New Orleans Restaurant Review: Luke

My beloved Food and Wine magazine gushed about New Orleans chef, John Besh, so I couldn't resist trying one of his restaurants while I was in New Orleans. August is arguably the jewel of his local restaurant empire, but I chose Luke because of it's laid back atmosphere and reasonable prices. Luke specializes in German and French brasserie fare, a unique departure from much of what you find in New Orleans.Fortunately those reasonable prices didn't come with a discount in quality, and the entire experience was top notch. The atmosphere is a bit more conducive to business lunches than romantic dates - a bit too bright without any luxe or funky touches, although the pressed tin ceilings at least kept things feeling bistro-like. But with such great food, a somewhat bland atmosphere doesn't phase me.

Since the boyfriend and I were trying to expand our waistlines as much as humanly possible while in NO, we started with rillete of Berkshire pork with marmalade and grilled country bread. I wasn't quite sure what rillete was, and our waitress told us, it was better not to know. I now realize it was a pate of pork covered with lard. Sounds gross, but it was in fact quite tasty, in an ultra rich, literally eating lard sort of way. I'd already had enough fried oysters to kill a person, so I only tried a bite of my cousin's fried oyster, bacon, romaine and avocado salad. Mmm...the oysters were spectacular, and I wish I'd had room for more!

For an entree, I opted for the Sunday special, blanquette of veal cheeks and wild mushrooms with housemade pasta. The veal cheeks were oh so tender and flavorful, and everyone at the table agreed, I'd ordered the best dish. The other entrees in competition were steak frites with bernaise (so juicy and delectable!), vanilla scented duck (smelled divine, but duck rarely excites me) and Louisiana redfish almandine (the weakest link, good but just tasted like any old fish). All were great, but my veal trumped all. Alas, at about this time my stomach hit capacity

(probably something to do with the 1.5 beignets and a Pat O'Brian's Hurricane that I had earlier that afternoon, so I wasn't able to finish my dish. Sadly, when eaten cold, with my hands no less, the next morning, it just wasn't nearly as compelling.

Although I was stuffed to the gills, I had to find room for dessert because it was included in my 3-course menu. Amazingly, the boyfriend for the first and probably last time was too full to indulge, so I was left on my own to eat the delectable bread pudding with pralines. It was rich and gooey and ultra sweet. Aw hell yeah!
Not only was everything delicious, but our server was hilarious. Granted we were having one of those crazy dinner conversations that the waiter can't help but overhear and laugh at, but she played along to perfection and actually had us cracking up even more. That's my kind of service.

I left happy and bursting at the seams, and I only wish I could try all of the yummy sounding things on Luke's menu!

Luke
Central Business District
333 Saint Charles Ave
New Orleans, LA 70130

Dining in New Orleans

After 3 nights in New Orleans, I can officially say I'm stuffed. I'm not exaggerating when I say that we likely at 10,000 calories a day. My waistline may never forgive me, but my taste-buds are very satisfied indeed.

Like the good little obsessive travel planner I am, I had scoped out the entire New Orleans dining scene for weeks. It wasn't easy to choose where to eat with so many incredible options. I'm a researcher at heart, so I triangulated Food and Wine, NY Times, Concierge.com and personal recommendations to come up with our plan.  Alas there is too much to try in a long weekend, or even a month, so I couldn't try every place that sounded good, but I like to think we got a pretty good sampling of New Orleans' incredible dining scene.

I wanted a mix of high and low cuisine. A trip to the the Big Easy wouldn't be complete without some down and dirty dining. This is the birthplace of po' boys and muffaletta of course! That led us to try Mother's for their famous po' boys, the ever-popular but awfully dirty Cafe du Monde for beignets, and the atmosphere free mecca of oysters and fried seafood, Casamento's. 

We of course wanted to explore the exciting high end cuisine on offer, too. A number of great restaurants have re-opened or newly opened post-Katrina, so there quite a few places to choose from. I must admit that the menus of many top restaurants sounded similar and came with entrees priced in the $30-range. I opted for two slightly lower priced restaurants - Cochon, heralded by the NY Time's Frank Bruni as one of THE places to try this year, and Luke, the French-German brasserie opened by John Besh, a Food and Wine best new chef for his more chi-chi restaurant August.

The only plan to fall by the wayside was our effort to try Mr. B's, which I hear has the best Cajun style bbq shrimp around. Alas, it's in the French Quarter, and we opted to tour the Garden District that day instead. Can't complain too much, though, because instead we wondered into Commander's Palace for an over-the-top lunch and a perfect end to an indulgent weekend.

Over the course of the week, I'm going to write articles about the restaurants we checked out, but for now, suffice it to say, there wasn't a single disappointment during our trip, and I may need to eat salads for a week to make up for all that tasty eating!