From The New Orleans Menu Daily By Tom Fitzmorris Originally published January 2, 2008 If You're A Restaurant Customer 2007  Was A Very Good Year Part One: Surpassing Old Numbers The pivotal moment of 2007 for New Orleans restaurant fans was April 16. That was the day Mr. B's Bistro reopened for the first time since the hurricane. B's was the last major restaurant return we were sure was coming. And, by a happy coincidence, it brought the total number of restaurants open in the New Orleans area to 809--the same number of real eateries we had the day before Katrina hit. What happened to Mr. B's after that recapitulates the story of the local restaurant business as a whole this past year. After packing the house for a month or so, B's descended into the summer doldrums. Everybody knew that was coming--it always does--but that doesn't make it hurt any less. Most restaurants soldiered on through August and September, bolstered by good volume in the early summer, especially in June. But September was its usual bitter self for all tourism-related businesses. The pace of restaurant closings was the worst since the storm. Two were especially regrettable: Coyoacan, the best Mexican restaurant in New Orleans history, and Table One, the fun two-story bistro on Washington at Magazine, with Gerard Maras in the kitchen. Then it was October, and suddenly it was pretty near to like old times. So many visitors were in town that, for the first time since K, Antoine's reopened on a seven-day schedule. It has kept that up since then, occasionally filling the entire restaurant with customer counts in four figures. The fall season, and the promise of next spring, has many restaurateurs finally talking about something other than their recovery progress. Despite all that, a bartender I know quit at Mr. B's. "The business isn't there," he said. "It's not like it used to be." A bartender at Mr. B's makes the best part of his living on tips from people waiting for their tables to open up. So the dining room can be full (and it has been close to that all the times I've gone), but the holding pattern remain empty. In other words, the cup is full, but not flowing over. And it's all relative to what you know before. We had some truly fantastic years before the storm came. But you don't have to go too many years back to find the market much like it is now. With one exception. There has never been a time in New Orleans history when it had as many discussable restaurants as it has now. The year will end with about 890 restaurants in business--about ten percent more than in 2004. What's more, even the total number of hours that all restaurants are open appears to have caught up with the pre-storm total. And that includes everything from poor boy shops to establishments for haute cuisine. Part Two: The Comings, Goings, And Movers Of 2007. So much for generalities. Here the most interesting specific developments and people in the restaurant scene in the year just past. John Besh, And His Works. Besh, the owner-chef of Restaurant August, already had in that restaurant a contender for Best Restaurant in Town. But then he bought La Provence from his old mentor Chris Kerageorgiou, who passed away shortly after that deal was consummated. A couple of months ago, Besh brought in Rene Bajeux--probably the best French chef in these parts--as chef and partner at La Provence. It's a perfect match, and can almost not help but become one of the best restaurants in the area in the next few months. Meanwhile, Besh opened yet another restaurant--his fourth--in the new Hilton on St. Charles Avenue next to One Shell Square. Luke has touches of French, German, and old New Orleans Creole cafes in its rustic menu, and has delighted most who have been there. (Although the service staff hasn't gelled yet.) The Burgeoning of Poydras Street. All sorts of good news for diners near the foot of Poydras Street. Drago's opened a big new restaurant in the Hilton. Harrah's Hotel opened Riche, a very handsome French (but now Creole) restaurant with a front onto gussied-up Fulton Street. The Windsor Court finally got its culinary act together by hiring Chef Greg Sonnier, whose efforts to reopen his Gabrielle slammed into power politics. And Wayne Baquet opened a branch of his excellent Creole café Li'l Dizzy's in the Whitney on Camp at Poydras. Ethnic Proliferation. As it always does, the more exotic ethnic restaurants of the area have concentrated themselves in the outlying areas of the city more than in town itself. All the Asian cuisines, but particularly Thai and Japanese, have ballooned. Even the sleepy Chinese restaurant department has seen many new players this year. Best New Openings (other than those already mentioned). Bistro Daisy on Magazine Street; Patois, which replaced Nardo's on Webster at Laurel; Café Arabesque, N. Carrollton off Canal; Café Minh, Canal off N. Carrollton. Best Surprising News. Charlie's Steak House, with new owner, will reopen imminently. Charles Sea Foods in Harahan, same story, but already there. Horst Pfiefer, formerly owner of Bella Luna, bought Middendorf's. Regretted Departures. In addition to those already mentioned, New Orleans lost some great restaurants and restaurateurs this year. The corner of St. Charles and Josephine had particularly bad luck. Both the Pontchartrain Hotel (which is being converted into a non-hotel) as well as the man who ran it for many years, Albert Aschaffenburg, died. Across the street, Mr. John's Steakhouse lost its namesake, John Santopadre, who also at various times owned Café Giovanni, Smilie's, and Tastee Donuts. (Mr. John's was sold and is still excellent, however.) Other Restaurant Closings of Note. Longbranch In Abita Springs, Alberta on Magazine Street, Mandina's in Baton Rouge, and D. Lamarque's in Mandeville. More Good-Byes. Iler Pope, former owner of Café Atchafalaya and Dante By The River; Bob Artigues, the long-time maitre d' at Pascal's Manale; and Josie Roccobono, who opened the Peppermill three decades ago. And as I write this, Al Copeland, founder of Popeye's and his eponymous restaurants, is struggling for his life against cancer. A One-Man End Of An Era. Finally, in a class by himself to the end, Harry Tervalon passed away after fifty years of waiting the counter at the Camellia Grill. He was in the opinion of many the best waiter in the annals of the business, and one of the really nice guys. Part Three: Return Of The Lost Restaurants An unexpected effect rippled through the restaurant community this past fall. Many restaurants that most people had given up for dead announced their return to life. Most of these reopenings will not occur until early 2008. But that they're happening at all--especially given the fact that we already have ten percent more restaurants than we had before the hurricane--makes a happy statement about the robustness of the hospitality industry here. They began with the restaurant that engendered more e-mail and radio show queries to me since the storm than any other. Charlie's Steak House, even before the storm, was a dump. For its regulars, that was part of its personality. But the flooding left it untenable for its owners, who were getting on in years. It sat there rotting until, in September, they sold it to the man next door. (At 4510 Dryades, a block in back of Pascal's Manale). Matthew Dwyer will reopen Charlie's as close to the way it was as possible. Miraculously, the old cooks were found. In their heads and nowhere else all the recipes survived. Dwyer also plans to make the bar a lot more inviting than it was. (That wouldn't take much.) The first guess for the opening date was this past month, but nobody with any experience with storm-damaged restaurants believed that. The construction is slow but coming along. Sometime this year, us guys (that's who most of the customers were) will once again pit our appetites against those hillocks of thin onion rings, wedges of lettuce with screaming blue cheese, and thick, spattering, smoking slabs o' T-bone. Right after the storm, Jason Anixter sent e-mails out telling all his friends and customers that both he and his chef were leaving town, and that Maximo's, across from the French Market, would not return. That was quite a loss to the restaurant's regulars, who'd come to love the Tuscan-style Italian cooking and the great Italian wine list. But Anixter changed his mind this fall. As I write this, a banner hangs over the restaurant announcing the return and begging for waiters and cooks. (That's how you have to get them these days.) I hear the chef will be back, too, and Maximo's will pick up more or less where it left off. It's a great example of restored faith in what had looked hopeless. The future of Barreca's has been the subject of many a missive to this office. Barreca's--on Metairie Road near Causeway Boulevard--served two clienteles almost uniquely. Back in the 1980s, Barreca's introduced the early-evening special to New Orleans diners. (It was a ten-dollar complete dinner of more-than-decent Creole and Italian specialties.) That packed the house every night, to the point that many customers found they liked the food more than the discount, even, and started coming later to avoid the crowd. Barreca's proximity to the East Jefferson Parish offices and courts brought a good lunch crowd, too. And its private dining room was in constant use by various groups. It was not clear to these loyal customers why David Barreca didn't reopen his restaurant after K. The place wasn't significantly damaged (another beneficiary of the Metairie Ridge). And not long after the storm Barreca resumed private-party catering. He told me, in early 2006, that he would restrict himself to that until he could accumulate enough staff to open for a la carte business. Those who knew the dynamics of the business then could have told him that servers would not likely join a restaurant that wasn't open. So the mystery went on. But. Shortly after the first of the year, Barreca's will reopen. And that long living hell for the resident of Old Metairie will be over, and we can all go back to eating oysters Italia and the roast duck and the fish Lafayette. Like many homeowners, some restaurants found themselves in standoffs against insurance companies. That's the story of Figaro's, the good and popular Creole and Italian café on Maple Street. Owner David Schwartz was determined to hold out for his settlement before reopening. I don't know what happened, but a couple of weeks ago his attorney told me that Figaro was nearly repaired (roof damage seems to have been the main problem), and will reopen in a few weeks. Because it had outdoor dining in a neighborhood where such a thing fit right in, Figaro's was another restaurant whose failure to return brought many questions from readers. Another guy who said he would not reopen his restaurant, even to the point of putting it up for sale, was Scott Craig. He still owns Katie's, a terrific old-style neighborhood Creole café, in a neighborhood known for such places--Mid-City, a block away from Liuzza's, and none the worse for the competition. Mid-City had flooding as bad as anyplace in town this side of the Lower Nine, and Katie's was a distressing mess. But Craig is back again (I think he lives over the restaurant), and work is apace in the alarming purple building that is Katie's. It will reopen early in 2008--although it's too soon to name a date. Perhaps it's the success of Mandina's, Liuzza's, Venezia, and the revived clump of restaurants around Canal and Carrollton that egged him on. Whatever--that will be a good one to have back again. The Continuing Mysteries. Not far away, we have the other side of this coin. Christian's is a strong candidate for the title of Best Restaurant With An Uncertain Future. Like everybody else, its owner Henry Bergeron was disheartened by the flooding. But he's past retirement age, and before the storm Christian's was at a low point in its cycle. Some work has been done on the building, but no plans for reopening are known. There are a few other restaurants with a story like that. La Cuisine, La Riviera, Mandich, and Bella Luna are most asked about. They appear to be gone forever. But now, who knows? My guess is that someone will appear who will revive them. That seems to be the prevalent dynamic in this amazing recovery. © 2007 Tom Fitzmorris. All rights reserved. news@nomenu.com