Subscribe To The
Five-Star Edition!

Shrimp remoulade.

This review originally appeared in the New Orleans Menu Daily, which brings out a full, up-to-date restaurant review every weekday. Along with local restaurant news, top-ten lists, recipes, and Tom Fitzmorris's Dining Diary. All of it is original and current, illustrated with lots of photos of New Orleans restaurants, chefs, and their food.

The price of a subscription is whatever number of dollars seems right to you. For that amount, you get full access to the daily newsletter online, an e-mail bulletin version every day, and archives of everything published since Hurricane Katrina.

If you're still not convinced, do two things: 1. Know that I'll refund all your money if you're not happy. 2. Take a look at this sample edition. Then. . .

Thank you!

Tastefully yours,
Tom Fitzmorris

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.

starstarstar
pricebar

Two Tonys (or II Tonys)

Creole Italian.
Bucktown: 105 Metairie-Hammond Hwy.. 504-831-0999. Map.
Lunch and dinner continuously Tuesday-Saturday.
Casual
AE DC DS MC V
Website

WHY IT'S NOTEWORTHY
One expects seafood in Bucktown, and one gets it at Two Tonys, even though the place is better known for its Italian food. This is basic, homestyle New Orleans Italian, for people not especially interested in surprises in their comfort food. But there's a place and a need for that cookery, and they perform it well and consistently here.

WHY IT'S GOOD
You start with fried artichokes, eggplant, or calamari, with a side of the sweet, soothing red sauce. Then you have a well-made gumbo (they have both seafood and chicken) or a big crunchy salad covered with parmesan cheese. Now the long list of all the standard local pasta dishes, and the veal and chicken dishes with piles of pasta on the side. All of this comes out hot and good and indelicate. The seafood is actually very good--fried to order, light and crisp. They don't mind if you order a poor boy sandwich, lunch or dinner.

BACKSTORY
The name, rendered on the sign as “II Tonys,” refers to Anthony Montalbano Sr. and Jr., both of whom have been in the game for quite awhile. The restaurant began in the French Quarter in the early, 1980s, then expanded to Bucktown a few years later. (The Quarter shop is long gone.) The distance between Two Tony's and total Katrina disaster can be measured in feet; the place backs up to the levee, on the other side of which West End Park and everything else was totally wiped out. Two Tonys managed to reopen even while the Corps of Engineers did massive work around the place.

DINING ROOM
A sprawling, low-ceiling dining room semi-divided into the two traditional areas: the one with the bar, and the family room. It feels right for Bucktown.

ESSENTIAL DISHES
Fried calamari.
Fried artichoke hearts.
Fried eggplant marinara.
Crabmeat-stuffed mushrooms.
Crabmeat and shrimp au gratin.
Seafood gumbo.
Chicken-andouille gumbo.
French onion soup gratinee.
Italian salad.
Caesar salad.
Fresh grilled tuna salad.
Angel hair pasta aglio olio.
Lasagna with five cheeses, Italian sausage and beef.
Manicotti.
Chicken, veal, eggplant, or zucchini Parmigiana.
Shrimp or crawfish fettuccine.
Panneed veal or chicken with crawfish and red pepper cream sauce.
Panneed veal Montalbano (topped with mozzarella, surrounded by a brown meuniere sauce).
Fried seafood platters.
Meatball or Italian sausage sandwich on Italian bread.
Seafood poor boys.
Roast beef poor boy.
Muffuletta.

FOR BEST RESULTS
No matter what you order here, it's too much food. Consider splitting entrees in the ratio of three platters per four people. Do not take the raves of the restaurant's regulars at face value.

OPPORTUNITIES FOR IMPROVEMENT
Almost all of the food could be made with a bit more elegance, but that's not what the customers come here for.

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

ANECDOTES AND ANALYSIS
When the weather begins to warm up in the spring, the thought of heading for the vicinity of West End inevitably comes to mind. The hurricane removed many favorites from the scene, but one that survived--somewhat improbably, given its location in the midst of the Corps of Engineers' big project on the 17th Street Canal across the street--is Two Tonys.

On the lake levee in Bucktown, amid a profusion of seafood restaurants, Two Tonys serves Italian food. With an easygoing neighborhood style, Two Tonys' cooking will be familiar to anyone who grew up in an Italian family in New Orleans. This is the place for local Italian classics like cannelloni, lasagna, veal Parmigiana, and spaghetti and meatballs, all made with the sweet, smooth red sauce and lots of cheese. About half the menu is seafood, all of which is better than you expect.

This review was updated with new information on 3/31/2010.

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