be aware of that when you plan your arrival time. © 2006 Tom Fitzmorris. All rights reserved. news@nomenu.com