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Restaurant Ratings

The ratings are based mostly on the degree to which the food excites us, and a little on environment, service, and other considerations. I rate restaurants relative to all other restaurants in the New Orleans area. Here's what the stars mean to me:

starstarstarstarstar
Among the best locally.

starstarstarstar
Excellent and ambitious.

starstarstar
Worth crossing town for.

starstar
Recommended.

*
Acceptable.

No star
Unacceptable.

Cost Ratings
Each dollar sign indicates a ten-dollar range, including a normal meal for the restaurant (dinner, if they serve other meals), not including drinks, or tips. So, for example. . .

1$--$5-15
2$--$15-25
3$--$25-35

. . . and so on, with no upper limit. While this scheme may suggest mathematical precision, know that perception of price varies from diner to diner as much as the star ratings do. So consider this an estimate.

All reviews are based entirely on meals I have personally taken at the restaurant and paid for from my own pocket. I don't take free review meals, nor am I reimbursed by anybody for my restaurant expenditures.

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Bonefish Grill

Seafood.
Covington: 200 River Highlands Boulevard. 985-809-0662. Map.
Dinner seven nights.
Casual.
AE DS MC V
Website

WHY IT'S NOTEWORTHY
Bonefish Grill is one of the two or three best large restaurant chains in the country. As the name implies, it specializes in seafood, although the menu includes steaks and other non-fish dishes. Aside from a few noteworthy signature dishes, it's not the food that makes the best impression, but the extraordinarily well-trained service staff. The management has an unusual knack for creating self-fulfilling prophecies for their staff to lay out to the diners, and this makes product of secondary quality seem brilliant. Most people don't know any better, so the illusion works.

WHY IT'S GOOD
Bonefish buys fresh (but sometimes odd) seafood and turns it out in dishes that go for the weak parts of one's palate. An unusually large number of dishes have a decided sweetness that slips by because you don't expect it. Quite a few of their dishes are aggressively spicy, too--most notably the signature bang-bang shrimp. These are fried shrimp tossed in a zippy aioli and served in a pile big enough to share--something the servers (who wear chef's jackets, suggesting that they're going to cook it themselves for you) encourage. In fact, they're looking for that order the first time they approach the table. Once you get into the shank of the meal, however, you find dishes made of less-expensive versions of the kind of seafood we're accustomed to eating in New Orleans. Some of it is disguised: "Imperial longfin " is tilapia. Ask what local seafood is available, and you'll get a hedging answer.

BACKSTORY
The first Bonefish Grill opened in 2000 in St. Petersburg, Florida. The developers were Tim Curci and Chris Parker, both of whom had come from other restaurant chains. It grew rapidly, preceded everywhere it went by a glowing reputation spread by customers who'd encountered it elsewhere. A few years ago Bonefish merged with the Outback Steakhouse group. Bonefish has continued to spread rapidly throughout the country, and has over 150 locations in 29 states. The restaurant in Covington opened in mid-2009.

Bang bang shrimp.

DINING ROOM
The dining room and bar are extraordinarily comfortable, handsomer than many more expensive restaurants. The only noticeable sign that this is a chain is the large percentage of booth tables. (Booths allow for tighter packing of customers than standard tables.) The degree to which the service staff is eager to please places Bonefish in the top ten restaurants in town. This, really, is what the restaurant sells.

ESSENTIAL DISHES
Bang bang shrimp. (Photo.)
Mussels Josephine (with a sweet white wine and butter sauce).
Cajun chicken egg roll.
Crab cakes.
Bacon-wrapped sea scallops.
Tuna sashimi.
Fried calamari with sweet and hot dipping sauce.
Corn and crab chowder.
Grilled salmon and asparagus salad.
Cobb salad.
Grilled fish, particularly salmon or tuna.
Fish specials, especially those with mahi-mahi.
Pistachio-parmesan crusted rainbow trout.
Fontina-stuffed pork chop.
Sirloin on filet mignon.
Chicken with spinach, artichokes, and goat cheese.
Creme brulee.

FOR BEST RESULTS
Almost all the best dishes are in the appetizer section. Start with the bang-bang shrimp (everybody else does), and ask for local fish. (Sometimes they do have it.) If there's a fish here you've never heard of, see of there's something else that sounds good.

OPPORTUNITIES FOR IMPROVEMENT
It is offensive to my sensibilities that any upscale seafood restaurant operating in New Orleans has so little local product. Corporate buyers shouldn't force what they have to buy for Des Moines Iowa on us.

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

SPECIAL ATTRIBUTES

This review was updated with new information on 1/28/2010.

A list of over 300 full, current reviews is here.