When it comes to a quick road trip from New Orleans, I’m often heading west, to Acadiana, the land of Cajun butcher shops to fill ice chests for home.
Lately, though I’ve been looking east, to the Gulf coast of Mississippi in particular , where towns known for their beaches and casual beach front restaurants have been upping the ante for seriously good dining, restaurants worth planning a road trip around.
That’s what led me recently to Ocean Springs, the small, once-quiet seaside village just over the bay bridge from Biloxi. Ocean Spring is still small but now booming with a boisterous nightlife wedged between the overhanging oaks and cute cottages.
One of those cottages is home to what has become an extraordinary restaurant and a regional dining draw. It’s called Vestige and while it’s been around for a decade, since the pandemic it’s become a highly ambitious tasting menu restaurant. That means you’re served one menu of multi courses, chosen by the chefs for an orchestrated experience. Vestige blends local seafood and produce with a nuanced influence of Japanese cuisine, for dinners that are utterly unique, unmistakably upscale and worth the journey for those of us to measure time in memorable meals.
Significantly closer to New Orleans, and easier for that quick-dash day trip, is Bay St. Louis, and here too good food is on the rise. There’s lots of casual stuff down by the waterfront, and I like those beach bum bars for an elevated perch and drink overlooking the water.
But Bay St. Louis is also now home to a first-rate modern seafood restaurant called the Thorny Oyster, part of a boutique hotel called the Pearl. The dining room is stylish, the wine list is good, the seafood dishes show a chefs hand and the chilled seafood tower from the raw bar makes a decadent center piece to share, and maybe even to inspire the whole trip.
This is the part of summer when I measure time by each step we take towards the fall. Coming back from a quick day trip with visions of a blue gulf horizon and meals worth writing home about, now that feels like a restorative leap in the right direction.
