A Trio of Personal New Orleans Farm-to-Table Restaurant Favorites

New Orleans offers an embarrassment of culinary riches. Where do you begin? Do you stick with the tried and true favorites that have stood the test of time, or venture out to experience newer options by a host of ambitious, creative younger chefs? We tried to do both over the course of a five- day visit. Here are some of our choices for outstanding newer entrants in the local dining establishment.
In the charming Garden District  oak-shaded streets lead past a fascinating architectural array of large, historic mansions and gardens along with simple single story cottages. A highlight is St. Charles Avenue, renowned for its famed streetcar. Further south, Magazine Street provides a worthy destination for leisurely rambles with its unique shops and restaurants.

We chose to stay in the Garden District at the Hotel Indigo on St Charles Avenue, a wonderfully convenient location for exploring the area either by foot or the streetcar.
We received a nice welcome at check in, and our room was contemporary with a spacious shower and comfortable king bed. Babin’s Bar and Bistro in the lobby provided a nice breakfast or lunch option or a place for a drink after neighborhood explorations.

Just down the road from our hotel was the Voodoo BBQ & Grill, which serves up affordable local fare in a rustic environment. Letizia had the beef brisket and veggies, while I chose a shrimp po boy and corn pudding with sweet tea, getting into the spirit of New Orleans local cuisine.

We decided to take an excursion on the St Charles Avenue streetcar, priced at $1.25 per ride or $3.00 for a one-day pass. The streetcars provide wooden seats whose backs fold one way or the other to suit the direction the trolley is going. We admired the views of the beautiful homes of the Garden District and on down through South Carrollton Avenue to the end of the line. Then we switched sides and caught the return views past Audubon Park, Tulane and Loyola Universities and the posh Audubon Place gated street. We enjoyed lovely weather during our stay, only about 80 degrees and sunny and comfortable, perfect for the open-air ride on the streetcar and enjoying the breezes.

Our dinnertime Garden District destination Coquette  was on Magazine St, which we reached by walking through a lovely neighborhood of very elegant large homes. The main avenue and particularly the side streets leading down from St. Charles Avenue to Magazine St were quiet at night. Be careful if you walk in the evening, as the sidewalks are broken and uneven in many places due to tree roots but only under repair in a few spots, making nighttime walking a challenge! But the elegant homes along the way were lit up, giving a nice homey, inviting feel.

Coquette, which opened in 2008, serves locally-sourced New American fare alongside craft cocktails. The restaurant was in a cute little two-story wooden building, unassuming from the outside and rustic but pleasant inside. The interior has brick walls with wooden tables without table cloths, and a very large central bar with mirror. Three glass chandeliers hanging over the bar and a tin ceiling accentuates the conversation level from other tables.

There is not an overly large menu, but it provides an intriguing mixture of small and large plates plus the option of a Let us surprise you, 5-course tasting menu. We opted to choose our own small and large plates. There was a casual, laid back description of the dishes but the service was very professional

Our choice of small plates included charred okra with sweet corn remoulade and pickled peppers, fried hogs head cheese with sauce gribiche (a mayonnaise—style cold egg sauce), pickled potatoes and arctic char roe, chanterelle mushroom toast with nduja (a spicy, spreadable pork salume from Italy) and lsu gold figs and parsley. We also enjoyed the chicken with okra, couscous, yogurt and tamarind, and a red snapper with marinated vegetables and herb broth. This is a spot we highly recommend for your Magazine St. dining consideration!

Heading further west on Magazine Street into the Touro district, we had our lunchtime sights set on La Petite Grocery, which opened in 2004. Made from scratch Louisiana fare is served in a quaint cottage that housed a grocery store in the 1800s. There is a French Bistro type of appearance with tablecloths on the wood tables, tin roof ceilings, banquettes with red seats and mirrored backs, circular chandeliers and a large bar with mirror.

The food is worth the trip. Chef Justin Devillier puts his creative touch on traditional New Orleans cuisine with dishes like Turtle Bolognese, Paneed Rabbit and Blue Crab beignets. He was named 2014 chef of the year by New Orleans magazine and won a 2016 James Beard Award for Best Chef – South.
We simply had to try the specialties and were very glad we did. I had the turtle bolognese and Letizia the paneed rabbit which was particularly outstanding. Our appetizers were the delicious blue crab beignets, pork cheek ravioli and shrimp and grits with a mouth-watering butterscotch pudding to conclude the show.

Do save some time to explore the unique, quirky offerings along Magazine street. We bought day passes for $6 for two for the buses and trolleys. There are interesting, original stretches of restaurants and shops interspersed with homes, or shops built into former homes. One can’t miss stop is Peaches, a retro vinyl music store with one of a kind items, set in an old Woolworths store.

The Central Business District (CBD) is another area of the city well worth exploring for its restaurants and shops, located across Canal St. from the French Quarter.

Restaurant August, is a French-flavored establishment in a handsome 19th century French Creole building on Tchoupitoulas St. with hardwood floors, mahogany paneling and mirrors. We were seated in the wine room, one of the three main dining rooms. The room impresses, with lots of handsome wood paneling and its impressively large wine collection visible in cabinets on the second floor above us.

We both wanted to try the five-course tasting menus; I selected the degustation option while Letizia chose the farmers market vegetables tasting. The restaurant offers great flexibility in that they don’t enforce the same tasting menu for all people at the table, so we could choose independently. Also, the dessert choice offered with the degustation menu was a peanut butter ice cream sandwich, and they were willing to switch to something else due to my peanut butter intolerance.

The meal was outstanding, presented with great creativity and unique preparation. My degustation meal began with a wonderful mélange of flavors consisting of a lemonfish cru with jalapeno, crispy fish ham and summer melon. Corn cappelletti pasta was served with shrimp, chanterelle mushrooms and huitlacoche. Next was a fish dish with octopus served with crispy farro, sunchokes, haricot vert and saffron. A meat entrée followed with Home Place Pastures (a Mississippi farm) lamb with squash, tomato, smoked eggplant and pine nuts. I chose a simple yet satisfying panna cotta to close out the outstanding meal.

The market vegetables tasting menu served up a wonderful medley of creative takes on fresh vegetables, starting with a chilled eggplant soup with lemon, tahini and sumac, then a pink-eyed pea agnolotti pasta with charred Shishido peppers and pot liquor. The central dishes included crispy stuffed squash blossoms with corn, brown butter and heirloom tomatoes, then wild mushrooms with kale, chanterelle custard and roasted garlic. The dessert course was fior di latte ice cream with dark berries, ricotta, pound cake and aged balsamic.

Restaurant August was the most elegant and had the most refined décor of any of the restaurants we visited, as well as a very high level of professionalism in the cuisine. Don’t miss this highly-recommended culinary gem!

New Orleans’ rich food heritage can be found across its many districts, and on your next culinary adventure there, venture beyond the pale of the French Quarter to the Garden and Touro Districts and the CBD and find your own favorites as you dine your way across this great city.