Review: N7 in New Orleans
N7 offers a proper cross-section of France without the jetlag
Like all Americans who have never been to Europe, I know exactly what it’s like. In some deep recess of my mind I know that the Netherlands is more than a tulip field, that there are late people in Switzerland, and that there may be literally dozens of Viennese who don’t spend their days waltzing from the opera to the coffeehouse, but I’m insulated by the Atlantic from having to take these aberrations seriously. My fantasy version of Europe was recently bolstered by a trip to N7, a Japanese-influenced French eatery on New Orleans’ St. Claude corridor: it is exactly what I want France to be—and unlike Actual France, walking distance from my apartment.
N7 is named after the “holiday highway” of France, the road that once led from the environs of Paris through Burgundy and the Auvergne to Provence and the Côte d’Azur. Parisians (played, one imagines, by Serge Gainsbourg and Brigitte Bardot) would drive this route to reach their summer vacations, periodically stopping for refreshments at the many auspicious restaurants along the way. (Tire producer Michelin began producing a handy guide to these establishments early in the twentieth century, rating them with stars … and that’s why the finest restaurants are graded by a company whose initial experience was in galvanized rubber.) N7 models itself after the roadside oases against which all restaurants in the world have come to be judged.
N7’s stretch of St. Claude has so far escaped the prettifying trend that’s crept eastward toward the Industrial Canal, but once inside you’d never know the directions involve the phrase “turn at the U-Haul lot.” A high wooden fence, ironically enough, keeps the United States outside; within, it’s an adult’s storybook version of France. Intimately lit outdoor seating blends seamlessly with the cozy indoor rooms; at the center, a bar dispenses cordials and wines (and flips the Jacques Brel vinyls when the time comes). The décor encompasses framed Charlie Hebdo covers and maps of elegantly named areas of France like “the Middle Loire” and “La Bretagne et la Vendée.”
On this most recent visit, I was a little early, so I ordered a drink to wait, choosing a gentian liqueur. The gentian root provides the botanical notes for many brands of bitters, including Angostura and Peychaud’s; alone, it was more complex, more floral, and just the thing to whet an appetite. (I was disappointed, upon subsequent Googling, to learn that the flower is not used to produce the formerly popular topical venereal disease medicine called “gentian violet.”)
As I sipped, I remembered my first visit to N7—it had had me at escargot. The escargot tempura sounds gimmicky, but it displays the snail’s natural flavor much better than the traditional preparations. Enough garlic butter and whatever you’re cooking tastes like garlic and butter, which is not bad but does prevent you from expanding your palate. In the thin batter of the tempura, the light shellfish flavor is accompanied by richer, earthier tastes that bridge the gustatory gap between seafood and land meats, a chord instead of a single note. Next up was a scallop ceviche prepared with yuzu, a beloved and aromatic citrus fruit from East Asia. (In Japan, you can apparently get yuzu-flavored Doritos.) Scallop is notoriously difficult to cook to perfection, and the curing powers of the citrus brought the texture just to that elusive ideal point. After a charcuterie board that I may or may not have cleaned of the last traces of terrine with a surreptitious swipe of my little claw, I ordered a pavlova. Invented in Australia or New Zealand (they both claim it with startling vehemence) in honor of a tour by the famed Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova, the pavlova is in the broader meringue family. Brittle, airy, and fun to break apart, the berry-bejeweled dessert fit the bill for a dessert worth lingering over that didn’t have the soporific slam of something denser.
On my “official” visit, I sat down with Chef Yuki Yamaguchi and partner Aaron Walker to get the scoop—and menu guidance. Until October 2016, Yamaguchi and Walker also operated Yuki Izakaya, a Japanese-style nightclub on Frenchmen Street; they then decamped for the relatively sedate Bywater, buying both a house and a tire shop (formerly a carriage house) that became N7 after extensive renovations.
I knew the word “bouillabaisse,” of course, but I now realize I’d never really meant it. I had had and enjoyed versions of the simmered seafood soup from southern France before, but they were dwarfed by Yamaguchi’s version.
Walker had studied in Paris as a younger man and has returned to France regularly with Yamaguchi to visit—and to eat. Yamaguchi, for her part, is a self-trained cook, inspired both by the traditional Japanese cuisine she learned from her mother and grandmother and the French styles she learned from her formally-trained cousins and her visits to France. Yamaguchi incorporates Asian ingredients—in addition to the yuzu mentioned above, she works with dashi, an umami-rich stock, and offers a tantalizingly counterintuitive soy-sauce crème brûlée—but also draws on Japanese attitudes towards food. She and Walker both spoke of kaiseki, a complex term often used to describe Japan’s version of haute cuisine and implying a holistic, perfectionist attitude toward food: flavorful, balanced, seasonal, and beautiful. I asked Yamaguchi what her favorite dish was and what she most recommended. For her, tarte flambée, an Alsatian flatbread of onions and bacon; for me, the bouillabaisse.
[Read Chris Turner-Neal's review of another New Orleans dining institution, Upperline, here]
I am nothing if not dutiful, so I went back inside and ordered the bouillabaisse. As I waited I asked the bartender for a wine recommendation, which is a great trick for seeming sophisticated when you don’t actually know much about wine. She recommended Aligote, a cold-tolerant white varietal neglected in favor of Chardonnay by the (awful, unimaginative) wine-growers of Burgundy. It was clean and balanced, with little of the floral I usually choose for myself; it expanded my palate and my wine vocabulary, which I’m learning to cherish with the same pleasure I feel when I learn a new word.
I knew the word “bouillabaisse,” of course, but I now realize I’d never really meant it. I had had and enjoyed versions of the simmered seafood soup from southern France before, but they were dwarfed by Yamaguchi’s version. Shrimp, mussels, and fish nestled in a rich dark broth, which didn’t overpower the seafood but set it off like black velvet behind diamonds. Complete with a ramekin of crème fraîche dusted with spices and a plank of crusty bread, the stew was occupying all of my attention when I heard a voice at my elbow: “Tarte flambée, compliments of Yuki.”
[Read this: A self-led heritage tour of the French Quarter, by Chris Turner-Neal]
I looked up from my shoveling to see a gorgeous flatbread next to me. If you don’t think a flatbread can be gorgeous, well, you haven’t seen this one. Thin but rich (as I aspire to be), the shallow layer of bread accompanies the toppings without overpowering them; the overall feeling is not of eating “bread with stuff on it” but of having a convenient way to ingest a nigh-perfect assemblage of perfectly fatted bacon and caramelized onions. My one problem was that, after the bouillabaisse, I couldn’t finish it. I hemmed and hawed about whether it was tacky to ask for a box for complimentary food before realizing that, tacky or not, it would be blasphemous to abandon the tarte flambée. Let the other diners think what they wished; I obeyed a higher power. Swaying contentedly, I ambled home, already looking forward to a tarte flambée breakfast.
During our conversation, Walker had noted that among the most rewarding aspects of N7 was that the restaurant had enticed regulars, including one man who came in nightly and worked his way through the specials list as it was updated. Good for him—but even with a more expansive cuisine budget, I wouldn’t want to be there every night. It’s too special to overdo. I’m enjoying thinking about the apple tart I was too full to try—and some night, when I’m full of ennui or joie de vivre or some other distinctly French emotion, I’ll slip off to my neighborhood pocket of France and dig in.