The best restaurant in the history of New Orleans, which opened last month in Gentilly, seems to have made only one mistake: it has a name nobody will be able to remember.
It's "Around 3141593." Confusing from the get-go, even though the reference to the circular building the restaurant calls home is clever. Until you try to remember it. It might work, if this were the restaurant's phone number. But it's not. I'm having trouble figuring out what to call it in this article. I'll use A-3 to make it tolerably easy to read.
A-3 is the creation of Branko Ponanavich, who has managed numerous restaurants over the past ten years or so. You may know him better as the former oyster man who hit the Powerball lottery not once but three times. Which explains how he was able to assemble a restaurant of the irresistible goodness that he has.
He began by invoking a legend. The restaurant is in a heavily renovated (try turning a big box store into a circle) building that was originally a large Schwegmann's grocery store. The abandoned market, on the corner of Harrison Avenue and Elysian Fields, has lingered empty since the formerly dominant local supermarket chain shut down in the 1990s. Wisteria vines grew in such profusion in the space that a lot of neighbors forgot it was there.
They know what and where it is now. After two years of reconstruction, the restaurant fills what had been the second-largest of the Schwegmann stores. The only thing harder to miss is the advance publicity for A-3, which has blanketed all the media for the past six months.
"All Things To All People," is the restaurant's slogan. It's hard to tell just yet how well A-3 hits that mark, but it's clear that they are leaving no stone unturned in its effort to address all tastes.
[caption id="attachment_41791" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Dining Room at Around 3141593.[/caption]
"First of all, we have what I think you'll find the most impressive gourmet restaurant you've ever been to," Branko told me. "We will do this by bringing in the city's best chefs to create our recipes. We will pay each of them one million dollars a year to come in once a month to do what they do best. No restaurant in the world will have so many superstar chefs." Branko says the dealmaking is still underway, and that he had nothing complete yet. But he named John Besh, Frank Brigtsen, Emeril, Ian Schnoebelen, John Harris, Justin Devillier, and Chef Andrea as people he is talking to.
"I think they'll find it interesting to be able to write their own tickets and yet be very well compensated for their talents," Branko said. He opened a menu. "This is what we served last night. Of course, it's a chef's tasting menu that one of the chefs we're after threw together."
[title type="h5"]Oysters from Twelve Areas[/title]
Topped With Liquid-Nitrogen-Frozen Oyster Water
[title type="h5"]Thumb-Size Crabmeat Lumps[/title]
Sandwiched between two slices of white truffle, and a drop of 100-year-old balsamic and Chateau d' Quem emulsion
[title type="h5"]Turtle Soup Served In Its Shell[/title]
With poached turtle eggs
[title type="h5"]Arugula Salad From Driskill Mountain[/title]
Grown at the summit of Louisiana's highest peak (535 feet)
[caption id="attachment_41792" align="alignnone" width="387"]
Shrimp banana split.[/caption]
[title type="h5"]Shrimp Banana Split[/title]
With remoulade ice cream
[title type="h5"]Bacon-Wrapped Bacon[/title]
Pork belly en brochette
[title type="h5"]Red Snapper Blocks[/title]
Seared and wrapped with paper-thin fish gelatin
[title type="h5"]24-ounce Prime, Dry-Aged Sirloin Strip[/title]
With Reduced Silver Oak Demi-Glace
[title type="h5"]All-onion gratin, with eighty cheeses[/title]
17 varieties of house-grown onions
[title type="h5"]Inside-out Peruvian Plaid baked potato[/title]
[caption id="attachment_41793" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Floating island.[/caption]
[title type="h5"]Floating Island[/title]
Whipped with helium, tethered to its spoon to keep it from floating away
[title type="h5"]One Char-Broiled Oyster[/title]
Drago's style
Okay, that's impressive. But the alarming aspect is the price of this repast. Twenty-four dollars? What the. . .
"Now that fine dining has become impossibly unpopular, we had to make it a good deal," Branko said. "And a lot of people don't go to upscale, dressy restaurants because they feel funny about leaving with a go-box. And a lot of people won't go to any restaurant that won't send them home with another full meal's worth of leftovers. For them, we pack up another full tasting dinner, in a box that will make Tiffany's look like. . . well, Schwegmann's."
This grand dining part of A-3 is isolated in its own room. It's so stunning in its decor that customers from other parts of the mega-restaurant are invited to pass through a glass-enclosed walkway to take a look. "We want to keep the noise and the smell from the hamburger stand customers from degrading the atmosphere," says Branko.
And they really do have a burger stand (sliders, ten cents). And an imitation Lucky Dog cart with house-made, organic, low-fat, gluten-free hot dogs. Along the right-hand wall is a row of food trucks selling Hispanic, Asian, Middle Eastern and Kenner street food. "One price for everything," Branko says. "One dollar. Free refills."
In the midrange category, A-3 has a classic New Orleans neighborhood restaurant. "Red beans, poor boys, fried seafood, all of that. Everything fresh and prepared to order. But you get free seconds on everything, even if you'll have us just wrap the whole thing up to take home. I can't stress too much how people love their so-called doggie bags."
Not that they exactly get ripped off the first time around. A seafood platter with a dozen each of oysters, shrimp, and fried crawfish, plus two each trout fillets and soft shell crabs, with fresh-cut fries, a salad, and a cup of gumbo is not a bad deal at nine dollars.
The most intriguing part of A-3 is a corner café, copied from the old Buster Holmes, with a sign that calls it "Po-Peeps." This is for the people I love most because they need me the most," says Branko. "No dress code, no limitations. Just good home-cooked New Orleans food. For free. But I may have made a mistake with it. Nobody wanted to try it. The shame is, that when we experimented with charging $40 to eat in here--plus-plus!--Po-Peeps jammed with tourists and college kids. Twice the price of the main gourmet dining room, and it pulls in three times as many people! It may pay the freight on all the other parts of Around 3141593!
Unbelievable, I said. Whose idea was all this?
"Frankly, it was an offhand remark from one of the Brennans. I can't tell you which one. I don't know whether he was serious or kidding!"
[title type="h5"]Around 3141593[/title]
Gentilly: Corner Elysian Fields Ave. At East Harrison Ave.
Reservations 504-524-0348.
