From The New Orleans Menu Daily By Tom Fitzmorris Originally published April 26, 2008 Eleven 79 4$ Warehouse District: 1179 Annunciation Reservations essential: 569-0001 Lunch Thurs.-Fri. Dinner Mon.-Sat. AE DC DS MC V Italian. www.eleven79.com The bar is always full at Eleven 79. The tables right next to the bar might be available early, but they won't be at seven-thirty, by which time all the tables in the big dining room (a pretty small one, really) are taken. Most of these people began showing up shortly after Joe Segreto and Anthony DiPiazza opened the place in 2000, and are in the house often and long. Many faces will be familiar, even if you're not a regular yourself. None of this is new to Joe Segreto. Approaching fifty years in the New Orleans restaurant business, he's always had more customers than tables. He started in the 1960s at the legendary Elmwood Plantation, learning his strokes from some of the best in the business: Joe Marcello and Chef Nick Mosca. He later managed Broussard's, the Red Onion, and his own Shadows Plantation, among other restaurants. In all, dining meant waiting awhile for a table. I'm tempted to call Eleven 79 Segreto's retirement restaurant, but I'd better not. For one thing, he's anything but retired. He's on duty at all open hours, dressed sharply in beautiful suits (a trademark). He not only schmoozes customers but busses tables and gets drinks, if that's what's needed. For another thing, not even the simultaneous attacks of the hurricane and cancer could stop him. He beat them both. The building that encloses Eleven 79 is almost directly beneath the Mississippi River Bridge on Annunciation Street, adjacent to a part of the Warehouse District that did not come back strongly after the storm. (Although that's improving now.) It is, however, both a historic and interesting building. It dates back to at least the 1830s, and is constructed in the rarely-seen bricks-between-posts style (think of Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop). Segreto, a history buff, renovated the place in a way that at least harmonizes with the period. Exposed brick walls and dark wood fixtures under high ceilings resemble a French Quarter environment. Segreto is also a student of Italian cooking. Not just the kind he grew up with here, but the sort of food he found in his many visits to Italy. If you've made that trip--especially if it included Sicily, Naples, and the Amalfi Coast--you'll find Eleven 79's food and menu familiar.  It starts with a small display of antipasto on a sideboard in the bar. That's free, even if you're just having a drink. Good stuff like fresh-milk mozzarella, marinated eggplant, prosciutto, good olives, hard sausages, and (not very Italian but good) deviled eggs. The appetizer list is short. The panneed oysters are topped with white remoulade and caviar. Oysters just don't get meatier than now, and these were enormous and delicious. Also here are shrimp scampi and calamari in starter portions, and a few more things from the page of seasonal specials. On it I found a spedini of veal involtini--small veal scallops folded around a bread-crumb-and-herb stuffing, run up on a skewer and broiled. And a small soft-shell crab topped with crabmeat and butter. And barbecue shrimp, peeled and very spicy, served on a piece of ciabatta bread to soak up the sauce for easy eating. If Eleven 79 were in Italy, a lot of customers would order half-portions of pasta as a first or second course. These include all the standards, but the specials page has some very interesting additions. One night I grabbed its bucatini all' amatriciana. That's a classic Roman dish of thick spaghetti with chunky, spicy tomato sauce with guanciale--hog's jowls--melted into the sauce. It was spicy, big-tasting, and delcious. "I'm glad you got that," Segreto told me. "We're about to take it off the menu. It's a winter dish." That's the theme behind all the specials: Joe believes in eating food in season. Next time I was there, that dish was replaced by penne pasta with several wild mushrooms in an intense broth. And crawfish were here and there. Shopping for entrees, you'll note an apparent obsession with veal. Eight or ten veal dishes appear daily, some familiar, some not. The veal is a little darker and has more flavor than the pale stuff we've been fed all our lives, but with no lack of tenderness. My own favorites include the veal Sorrentina (topped with grilled eggplant, Fontina cheese, and a chunky tomato sauce) and veal Milanese (panneed veal atop a crisp pile of romaine). It's a very good sign that all the seafood entrees are on the specials list. This means that they're shopping the market, resulting in fresh local product. Now that the crabmeat is coming in, this means fish with crabmeat in various configurations, and I see it on every table. Steaks are worth considering. The house filet mignon is a variation on tournedos Rossini, made more in the Italian style than the more familiar French, but no less good for that. Steak pizzaiola--a once-common dish made by few chefs anymore--is also good. It's essentially a steak with a spicy tomato sauce, and that combination is so good that it ought to be explored more often. The desserts are dominated by the works of Angelo Brocato, although they do make their own excellent tiramisu. I get the impression they'd prefer you got a quick dessert down and moved on so they could seat some of those regulars waiting at the bar. Pacing is an issue. The regulars know that food won't come out as quickly as they're used to getting in other restaurants. The kitchen is laughably small, and gets backed up almost every night. The servers ease this along by making sure that the wineglasses are full. (If you order by the glass from the well-assembled list, you will see a very generous pour.) It needs to be said that the cucina at Eleven 79 was the creation of Chef Anthony DiPiazza. He was a brilliant chef who worked with Segreto in the past, as well as in his own restaurant. DiPiazza died about a year before the storm, and many wondered how the restaurant would change as a result. But the standard was set, and Joe Segreto sees to it that it's kept up. Click here for an index of all restaurant reviews. © 2008 Tom Fitzmorris. All rights reserved. news@nomenu.com.