Déjà Vu on Decatur Street
This French Quarter street is the scene of culinary reinvention
From women’s fashions to interior design, from film remakes to revivals of hit show productions, it’s often been said, “Everything old is new again.” In New Orleans’ unique French Quarter, that adage has never been more applicable than in recent years.
Take, for example, the kitchens and menus at select Decatur Street eateries.
Steven Latter, proprietor for thirty-two years of New Orleans’ revered, second-oldest restaurant, Tujague’s (est. 1856), passed away earlier in February. Shortly after, word spread that the building might be sold and the venerable old restaurant possibly replaced by a souvenir shop.
“Mon Dieu!” New Orleanians collectively cried.
Fear of losing this time-honored establishment drove locals and visitors alike to write letters to the media, start their own “Save Tujague’s!” email campaigns, and make the pilgrimage to the restaurant for a Last Meal.
Public opinion won out. Steven’s brother Stanford, owner of the building, reached an agreement with Steven’s son Mark, who had been operating Tujague’s with his dad for the past five years.
But the story didn’t end there. “We decided to do a renovation in early June,” said Mark Latter. “The building’s interiors badly needed a facelift.”
Another big change: Latter hired the restaurant’s first executive chef in June. By July 1, work had begun on the restaurant interiors. Towards the end of the summer, Tujague’s closed for nine days while Latter and new executive chef Richard Bickford added the final touches to the new menu.
After the extensive renovation, the look and feel is “like a little Galatoire’s,” referring to the popular Bourbon Street eatery, according to excited diners.
The room shines with sparkling white interiors, white tablecloth coverings, tile floors, and bright mirrored walls; the restaurant is a favorite for both lunch and dinner patrons with its wide windows overlooking always-bustling Decatur Street.
Many old favorites remain on the menu, including shrimp remoulade and brisket of beef with horseradish sauce. However, for the first time, according to Latter, the menu carries a list of à la carte items in addition to the traditional five-course prix-fixe dinner.
“The menu was a collaborative effort between Chef Bickford and I,” said Latter. “For soups, we now have andouille sausage and seafood gumbo daily, and another soup du jour such as corn and crab, shrimp bisque, sweet potato and andouille, and potato leek.”
Among the appetizers offered are seared tuna maque choux, oysters en brochette, and fried green tomatoes with crab ravigote.
Other items include lamb chops, veal and pork chops, barbecued shrimp, fresh Gulf fish du jour, airline chicken breast, and vegetarian gnocchi. Although one of Tujague’s most beloved dishes—chicken bonne femme—does not appear on the new menu, frequent diners in-the-know can still order the garlicky fried chicken with house-made potato chips.
The lunch-time menu features some favorite South Louisiana dishes, including shrimp and grits, red beans and rice, jambalaya with andouille, shrimp and chicken, grilled Gulf fish, and poboys, including a soft shell crab BLT on French bread.
The duo also cooked up a weekend brunch menu with eggs (in forms Benedict, Sardou, and Decatur) bananas Foster lost bread, and oysters Benedict, all rounded out with $3 mimosas, bloody marys, and brandy milk punches.
Bickford, a Hammond native, went to culinary school in Baton Rouge. After graduation in 2000, he worked at Morton’s Steakhouse in New Orleans for a number of years, followed by post-Katrina stints at Nardo’s uptown (now Patois) and Houston’s before landing in the kitchen at Commander’s Palace in 2007.
“I began as a cook, was promoted to butcher, then saucier, garde manger, and sous chef,” he said. When the Commander’s team opened SoBou, Bickford went over to lend a hand and wound up staying nearly a year.
Although it was tough to leave the Commander’s family—Bickford met his wife in the kitchen there—he’s enthused by the prospect of reenergizing Tujague’s while preserving and accentuating the restaurant’s historical aspects.
“Plus,” he said, “I like being able to do my own thing as executive chef. It’s very exciting!” With Bickford on board, seasoned manager Mark Latter running the show, and Tujague’s revitalization of its premises and menu, the restaurant has a whole new lease on life—literally.
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Just down the street a block or so, Café Sbisa, a paltry 115 years old compared to Tujague’s 158, was recently reborn.
Closed since Katrina, with a dynamic reopening in 2008 followed by an abrupt closure three months later, the revamped restaurant is looking good with a new chef, menu, bar staff, and management.
Owned and operated by Bob Barton, the restaurant became known for its splendid nights in the 1980s and ‘90s.
Originally constructed in 1820, the building housed a ship’s chandler on the lower floors with the family residing on the upper floors. As time passed, the business broadened to address seafarers’ other “essential” needs such as a bar, a bank where sailors could stash their wages, and an upstairs brothel.
When the Sbisa family acquired the property in the late 1800s, they opened the café, which operated—with several different owners—for more than one hundred years.
Today, the old brick walls, antique mirrors, exposed wooden beams, tiled floors, and majestic century-old mahogany bar are just as captivating and compelling as ever.
Perhaps the most distinctive physical characteristic of the place—and its centerpiece—is the magnificent work of art over the bar’s backdrop and mirror.
The huge triptych, a work by New Orleans fine art painter, George Dureau, depicts a Café Sbisa bar scene peopled with the likenesses of patrons and workers—including the artist—alongside a couple of other characters Dureau dreamed up and added to the mix.
When interviewed five years ago by this writer during Sbisa’s brief reopening, Dureau said he finally decided to name the thirty-five-year-old work, Strangers in Our Midst: Cafe Sbisa, New Orleans.
Sbisa’s latest managing trio are no strangers to entertaining the current crop of customers, which includes old regulars, newbies, and New Orleans’ visitors.
Executive chef and co-owner Michael Pedranti hails from the San Francisco Bay Area but feels very connected to Louisiana, partly because his godfather was from Lake Charles. “I grew up eating gumbo, collard greens, and braised rabbit,” he said.
Prior to graduating from the California Culinary Academy, Pedranti externed in Thomas Keller’s Bouchon in Yountville, California. He was a chef at Tra Vigne in Napa Valley, in Tomales Bay, and in Washington D.C., and was also chef de cuisine at Palma in New York City’s West Village.
Now living in New Orleans, Pedranti is passionate about the quest before him. “I want to move this restaurant back to a high level within the city’s dining scene,” he said. “This is a fabulous opportunity to reach into the restaurant’s historic Creole roots, this time with a modern disposition.”
The new menu that Pedranti and Barton designed is intended to pay homage to the past while bar manager Scott Brick and bartender Scott Thaller offer authentic renditions of favorites from the 1800s to the 1950s, among a variety of specialty cocktails.
In the next block of Decatur, two significantly younger establishments have also made substantial changes, despite their relative youth.
The first is a brand new bar/restaurant in a very old space: Cane & Table, from the minds behind cocktail venues Cure, Uptown, and Bellocq at Lee Circle.
Already a popular venue, Cane & Table draws fans attracted by the primarily rum-based craft cocktails and the Caribbean-style food.
Twenty-five to thirty-five years ago, one of New Orleans’ most popular restaurants operated at that same address: G&E Courtyard Grill, the hottest ticket in town in its prime. Regulars from long ago might walk into Cane & Table—although the interior has changed greatly and the place has a different vibe—and it’s déjà vu!
Next door, Maximo’s Italian Grill, a restaurant that’s been around for three or four decades, has new owners, a new chef, and a revised menu.
Executive Chef Justin Daw, an Art Institute of Atlanta grad whose New Orleans resumé ranges from Mojito’s to Restaurant R’evolution, took over the kitchen’s top spot when long-time head chef Thomas Woods left to join Lucky Rooster.
Many patron-pleasing preparations remain on the menu along with some newer dishes, including osso bucco, fire roasted chicken and sausage, and Bolognese pasta.
Maximo’s offers a phenomenal wine list as well as a top-notch drink menu with classic Italian cocktails and aperitifs.
Revisiting these much-loved old haunts can bring back memories of “other times” and experiences that stay with us and are there to be replayed. It’s reminiscent of the 1968 Mary Hopkin recording about a young person revisiting a tavern that she frequented long ago. As she peers into the window, she sings, “Those were the days, my friend, I thought they’d never end…” …Time to revisit and create new experiences while making more fond, fun memories.
Recipes:
Tujague's Boiled Beef Brisket with Vegetable Soup;
Café Sbisa's Blackened Redfish with Smoky Shrimp Bisque Sauce
Details. Details. Details.
Tujague’s 823 Decatur Street New Orleans, La. (504) 525-8676 • tujaguesrestaurant.com Café Sbisa 1011 Decatur Street New Orleans, La. (504) 309-7477 • sbisasnola.com Cane & Table 1113 Decatur Street New Orleans, La. (504) 581-1112 • caneandtablenola.com Maximo’s Italian Grill 1117 Decatur Street New Orleans, La. (504) 586-8883 • maximosgrill.com