Last Updated on Thursday, 24 January 2013 12:49

Restaurants - Contemporary Creole

Mat & Naddie's

Riverbend: 937 Leonidas. 504-861-9600. Map.
Nice Casual
AE DC DS MC V
Website

WHY IT'S NOTEWORTHY
Mat & Naddie's is Uptown's favorite kind of restaurant: a Creole bistro with imaginative (but not too) and delicious (very) food, in a funny old cottage whose interior decor seems almost accidental. All this gives the feeling that you've discovered a great restaurant nobody knows about, and this charms you.

WHAT'S GOOD
Maybe it's the contrast with frivolous exterior. Every time I dine here I'm taken aback not only by the skills of the kitchen, but by the ambitiousness of the menu. The food is in the realm of which you'd find in the city's most expensive restaurant, with the presentations dialed back. It's original and familiar at the same time, with dishes built with infrequently-encountered ingredients. Although it isn't a vegetarian restaurant, the menu contains more vegetarian and vegan dishes than any other I know of. The nightly wine dinner--three courses with three wines for just over $50--is a particularly good way to sample the place on a first visit.

BACKSTORY
The restaurant evolved from a catering business operated by Michael and Paula Schramel, whose children were Nat and Maddie. (The name is a kidspeak alteration.) In the 1990s Steve Schwartz--a sous chef for most of the restaurant's history--bought the Schramels out. He added his own ideas, and has kept Mat & Maddie's on a long-term upward trend.

DINING ROOM
It's a 150-year-old cottage built from the board of flatboat barges that had finished their one and only trips downriver. The main dining room is a long space with wavy floorboards and many windows. Freight trains passing just outside somehow become romantic. They also have an outdoor dining area on a deck lighted partially by Christmas-tree lights.

ESSENTIAL DISHES
Starters »Soup du jour
Sweet and spicy pecans
Sicilian olives, artichoke hearts and fresh mozzarella
»Goat cheese, omelet and mushroom layered tian, parsley-cilantro pistou
Risotto, grilled eggplant, roasted red pepper, walnut and dairy garlic sauce
»Artichoke, sun-dried tomato and roasted garlic cheesecake
»Shrimp roasted red pepper rémoulade, bibb lettuce, avocado, beets
Shrimp and crawfish croquettes, pickled fennel, red onions, roasted garlic and balsamic emulsion
Vietnamese braised pork belly bahn mi
»Duck liver pate, pickled daikon, carrot, cucumber and jalapeno, Terrine of duck liver and pork, wrapped in bacon
»Roasted banana, lentil flour curry paste, almond cream
Lamb kofte slider, tomato chutney, chana dal potato salad, cucumber raita
Mixed green salad, lemon tahini dressing, carrots, red onions, cucumber, roma tomato, feta, sumac-toasted sunflower seeds
Maytag blue cheese garden salad, romaine, cucumbers and cherry tomatoes
»Belgian endive and beet salad, walnuts, goat cheese, Creole mustard-cane syrup vinaigrette
Duck confit salad, bitter greens, walnuts, goat cheese, dried cherries, honey truffle oil vinaigrette
»Grilled prosciutto-wrapped scallops and baby greens salad, shoestring potatoes, tomato caper basil vinaigrette, shaved parmesan reggiano
Fried oyster salad, green onion remoulade, bacon, pickled fennel, baby greens

Entrees
Roasted pepper-four cheese cannelloni, pine nuts, spinach, roasted portabella and spicy tomato broth
»Smoked shiitake mushrooms, jasmine brown rice-black sesame rice cakes, Thai red curry stew, squash, sweet pepper ragout
Grilled shrimp, spicy tonkatsu sauce, sticky jasmine rice, braised bok choy
»Chicken Clemenceau (really, chicken Pontalba: brabant potatoes, ham, peas, mushrooms, béarnaise)
»Confit of duck leg, vegetables, sauce rouennaise
Gulf grouper and shrimp, sweet and hot peppers, tomato and coconut milk stew, rice
»Roasted lamb chops, poached eggs, pepper and eggplant ragout
»Dry-aged, grass-fed beef steak (cuts differ from day to day), herb compound butter, rosemary steak fries, wilted greens, Maytag blue cheese and bacon beurre rouge

Desserts
»Tres leches cake
Pecan pie
»Chocolate truffle cake
Panéed white chocolate and almond bread pudding
»Crème brûlée
»Dulce de leche cheesecake
Warm blueberry peach cobbler

FOR BEST RESULTS
Make a reservation; the place fills up suddenly. Ask about having a dinner paired with wines. They're better at this than you might imagine, with a terrific list to pick from. Be aware of the funny dinner schedule: Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday (closed Wednesday and Sunday).

OPPORTUNITIES FOR IMPROVEMENT
The dining rooms are a little drafty in cold weather.

FACTORS OTHER THAN FOOD
Up to three points, positive or negative, for these characteristics. Absence of points denotes average performance in the matter.

• Dining Environment
• Consistency +2
• Service +1
• Value +1
• Attitude +2
• Wine and Bar +2
• Hipness +2
• Local Color +3

SPECIAL ATTRIBUTES

• Live music some nights
• Courtyard or deck dining
• Romantic
• Good view
• Medium private room
• Open Monday lunch
• Historic
• Easy, nearby parking
• Reservations honored promptly

ANECDOTES AND ANALYSIS
The sign outside looks as if it were painted for either a preschool or a late-1960s head shop (funny how those two had similar decor). The exterior is bright greenish yellow. What kind of restaurant is this? Would you guess an ambitious, sophisticated gourmet bistro in a league with the Gautreau's, Clancy's, and Brigtsen's? With a wine list to match? Or would you suppose that this is a place with a ten-dollar lunch buffet every weejkday? Amazingly, Mat & Naddie's is both of those things. NE