Reveillon Dinners Begin Tonight;
31 Restaurants Serve Holiday Menus
In just a bit over twenty years, the Reveillon has become an entrenched and eminently enjoyable part of the Christmas season in New Orleans.
It started as an ancient French Yuletide feasting tradition. The French brought it to their New Orleans colony, along with Mardi Gras. Originally, the Reveillon was like a Sunday brunch buffet, eaten the wee hours of Christmas morning. In those days one had to fast from the previous midnight in order to take Communion at Midnight Mass, and afterwards everyone needed refreshment. (The word "reveillon" means "awakening.")
It was an unlikely candidate for revival when Sandra Dartus of the French Quarter Festival proposed exactly that in 1988. Served at conventional dinner hours, the new Reveillon was an effort to draw people downtown during December, a slack time for conventions.
This year, thirty-one restaurants have signed onto the official Reveillon program. They've assembled special menus of between four and six courses for prices ranging from $30 to $60--but mostly in the $40s.
Even the most expensive Reveillon menus are enticing values. Prices do not include tax and gratuity.
Here are all the Reveillon menus, plus the holiday season menus for a number of other restaurants. Also here are other restaurants with special holiday season menus, although they're not participating in the official Reveillon program. (The French Quarter Festival owns the "Reveillon" trademark.)
Check back often, because I'm adding more menus almost every day.
I've rated all the Reveillon dinners from zero to three "snowflakes" based on past years' Reveillons, the year-round performance of the restaurant, the menu this year, and value. These snowflake ratings are apart from our usual star ratings, and apply only to the Reveillon, not the restaurant as a whole.
All the 2009 Reveillon menus can be found here.