Archived Article By Tom Fitzmorris
Originally published June 6, 2006
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After Nine Months, Our Cuisine Made It Intact
During the past few months, I've been interviewed a lot by food reporters around the country because I have a new cookbook out. Most of them ask the same question:
"Has it been a struggle for New Orleans cuisine to recover from the hurricane?"
Answering that reveals something about our culture that I think has been greatly underestimated: the powerful energy that recreational eating and drinking injects into the life of our area.
The whole New Orleans food scene rebounded with astonishing speed and strength after the hurricane. Like a superball, it shot up much higher than the level from which it was thrown to the ground. Restaurants and chefs showed an inspiring commitment to their mission. Customers responded with deep satisfaction and more dollars than anybody figured on.
It was a pleasant surprise for everyone. Restaurateurs planned at first to scale back to the essentials, thinking that surely nobody without a permanent home would go for oysters Rockefeller or foie gras. But they did--even more after the storm than before. Having a great meal was essential in establishing mental landmarks in a new perceived world.
I'd go so far as to say no other part of New Orleans society did more to comfort people and give them a reason to undertake the rebuilding struggle.
The earliest estimates of how the new restaurant market would stack up came from the Louisiana Restaurant Association, which puts the best spin possible on industry news. The LRA predicted that 25 percent of the pre-Katrina restaurant population would never reopen.
At least in the part of the restaurant business that matters to the local cuisine, the real numbers after nine months are very different. My reopened restaurant index (at www.nomenu.com) stood at 650 on May 29. Before the storm, we had 809 restaurants meeting the same criteria (no fast food, few chains, no coffeehouses, bars, or take-out operations).
So a shade over 80 percent of the restaurants worth talking about are back open. On top of that, 72 restaurants not currently open plan to be back in business by year's end. That brings the total to 90 percent. And that doesn't even include the 25 or so brand-new restaurants that have opened since the storm.
The LRA's estimate was based on how bad things looked in October, and included all restaurants--every Subway, for example. Corporate restaurants in particular have been seem calculating their reopening plans with a very sharp pencil.
Also, the lack of personnel was so insanely troublesome and the condition of the market was apparently so dire that, early on, restaurateurs were spooked. Many said they wouldn't reopen.
But then, most of them did.
And what they did was terrific. Customer counts have been much higher than before the storm, and profits--because of the smaller staffs and shorter hours--have been off the charts.
The only place where this has not been true is in the French Quarter, where out-of-town visitors are so essential and so lacking that most restaurants are operating at about the level they would during the worst part of summer. But they survive that every year, and they seem to be chugging through this.
The answer to that question we began with seems to be that the state of the culinary arts in New Orleans is as strong as ever.
The funny thing is that a lot of people--especially observers from out of town--don't want to believe that. So they go out in search of problem spots. They find them, of course. Quite a few restaurants were so heavily damaged that they're struggling to return, including quite a few iconic establishments--notably Dooky Chase, Mandina's, Commander's Palace, Mr. B's. But they're exceptions now, not the rule. And almost all of them will ultimately be back.
But, the questioners press on, what about the great little back-street restaurants that define New Orleans cuisine?
The answer throws them. It is that the back street restaurants DO NOT define the local cuisine, and never did.
Think about it. Imagine some little joint on the corner of a bumpy side street and a bumpier side street. What do they have? Red beans. Fried oysters. Panneed veal. Pork chops. Stuffed mirlitons. Roast chicken. Bread pudding.
Now move upscale a few notches. None of that food disappears! Red beans are served in the best places on Mondays. Fried seafood is everywhere. About the only food you find in the neighborhood that you don't find in the upscale restaurants is sandwiches--although you will find the ingredients. (Tell me the difference between beef short ribs--currently the darling of many a gourmet bistro--and what you find in the middle of a roast beef poor boy.)
In other words, Creole cuisine is everywhere here. And it's in absolutely no danger of dying. It's not even sick.
In this, the culinary culture of New Orleans is very different from other aspects of the local cultural scene. Nobody needs to raise money for the practitioners of Creole cookery. They're doing great in their restaurants. Even if a chef is out of a job because his restaurant is closed, he has his pick of other places in which to work.
Indeed, with their constant support of all other local non-profits--how many events have you attended in the last year where chefs were giving away their food to make the fundraiser a more attractive party?--the restaurants are not only taking care of themselves, but everybody else, too.
So you can rest easy about at least this one critical part of the fabric of the city. Unlike the levees, FEMA, and the insurance companies, our infrastructure of eating came through for us far beyond our expectations. Unlike the artists, musicians, actors, and street performers, few restaurateurs need any special help. (Although you might think about eating in the French Quarter more often.)
I can't think of anything more distinctly New Orleans than that our culture of great eating and drinking has led us out of our disaster into a hopeful new world.
© 2006 Tom Fitzmorris. All rights reserved. news@nomenu.com