Thursday, January 25, 2018. The first Eat Club dinner of the year convened today at the Country Club. Its physical qualities make it one of the most most unusual restaurants in the area. It has no resemblance to anything rural, being as it is in the thoroughly urban Bywater neighborhood.
I'm pretty sure that the Country Club is the only restaurant in the area that has a swimming pool that's open to the public, along with wide areas of chaise longues and outdoor tables for dining flanking it. Add to that a full bar and open deck and the place begins to resemble the deck on a cruise ship. I could hardly believe that several people were in the pool when I arrived. It was one of those pretty-cold days that give one the chills even if fully clothed and dry.
All that is only the beginning of the Country Club's surroundings. The main building, which went up in 1884, has the look of a post-Civil War plantation home. For sheer size alone, it sticks out among all the modest houses that surround it. Indoors, it becomes even more of an eye-popper. The several dining rooms are decorated by hand-painted ceilings and walls, all of them quite beautiful. In this the resemblance is to certain rooms at Commander's Palace (with which there is no connection.The bar is a large oval, between the pool area and the main building. The p.r. lady insisted that I see the ladies' room, which is indeed worth looking at if you meet the basic spec for its users.
The Country Club, when I first became aware of it, was rumored to be a favorite hangout for customers who, let us say, undertook shenanigans that would keep me away. I asked about this, and the p.r. lady said in no uncertain terms that such a scene has long since been eliminated. That was the only thing that kept me away from writing about the Country Club over years past. What I see now is a major Creole-French bistro with a sharp creativity and agreeable service.
Our dinner began with a unique and brilliant dish centered on eggs. Only at Brennan's among major restaurants do eggs appear during the dinner hour. This concoction featured hollandaise that has been tuned up with very finely chopped garlic, all flowing over crispy wild mushrooms. Garlic hollandaise? The idea is so fine and original that I can anoint this dish as one of the great new tastes I've encountered lately.
Second course is another light dish, but with more intense flavors. With big shrimp in its center, we had here a dish somewhere between a bouillabaisse and a court-bouillon. An assortment of savory vegetables added a light echo of crunch. Great eats.
The entree had only one problem: there wasn't enough of it for a $75 dinner, and the presentation was homely. The idea itself had no obvious flaws. It was a miniature stew made from lamb shank. The sauce, with a few leafy vegetable afloat, had that intensely brothy flavor perfect for this kind of cold weather. But there wasn't enough to dig into the tasting mechanism or balance off the wines. I have a feeling that this grew from the fact that the Eat Club was about forty people strong, and maybe one of the lamb may have gone astray. Or it might just be me. Because nobody else complained.
Dessert was interesting. The featured flavor: lemon. Here were a lemon cake, a limoncello shot, and a lemon sorbet. Just right to end the evening.
This is clearly a restaurant that deserves a full review, and I will gather it in the coming weeks. About the only drawback to dining at the Country Club is that it's hard to find if you're not a Bywater/Marigny continuum. Here's the way: start at the foot of Esplanade or Elysian Fields at Chartres. Drive away from the French Quarter and stay on Chartres all the way, even when it goes through a bunch of warehouses and railroad tracks. When you get to the corner of Chartres at Louisa, turn left. The restaurant is in the adjacent block, with palm trees. Parking on the streets is usually quite easy.
The Country Club. Bywater/Downtown: 634 Louisa St. 504-945-0742.
