Square Root

SPOILER ALERT: Square Root’s entire opening menu revealed, dissected.

Sixteen seats. Open kitchen. Square plate settings. Chef Philip Lopez and GM Maximilian Ortiz’s Square Root is a beautiful space inside what was once a bakery for the Irish and Italian catholic communities and was most recently a furniture store. Their first restaurant, “Root,” opened in 2011, and yes, sometimes the sequel is better than the original. The restaurant clearly takes its inspiration from the late El Bulli but at a mere fraction of the price.

Upstairs houses “Root Squared,” a bar that serves small plates and functions as an excellent waiting/pre-game area as well as a lounge for once you finish your dinner.

You have to give a credit card to hold your reservation, but the charge includes tax and tip. Beverage service is separate (with no gratuity included). Your beverage service is a pairing menu of wines, fine wines, cocktails, non-alcoholic beverages, or “mixed drinks,” which means a combo of wines and cocktails. Should you choose either wine tasting option, you end up drinking (in total) the equivalent of a bottle of wine. I settled on the mix pairing because I enjoy both wines and cocktails.

Seating is done four times a night in staggered waves. If you’re anyone but the first seating, you get to see several meals in progress. The open kitchen brings every dish to life in front of you. So you get to see a taste of things to come (the future), other diners enjoying courses you’ve already had (the past), and your own meal (the present). As an alum of an open kitchen, I am so impressed because the chef and his team are literally cooking in the middle of a circle, um, SQUARE, of diners.

I don’t usually recommend going to a restaurant the first night. Having worked service industry in several capacities, I know how many things can go wrong at the beginning. I even told a cook at one point, “I can slow down if you want to serve me and the other two [diners seated at the same time as me] all together.”

His response: “We need the practice.”

Practice makes perfect, and it’s showing this team has practiced a lot.

Guess what this is. I’ll tell you later.

The menu was ~16 courses with a variable number of pairings. (Also, all the plates and bowls are different for each course. They must have at least 50 different sets to accommodate future dishes.) Sit down and get comfortable. This recap will take a while.

The meal starts off with an unapologetic blast of flavor.  Lobster Mousse atop a “Lobster Chicarron” (like an elevated Asian prawn cracker) topped with tarragon caviar. Way more salt and flavor than I’d expect for a first dish. Definitely not a mild amuse bouche. A surprising amount of flavors, textures, and temperatures kick in motion a meal that will continue to provide those and more surprises. Pairing: Summer Shandy.

Nduja Spread on flatbread cracker is up next. Clearly a throwback to Root’s housemade sausage program. Pumpkin seeds garnish it.

The next dish is a play on “Southern Fried Chicken,” inspired by Chef Kelly English, a southern picnic, and Tennessee? Lots of great flavor and texture but I was not impressed with the surprisingly hard cracker(?) on which everything else balanced.

Oysters, Charred Bone Marrow Tartare, blood orange mignonette, buttermilk horseradish “ice.” Beautiful sight and blend of flavors and textures. Yes, I tasted the seaweed underneath the shell. Pairing: An exceptionally smooth Sake I can’t pronounce but that star sommelier Liz Dowty can.

Soup of Seared Potato, Potato Crisp, Truffle-Pickled Peaches, Smoked Caviar, and Vermouth Gelee in a creamy but light broth. This is also the first course to include a utensil! One note: More liquid would make it easier to spoon the solid components. Pairing: Carpano Bianco Vermouth. (The savory/sweet contrast is brilliant.)

Petrified Leafy Greens, toasted coriander lime spuma, pea puree, compressed cucumber, pickled seeds. A vegetarian dish? Now we’re somewhere in the east. The spuma calls to mind yogurt, and the cucumber and coriander do the rest.

PAUSE: Palate Cleanser Cocktail – Gin, hibiscus, coriander, pink peppercorn. Stop reading. Stretch. We still have a ways to go.

Tendon Two Ways: Pickled and Chicharron. Tabouleh. Radish gelee. Calabaza squash oil. Togarashi. Showing off how a protein can be insanely different based on prep. More international flavor blending. Pairing: Greek wine that especially complimented the oil.

“Faux Gras.” Umebashi? Strawberries made into an amazing (dipping-dots-like) dish. A thin marble rye crouton for texture. And yes, there is a bit of actual foie gras in it. Is anything more French than foie gras and cognac? Pairing: Dessert wine from the cognac region of France, with nice thornbush/almond notes. This cold dish and cold drink bring a rush of energy.

How they infuse their mushroom stock

Duck Breast seared in black pepper and allspice. Duck Tortellini with fennel fronds in the pasta dough. Mushroom stock and dashi infused with aromatics laboratory-style. Japan! (All things I love, by the way.) A fork, knife, and spoon. Multiple utensils! Pairing: Lambrusco

PAUSE. Intermezzo of Compressed Granny Apples and Passion Fruit Granita, microgreens, and a hint of lemon juice and zest.

Now we’re in the Mediterranean. Honey-poached Sablefish. Dates. Sunchoke. Roast chutney. More honey to finish. Pairing: Suave of Gargano-Trebbiano.

A dish inspired by Chef Lopez’s mother: Chilaquiles with sous-vide Lobster finished in butter, citrus and coriander. Lobster Mole. The meat was a tad chewy so perhaps a lean lobster, but every other component on the plate was fantastic. “When I was growing up, we couldn’t afford lobster,” he says with a smile. Pairing: Grüner Veltliner.

Roasted Pheasant Roulade, medium rare. Johnny Rock Cake. (Dehydrated) Corn Kernels? Shaved truffle. A corn velouté to finish. A bird-and-corn inspired dish. I hope next time they serve Cornish hen to complete the wordplay. Pairing: Chenin Blanc with sweet corn notes. Of course.

Wagyu Beef covered in miso and seared. Bone marrow emulsion. Iced-blanched squash. Hazelnut. Balsamic vinegar drizzle. Made for the meat lover. Served on dishes made out of burnt wood, in a Japanese method. And the wood came from Root. Back to Japan! Pairing: Green Flash West Coast IPA.

PAUSE: Now that those courses are done, the silverware is replaced with gold spoons for the desserts. Chef Lopez is a rare type who can do pastry as well.

Granny Smith Apple Sorbet. More Granny Smith apples dehydrated, powdered, and baked into meringue. On a bed of puffy grains. Tarragon. In a weird/good way, this reminded me of Apple Jacks cereal from childhood. Pairing: Basque Region Cider.

That egg picture up top? Did you guess what it was? I used to spherify ACE juice into an  “yolk,” place it in the middle of banana yogurt, sprinkle raw sugar around, brûlée the sugar, and call it a “fried egg” dessert. I thought I was clever…

Chef Lopez has upped the ante by serving an “Incredible, Edible Egg,” laid no doubt by the golden goose that gave those dessert spoons the Midas Touch. These are brought out in six-pack egg cartons. The egg is then placed atop candied almonds. Inside the egg is a cold, caramel-like toasted-egg-yolk curd. The shell is cracked in front of you, and it’s made of invert sugar (to withstand NOLA’s humidity). The “shell” is edible. The only remotely minor flaw is the one other component on top. Not sure what it was, but it was sticky and chewy and definitely not for anyone with sensitive teeth or dentures. Pairing: Valdez Amontillado Sherry.

BOOM.

Some people might balk at the price ($150 per person) but for 12-16 courses, that is a steal. A diner who’s never worked in a restaurant might think ingredients make a meal expensive. (For the record, the ingredients alone would be worth the price tag.) But it’s the time and effort that a kitchen puts into dishes that make them expensive. Every dish could have its ingredients chopped in half (size wise or variety wise) and still be delicious. If you have the money to spend on a long, leisurely dinner, this is a steal.

The excellent service is a bonus. The staff was running on adrenaline yet pleasant, making small talk with customers and learning their names. More importantly, should you have any dining restrictions, the staff will accommodate them.

Randomly the soundtrack is just as eclectic as the menu, and even the upstairs bathroom is engineered to impress. You literally cannot run out of toilet paper. If you go, you’ll see what I mean.

I was hesitant and skeptical. Square Root is an experience and, nitpicking aside, the most impressive opening I’ve ever seen a restaurant do. Easily one of the top five best fine dining meals I’ve had in New Orleans. Thanks for reading ‘til the end.

Square Root

1800 Magazine Street

New Orleans, LA 70130

504-309-7800

Tuesday – Saturday: 6:15pm to 8:45pm

BY RESERVATION ONLY

Galatoire’s Reveillon!

Reveillon is one of New Orleans’s oldest Christmas traditions. Decided to spend it at Galatoire’s this year. Here’s the course-by-course rundown!

Escargot Yvonne: Escargot (i.e. snails) cooked with the usual garlic and butter to a nice soft but pleasantly chewy texture. Artichoke hearts and white button mushrooms to add some volume. And in a nice touch, some sliced grape tomatoes to brighten the dish with both color and acid.

Country Lentil Soup: A surprisingly light soup that really hit the spot. There was duck meat in it. Supposedly there was foie gras in it also, but I didn’t taste or see any.

Fried Oyster Clemeanceau: Another French Quarter classic. There was a piece of shell in my dish, but the cooked-till-they-melt peas, Brabant Potatoes, and of course, more mushrooms more than made up for it.

Sampled all three desserts: Custard Cup needs to either be less like scrambled eggs or sweeter to emphasize that it’s a dessert. Bread Pudding was too dry and chewy, but the caramel sauce was perfect. Lemon Tart was the winner – No criticisms with it at all.
In summary, Galatoire’s continues to be a quarter establishment. The plates are coated in butter when you finish eating them, but that’s just classic French. Also had cocktails throughout the meal: Bourbon Milk Punch with the first course, Poinsetta with the soup, and French 75 with the oysters. Decided to skip the Café Brulot for dessert.

Reveillon menu is available until December 24. Gents, Gal’s requires a jacket at dinner service and all day on Sunday.

Galatoire’s Restaurant

209 Bourbon Street

New Orleans, LA 70130

(504) 525-2021

Sunday: 12 p.m – 10 p.m.

Tuesday – Saturday: 11:30 a.m. – 10 p.m.

NOWFE Vintners Dinner at Restaurant August

First course: Two Run Farms Lamb Tartare, sweet pea chermoula, whipped burrata, spiced lavash. Chef Michael Gulotta jump-started the meal with some really nice, complex Middle Eastern flavors presented in a very clean, fresh way. Fresh peas, oregano, and cilantro really brightened the whole dish. Maybe a hint of plum (or hoisin?) too. There was a vegan at my table and – no joke – she was the first to finish this dish. And she did so proudly.

Pairing: Val de Mer, Crémant de Bourgogne, Brut Nature Rosé, France, NV

Second course: Pansotti of roasted purple and golden Covey Rise Beets, foie gras crème, beurre blanc, slightest hint of coffee. This was an expert restraint on what, in clumsier hands, would have been an overly heavy pasta dish. The rich flavor of the foie was elevated by giving it an almost airy texture. I had to pause myself and eat slowly because I almost inhaled this dish in a minute or less.

Pairing: Chardonnay, Domaine Charles Audoin, Marsannay-la-Côte, Burgundy, France, 2011

Third course: Green-garlic-crusted Marrow Bone, crawfish salad, blood orange, picholine olive puree, focaccia. Gotta begin by saying this was maybe the most perfectly chopped bone marrow I’ve ever seen. I know that sounds funny, but I’m not exaggerating. Despite bone marrow being so deliciously fatty, the dish was a great balance: The richness of the marrow, the slight briny flavor of the olive and some capers, the sweetness of crawfish, acid from the blood orange. I could go on and on. The focaccia was provided by Lisa White, the pastry chef of Domenica. It was grilled up and perfect for spreading with the marrow.

Pairing: Pinot Noir, Domaine Charles Audoin, Marsannay, Côtes-de-Nuits, Burgundy France, 2009

Fourth course: Crepinette of Chappapeela Farms Duckling Breast, popcorn rice boudin of leg, whole green onion, grilled fava beans. A perfectly cooked duck breast, better than most steaks. This was a decent sized dish but deceptively filling. Nice textures, great contrast of flavors. Like pretty much all the ingredients at August, this was sourced locally from a nearby, free-range duck farm. The flavor and texture really shines and is as close to hunted duck as you can get without actually hunting.

Pairing: Grenache/Mourvèdre/Cinsault/Vaccarèse, Féraud-Brunel, Châteauneuf-du-Pape, Rhône Valley, France, 2010

Dessert course: Local Blueberry “Pavlova,” caramelized coconut, lime and blueberry sorbet. I believe I’ve had an iteration of this dessert by Pastry Chef Kelly Fields before, but I will never tire of eating it. Some meringues, some blueberry gelee. Classic dessert flavors elevated and refined without compromising the integrity and flavor of the ingredients—As with all of Chef Kelly’s desserts.

Pairing: Gros Manseng & Petite Manseng, Domaine du Clos Uroulat, Moelleux, Jurançon-Uroulat, France, 2006

Better pics of most of the dishes available at Chef Gulotta’s instagram gallery. Wines provided by Martine’s Wines and paired by Sommelier Erin. I have nothing left to say other than that it was incredible. I am humbled and inspired by such culinary talent.

Restaurant August
301 Tchoupitoulas St.
New Orleans, LA 70130
(504) 299-9777
Dinner: 5:30pm-10pm
Lunch Monday-Friday: 11am-2pm

Coquette

Yes, I am aware I owe several restaurants (one in particular) write-ups about meals. But this post was specially requested by a friend I dined with who wants to remember exactly what we ate last night. So here goes:

A good friend of mine is back in New Orleans after a four-year absence and wanted to spend his week here dining at restaurants a college budget didn’t really fit. He dined out every day (often twice), and this meal at Coquette was his clear favorite.

We first sat down and our server asked us if we wanted cocktails. NOLA is famous for its southern hospitality, particularly at nice restaurants. This meal in its totality had some of the best service I’ve had: Friendly, informative, and attentive while simultaneously not over-eager, condescending, nor intrusive.

Bread and our cocktails (the daily special, an Orange and Ginger Punch) came out first. I often say you can tell a lot about a restaurant by its bread… and its butter too I suppose. Something so simple can really set the tone for a meal. The punch was great, the flavor of the vodka muted with the sweetness of the orange and the slightly spicy, almost peppery flavor of the ginger. Were we not headed for a night of beer-drinking after and doing wine pairings with dinner, I would’ve drank several glasses of it.

Man cannot live on bread alone. So he invented butter and alcohol.

To start, a salad of Pickled Baby Beets. I have this theory that people who don’t like beets have only had them out of a can. These were delicious, red and golden in color. The burrata (mozzarella’s creamier cousin) and little slices of duck ham added some richness. Fava beans for some protein and green. (Anyone who’s cooked fava beans knows what an ordeal they can be to prepare, and there were quite a few of them on this plate.) The sweetness of some aged (rather than just reduced) balsamic vinegar just enhanced every other component on the plate.

Next, a perfectly cooked filet of Alaskan Halibut, skinless but crispy on the outside and just-cooked on the inside. Crispy-tender English peas, still bright green, around a Carolina Gold “risotto” sitting in a spring onion broth rounded out the dish. Risotto is in quotation marks because it wasn’t traditional risotto rice but a long-grain prepared risotto-style. The friend I dined with expressed slight disappointment that it wasn’t traditional risotto, so I probably should’ve warned him that Carolina Gold on the menu implied a different grain. He finished everything on his plate though, so clearly he wasn’t that disappointed.

Although another restaurant in town is more famous for Cochon De Lait, I think Coquette’s take on the dish is just as good. Maybe even better. Anyway, a well-sized portion of fork-tender pork sits on top of sweet potato puree, surrounded by caramelized brussel sprouts. On a personal note, I didn’t grow up eating brussel sprouts. My parents never cooked them, so I was introduced to them as an adult in fine dining situations. Consequently, I’ve never disliked them. These are among the best. I’ve seen an anti-vegetarian or two gasp at how good these are.

We got an extra entree to split: Softshell Crab. This dish emphasizes Chef Michael Stoltzfus’s Maryland roots. Unlike the majority of softshell crabs in town, this one is not battered like fried chicken. It’s just a deep-fried crab, awesomely light except for the oil it was fried in and the crab’s own fat. Kohlrabi puree and Merguez sausage add some contrast of creaminess and spiciness. More of those wonderful caramelized brussel sprouts add sweet and bitter. Fresh watercress and fried mint (yes, fried mint) freshen up the dish. Fantastic.

We dined at a table on the sidewalk, so I didn’t feel bad using my phone’s camera.

Coquette got a new pastry chef last year. Chef Zak Miller, like many other great pastry chefs (in town and elsewhere), takes classic desserts and remixes their flavors and textures playfully… creating dishes that give diners a comforting familiarity and the fun of trying to figure out why adish they’ve never had before reminds them of something else.

Unlike my mother, I am not a donut lover. But the Old Fashioned Donut we each had for dessert was quite good. Maybe it was the portion being not too huge and not too heavy. Maybe it was the sweet bursts of the huckleberries around it, or the crumbles of oatmeal crunch, or the melting scoop of sour cream iced cream on top. I probably wouldn’t have picked this from a dessert menu, so I’m glad it was part of the tasting and I got to try it.

We split an extra entree so why not an extra dessert as well? And “Strawberries & Cream” is classic, but I’ve never had it quite like this. A “strawberry roll-up” (which looked like a fruit roll-up but was more like a paper thin hard candy) piped full of whipped cream, flanked by strawberry sorbet, macerated strawberries, and strawberry foam. That sounds heavier than it was. The only part of the dish remotely heavy was the cream, which obviously had been whipped full of air. Any strawberry lover — I’m assuming these were local Ponchatoula, at the height of their season — would enjoy this celebration of the fruit. The only other components of this dish were a little mint and obviously some sugar.

This was a meal of clean, bright flavors and pleasantly varied textures. Some dishes you may see coming to the table and at first think “Wow, too much going on” but realize all the ingredients come together beautifully once you have a taste. One of the reasons I’m continuously impressed by Coquette is the balance of each dish. Between flavors. Between textures. Between cuisines and styles of cooking. It’s always a balance done gracefully and subtly.

2800 Magazine St.

New Orleans LA 70115
504.265.0421
Lunch: Wednesday – Saturday 11:00-3:00
Dinner: Daily 5:30-10:00
http://www.coquette-nola.com

Bayona

Tara and I have this tradition—not going to count the years—that each takes the other out to a celebratory meal for their birthday.  We usually do dinners, but she decided for this birthday she wanted a long, leisurely lunch with a couple of drinks. Naturally. We settled on Chef Susan Spicer’s Bayona, initially considering a NOLA Goes Pink meal but changed our mind when we realized a) they didn’t serve it for lunch, b) it was only two courses, and c) the dishes are built for health and nutrition. Not that there’s anything wrong with any of those things, but we were looking for something a bit different. Besides, in her words: “Who says you can’t have healthy boobs by eating ducks and butter?”

We stuck with Bayona and realized when we got there that their Saturday lunch is a light lunch made up of three small-plate courses. We remedied this by ordering an extra three plates to share for Our Invisible Friend. (Let’s call her “Jacque.”) Our server was impressed by this improvisation: “Nice. She eats. A real woman.”

Naturally we took advantage of Bayona’s cocktail menu and wine list. (I’m not going to bore you with a list of all we drank.) But since the meal was a celebration, we started with sparkling wine. 2010 Domaine de la Manarine Cotes du Rhone. Lady’s choice.

The rosiest rosé I’ve ever seen.

The cream of garlic soup is one of the mainstays on the Bayona menu. Creamy and rich but mostly garlicky. So if you’re a garlic lover or a lover of “cream of” soups, definitely get a cup.

The Bayona Salad is their house salad. Nothing particularly exciting, just proof that a simple bowl of mixed greens, good cheese (Parmigiana Reggiano or Great Hill Blue), and vinaigrette can be all you need.

One conspicuous absence from the menu was sadly the veal sweetbreads. They’re Chef Spicer’s signature, usually available appetizer-size and entrée-size. On the bright side, now I have an excuse to go back. I did try the fried rabbit liver salad, which came with beets both red and yellow, arugula, and balsamic vinaigrette. Tara and I were musing over the fact that most people who don’t like certain ingredients (beets, brussel sprouts, etc) have just never had them properly prepared.

An aside on Chef Spicer: She was at the restaurant, and we admire how she’s the kind of chef who genuinely seems to love being in her kitchen. Many chefs of her caliber and success tend to end up enjoying their celebrity with TV and other public appearances. (There is nothing wrong with this.) But she was also at Mondo when we dined there last month. When she does enter her dining room, it always seems to be in an inconspicuous “I’m checking to see that service is going well.” There’s no grand entrance or look-at-me, tell-me-how-awesome-my-food-is fanfare. Anyway, it’s awesome that her passion for cooking overrides the perks and benefits of being a successful chef. She is a very cool lady.

Smoked salmon, like actual meaty smoky salmon, not the lox you buy in a deli, potato pancakes, horseradish sour cream, and choucroute made an appearance also.

A skewer of swordfish and scallop on a bed of lentils and a drizzle of pesto was really good. It’s the kind of dish where I like all ingredients involved, so I’m inherently biased. It’s nice to see lentils not cooked into mush. One of the two chunks of swordfish was a bit dry, but that’s usually a risk in cooking the fish. The other was cooked perfectly, as was the scallop, seared on the outside and medium rare inside.

For obvious reasons, I’m particular with pasta but I did enjoy the fettucine with shrimp, andouille, roast tomato and garlic cream sauce. That combination of ingredients is obviously not a traditional Italian one, but the al dente of the pasta and the homemade andouille showed a mastery of Italian technique with the same use of local ingredients that Italians pride themselves on.

And the main reason Tara and I chose lunch at Bayona: Smoked duck and peanut-cashew butter with hot pepper jelly.

Speaking of ingredients I love…

 The dish is a play on childhood favorite peanut butter and jelly with our favorite protein mixed in. It’s usually served as a sandwich but was baked into a puff pastry this time. Very rich. Full of protein. It was garnished with celery leaves, a clever reminder of another grade school memory: Celery sticks dipped in peanut butter. I wouldn’t have minded a little acid, but if you’re going to be decadent, why not? We had one each, figuring sharing might be a problem.

Finish strong…

For dessert we had chocolate profiteroles, pear slices, caramel ice cream, and butter crunch toffee. This was just a great mix of different levels of sweetness and textures. The photo looks a hot mess – my fault – but I promise the dish looked and tasted delicious in reality.

430 Dauphine St.
New Orleans LA 70112
504.525.4455
Lunch: Wednesday – Saturday
Dinner: Monday – Saturday
http://www.bayona.com