Monthly Archives: July 2010

By JOHN DeMERS

My New Orleans story goes back to the day my parents – my father a French Catholic from Boston, my mother a Southern Baptist from Pleasant Hill in north Louisiana – settled in the city at the end of World War II. Chris Brown’s family has a New Orleans story that goes back generations. And that, according to local reasoning, is why everything the guy cooks tastes better than anything I cook.

A mere generation ago, even beyond the troubling question of race, it was unlikely a big hotel in New Orleans would have let a New Orleans native run its kitchen – that being a job fit for French chefs or, even worse, German or Swiss. It was even more unlikely that such a local chef, having somehow sneaked past prejudice into the top job, would have been allowed to cook real New Orleans food. You know, the kind of dishes his Grandma used to make.

With a passel of dishes learned from his Grandma as far back as he can remember, homegrown talent Chris Brown is the executive chef of the usually LA-crazed W Hotel, his chief playground being the comfortable bistro called Zoe. A dinner in Zoe doesn’t just turn up some genuine New Orleans dishes on the menu. Thanks to Chris – and to both a hotel GM and a food and beverage director native to the Crescent City – there’s barely anything on the menu that isn’t. Having admired Chris’ food for something like 15 years in several quite different restaurants, I couldn’t be happier to let him feed me in his new digs.

Zoe’s new menu is a dramatic departure from previous incarnations I can remember, most of them fitting the W brand of California chic. The single page is packed with selections that certainly can be and are served stylishly – but not before the deep, rich flavors of the Creole and Cajun experience (two separate story lines that come together in New Orleans) work their magic. Chris’ BBQ shrimp are verging on the best I’ve ever had, light years improved over the “original” with the addition of a buttery Abita Beer broth. Also amazing are the spicy tempura shrimp with red bean cake and corn emulsion, not to mention the so-called crab and shrimp broil. Not exactly what it sounds like (boiled seafood dumped out on yesterday’s newspaper), this is more of a seafood cocktail with tangy remoulade sauce and creamy slices of avocado.

As far as I’m concerned, you’re not allowed to eat here without getting a bowl (or at least a cup) of Chris’ file gumbo. If you have any New Orleans roots at all, this rouxed-up collaboration of chicken, shrimp and andouille will definitely take you home. Best bet from among the entrees has to be the spice dusted redfish (which Chris says off the record is “not quite blackened”), with an amazing ragout (I’d rather call it dressing) of mirliton and shrimp, plus a lush red sauce piquant. The crispy duck offers another incredible way to go in a state long billed as the Sportsman’s Paradise, showing up with a pecan-molasses glaze and a sweet potato puree.

There are several excellent desserts, but at long last the best finale at the W in New Orleans is the city’s own rendition of bread pudding. This one involves white chocolate, to be sure, but the whole things is so light, airy and almost feathery that it seems God’s own blend of croissant, French toast and warm Krispy Kreme doughnut. Chris Brown’s menu at Zoe invites each guest to “tempt taste sip savor.” Yes, I can report, I did all of those.

By JOHN DeMERS

The simple good sense behind the concept at Le Meritage, a hip new restaurant in the New Orleans French Quarter, tends to disguise just how edgy the notion actually is. After all, even in a world with lots of “small plate” restaurants, organizing those small plates by type of wine suggested for pairing is still relatively unknown.

Small plates, of course, are the generic notion that grew out of Spanish tapas, with perhaps a sideways glance at the Italian vision of primi piatti. In neither of those cases, though, were the small plates originally intended to be your meal. They were warm-up acts, at best. It seemingly is an American notion to translate the idea of “grazing” – remember when that word was making the rounds, often in the same sentence with “foodie”? – into an entire evening of interesting foods with perhaps even more interesting wines.

There are no official appetizers or entrees at Le Meritage, as the place is deftly made real by executive chef Michael Farrell – a Virginia native whose resume includes stints at the Summer House in Nantucket and Beano Cabin at Beaver Creek. What you find on the menu instead are six categories of wine: Sparklers, Light Whites, Full Bodied Whites, Fruity Reds, Spicy/Earthy Reds and Robust Reds. We could quibble with the vocabulary a bit, but ultimately the three wines listed with each category and the three foods suggested as pairings carry their own logic. Each of the dishes is available in a small or large portion, just as each of the wines is offered in half or full pour. Decisions, decisions… After a while, we found our Le Meritage m.o. Plates, always small. Pours, always full. This way, at least we were never thirsty.

Our general sense of serving size points to 2-3 small plates per person with wine pairings, plus a dessert or two. In the course of the evening, we sipped NV Gloria Ferrer blanc de blancs from Napa, then turned our attention to a pair of pinot noirs – 07 Duckhorn Decoy from Napa and the 07 Innocent Bystander from Australia’s Yarra Valley, and finished with the Spanish priorat called Gine Gine from Guil and Gine and the Chappellet Mountain Cuvee from St. Helena. The staff at Le Meritage is encouraged to share its genuine enthusiasm for this or that wine, but ultimately you can drink anything you want with any food you want. I approve.

Most of the dishes were standouts in one way or another, especially the first two. Both the pan-roasted halibut with chive potato cake, apple smoked bacon and lump crabmeat and the rabbit tenderloin with tagliatelle, pancetta and chive managed to be the best versions of their protein I can remember. Eating the rabbit, in fact, thin slices atop a reddish-brown jus, I found myself wishing dishes came in small, large and gargantuan.

Other nifty treats included the duck two ways with fig compote, foie gras (one of the “ways”) and butter potatoes, the braised beef short rib with parsnip puree and a bright green basil gremolata, and the grilled beef filet with red wine jam and a blue cheese tartlet. Some other time, I look forward to trying the P&J fried oysters on the half shell with horseradish and citrus zest, and also the Gulf shrimp and grits with tasso and red eye gravy.

In a restaurant devoted to small plates, the typical Deep South big dessert would just seem wrong somehow. Chef Farrell responds accordingly, with several winners tending toward the lighter side. Surprisingly, one of the most satisfying is the trio of sorbets, not usually my cup of tea. With a changing array of fruit flavors, they seem perfect after such a barrage of different food and wine tastes. The coffee crème brulee is excellent as well. Not to be outdone, the dessert menu arrives with a list of special wines, ports, sherries, late harvest and the like. There are no fewer than five Sauternes on the list, from $16 for a glass of the 2006 Chateau Clos Haut Peyraguey to $400 for a half-bottle of 1997 Chateau d’Yquem.

Le Meritage at the Maison Dupuy Hotel, French Quarter