Summer Eats

OUR NEXT FOOD ADVENTURES take us to four established culinary giants in New Orleans. We have been busy since our last issue, and pleasantly so. We will review our incredible experiences at Gautreau’s, Luvi’s, The Pelican Club, and Restaurant R’evolution.

Our first stop is Gautreau’s, a gem in the heart of Uptown on Soniat Street. Gautreau’s has been a consistent choice for diners with sophisticated palates since 1983. Gautreau’s is known for its contemporary American cuisine, which French and Creole influence. The menu features dishes that range from seafood to steak. The dining room is cozy and intimate. Our appetizers included the famous food Gras with Louisiana blackberries and a fresh beet salad with succulent goat cheese ice cream. We were dazzled when Chef Rob Mistry surprised us with a complimentary crawfish babka, a sweet braided bread with crawfish and jumbo lump crabmeat. As Jerry Seinfeld said, “another babka?” Yes, Jerry, Louisiana-style! For our entrée, we dined on fresh grilled redfish and their famous gourmet rabbit served with crispy skin, Tabasco pepper jelly, and tamarind reduction. Shhhh..be vewy vewy quiet while I recall my tasty wabbit. For dessert, we enjoyed the mango ice box pie that we highly recommend and, of course, the banana split with caramelized bananas and pistachio ice cream. What a blend of unique flavors that wowed us from start to finish. After the meal, we asked ourselves how lucky we were to live in this fantastic city with restaurants like Gautreau’s serving up classic and innovative dishes that make you beg for the ride never to end. We are all in good hands with Chef Rob Mistry and General Manager Katie Adams, who oversee this culinary gem.

Our next delightful experience takes us to Luvi. Located at 5236 Tchoupitoulas St., Luvi is a 2020 and 2022 James Beard semi-finalist boasting a pan-Asian menu with a mix of raw and cooked dishes with heavy influences from Shanghai and Japan. If you are a fan of dumplings, this is the place for you. We indulged in Chef Hao’s famous curried flavor dumplings in a light curry broth as an appetizer. They went down fast, and we were begging for more. The highlight of our meal was the Feed Me 2.0 Bento “tasting menu,” which consisted of nine of Chef Hao’s best daily raw fish options beautifully presented in a bento box. The selections vary daily, depending on what’s fresh, but our selections included lemon fish, flying fish roe, and teriyaki salmon. Each bite was a wonderful surprise. This and the dumplings are enough for two people to share. We highly recommend the Feed Me 2.0 if you crave fresh, high-quality sashimi with bold flavors. Luvi is another gem making big waves in the New Orleans-area food scene.

We continued the food tour with our next stop at the famous Pelican Club. It is located at 312 Exchange Place in the French Quarter. Despite its French Quarter location, Pelican Club is where locals who crave high-end contemporary creole and New Orleans cuisine go to dine. Opened in 1990, Pelican Club is housed in a 19th-century townhouse with several dining spaces, including a bar, Club Room, Main Dining Room, and Bienville Room.

Pelican Club has an extensive wine list, offering over 200 selections, and has been recognized by Wine Spectator’s Award of Excellence for 18 years. It features fresh fish and seafood dishes, some of the best racks of lamb we have ever had, duck, filet mignon, and barbecue shrimp. We dove into Pelican Club’s barbecue shrimp for an appetizer and could not ask for enough bread to sop up the succulent sauce. For entrée, I ordered one of the specials, a crispy whole redfish with a Thai chili glaze served over Jasmine rice. This was one of the most memorable and flavorful dishes I ever had. First, the presentation was instagramworthy. Second, each bite of the crispy redfish married in the sweet Thai chili glaze set off a symphony of flavors that erupted in my mouth. I convinced at least three other diners to order the dish. They thanked me after they finished. Pelican Club also offers one of the city’s best Coolinary menus starting in August. This menu provides lucky diners discounted meal options, usually from pre-selected set menus. Pelican Club always showcases some of its finest selections for Coolinary Week. We recommend the seafood martini if it triumphantly returns to the Coolinary menu. Overall, Pelican Club provides a sophisticated dining experience where diners can enjoy traditional Louisiana flavors with international twists.

Our final destination takes us to Restaurant R’evolution. Located in the Royal Sonesta Hotel in the French Quarter, Restaurant R’evolution is not your typical hotel restaurant. One of the giants in the New Orleans food scene, R’evolution blends creole and Cajun cuisine with fun and innovative dishes sure to please every palate. Chef John Folse is the Executive chef behind Restaurant R’evolution’s bold and elevated dishes. The dining area features several rooms with a classic ambiance and several large murals showcasing a timeline of Louisiana’s history. Death by Gumbo was my first course. I call this dish salvation by gumbo, for I was lost, but I am now found after experiencing this innovative and excellent dish. Death by Gumbo features a stuffed quail in the middle of the bowl in a flavorful gumbo broth. You slice open the quail to allow the stuffing of andouille, oysters, and rice to spill into the broth, thus creating a whole gumbo experience. Sign me up. Not to be outdone, the blue crab beignets were a welcome appetizer that offered a fun play on traditional New Orleans-style beignets and lump crab that we have all grown accustomed to. After much debate, for my entrée, I ordered the Louisiana Bayou Cake. This twist on a crab cake featured alligator, poblano aioli, cream cheese, frisée and apple salad. It’s a superb entrée you can’t get anywhere else. As an added surprise, our outstanding server, Kevin Rich, brought out a hearty sample of the other dish I was pondering for my entrée, the Fruits de Mer Tagliatelle, which showcased gulf shrimp, jumbo lump crabmeat, scallops, and mussels in a court-bouillon broth. This dish and all the dishes at R’evolution highlight the flavors we all grew up with and continue to crave. R’evolution dares to take our grandmothers’ recipes into another dimension boldly. R’evolution succeeds mightily.

That’s it for this issue. We had fun dining at all of these restaurants. Please consider supporting these restaurants and others during August, traditionally the slowest month for New Orleans restaurants. This will allow you to beat the crowds and score incredible deals. But, more importantly, it will allow you to do what food does for us in New Orleans – bring those we love together to make memories over delicious food we are all lucky enough to enjoy. I can’t wait to see where my next meals take me, and I look forward to sharing more of my experiences with you in our next issue.