In New Orleans, restaurants can count their longevity in decades, and regular customers can count their own patronage through generations. It’s also a city where people will count the days until the next anticipated debut, and talk about newcomers as if they were the latest streaming hit.
This year brought an especially rich harvest of new additions to the dining scene. But there were a handful that really rose to the top. They all come from talented chefs and restaurant people who made big moves this year, creating delicious new restaurants that each bring something different to the local scene and should be on your list to try soon.
Let’s start in Metairie at Dr Jones. It’s a tiny storefront that feels like a diner, but is in fact the creative lair for two fine fining chefs, working together to create food without any neat category, just the pursuit of flavor.
Tapioca pearl croquettes with Camembert cheese, gnocchi with mushrooms in a delicate broth of Japanese dashi and a seemingly simple grilled chicken with aioli are all examples that tell the tale. It’s BYOB, anytime casual, and superb.
Now let’s go Uptown to the Kingsway. This is an Asian tasting menu restaurant from the same family behind the Indian restaurant Saffron. It’s very different. Not really fusion, the food on the tasting menu is more like the cuisine of Singapore, with Chinese, Vietnamese and a little Japanese from dish to dish. It’s elegant, luxurious and memorable.
Much more casual is Evviva, in the Marigny. The cooking is like that restaurant you found in Italy and always wanted to return to, with an ingredient-driven, seasonal menu that is utterly compelling.
How about a trip to France? That’s what Le Moyne Bistro gives you in the Warehouse District. It’s not French Creole or French with a twist but French-French, and that’s why I love it. Don’t miss the pate or steak tartare.
Finally, it’s time to go to Algiers, but not the Point. Keep going down river and you find Saint Claire, which feels like a country house, wooded grounds and all, for a rejuvenating escape centered on French and Louisiana flavors.
Between exploring these new restaurants, you might just find the one that joins your standbys. New Orleans just keeps giving them.
