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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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Ralph's On The Park

Contemporary Creole.
City Park Area: 900 City Park Ave.. 504-488-1000. Map.
Lunch Friday. Dinner seven nights. Sunday brunch.
Nice Casual.
AE DC DS MC V
Website

WHY IT'S NOTEWORTHY
One of the few fine-dining restaurants anywhere in its neighborhood, Ralph's is in a historic and beautiful spot. Across from the live-oakiest, lagooniest entrance to City Park, the building has been a restaurant since just after the Civil War. Ralph Brennan spent a small fortune renovating it into a sparkling eatery in an antique style. The menu is contemporary Creole, waxing more adventuresome in the past year.

WHY IT'S GOOD
This is a restaurant very much in the Brennan Creole tradition--which is to say a little traditional, but entirely up with the times. The cooking is in the bistro style--uncomplicated and familiar, but inventive. Ingredients of fine intrinsic merit fill (but never overfill--another Brennan hallmark) any plate. For example, to my knowledge this is the only restaurant in town bringing in true Japanese Wagyu beef--the only Kobe beef worth ordering. On the other hand, some of the food lately has been a little contrived, and the consistency is less than perfect.

BACKSTORY
More a bar than a restaurant for most of its history, the building opened its dining room in 1869. It became a handsome restaurant again in the early 1980s as Tavern on the Park. Ralph Brennan, second-generation Brennan-family restaurateur with three other establishments, bought the place in 2001 and spent millions on its restoration. Chef Gerard Maras set a standard of inventiveness that continues years after his departure. Although some of the deepest of Katrina floodwaters were nearby, Ralph's location on the Metairie Ridge saved it from any significant damage.

Ralph's on the Park main dining room.

DINING ROOM
The two dining rooms on the first floor are heavily windowed, the better to let the marvelous park view in. They have an antique style. The larger one features a mural depicting a historically-accurate 1800s faceoff between the high-end call girls of the time and the wives of their customers. The bar is the better dining room, smaller and sporting a piano. The private dining rooms upstairs are sometimes used for a la carte service; they have balconies that take even greater advantage of the setting.

Pork chop at Ralph's.

ESSENTIAL DISHES
Oysters Rockefeller reprise (fried, with spinach custard and bacon)
Crabmeat ravigote with Israeli couscous.
Lobster pan roast with oyster mushrooms
Tempura barbecue shrimp skewers
Wild mushroom ravioli.
Cajun Scotch egg (hard-boiled, covered with boudin, fried)
Citrus glazed lamb spare ribs
Turtle soup
Cauliflower soup with a mini crab cake
City Park salad (oak leaf lettuces, blue cheese, bacon, apples)
Spiced cream cheese encrusted grouper
Louisiana seafood crepe
Barbecue shrimp and gnocchi
Crawfish cakes with seafood sausage
Lamb osso buco
Pan-seared duck breast with bacon and spaghetti squash
Cowboy ribeye steak
Japanese Wagyu beef ribeye, pan-seared, by the ounce
Double-cut pork chop (photo above)
Hanger steak with pommes frites and Korean barbecue sauce
Bananas Foster strudel
Study of chocolate desserts
Creme brulee
Pineapple carpaccio with coconut cream
Homemade ice creams.

FOR BEST RESULTS
Ralph's seems always to be running some sort of promotion, of which the most regular are the $28 dinner of three appetizers and a glass of wine and an early-evening special in the $25-30 range. They also regularly add special dinners at the other end of the price spectrum, too.

OPPORTUNITIES FOR IMPROVEMENT
The menu always seems to be one or two entrees shorter than one expects to find. When they get really busy--as they can--the consistency suffers.

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 5/7/2010.

A list of over 325 full, current reviews is here.