Harvey

Perino's ranks highest in my casual count of men wearing white T-shirts in sit-down restaurants. In a boiled seafood house, this is a good sign. Boiled seafood is messy, and you don't want to wear your best tie while pulling a crab apart. The people who most love boiled seafood know this, and keep the restaurant focused.

Metairie 3: Houma Blvd To Kenner Line

Among the most-loved restaurants are those whose customers believe that their goodness is known only to themselves. Secret restaurants, we might call them. The regular patrons are reluctant to talk about such restaurants, believing that the restaurant will become impenetrable if everybody in the world starts coming. In actual fact, that almost never happens, but the feeling is still comforting. All of the above applies to Cypress, whose location at the corner of two heavily-traveled arteries should make it better known than it is. But ssshhhh!

French Quarter

The first block of Bourbon Street off Canal Street was almost a no-man's land after the major department stores closed. The first sign of life in lively scene there now was the opening of the Red Fish Grill, whose colorful digs and impressive casual cooking set off a trend. As if it had something further to prove, it was the first major restaurant in the French Quarter to reopen after Katrina, even though they had to use paper and plastic serviceware and bottled water even for dishwashing. It all made the statement that this somewhat wacky-looking restaurant was in earnest about its food. And it still is.