At this season, NOMenu takes an appreciative look at the matchless seafood of New Orleans. We take a different angle each year. This year's perspective is a countdown of the thirty-three (one for each weekday in Lent) best restaurants for lovers of oysters, pompano, crawfish, speckled trout, and all the other delicacies that make living here anything but a penance.
Number Twelve
Andrea's
Italian.
Metairie: 3100 19th St. 504-834-8583. Map.
Lunch and diner continuously seven days.
Dressy
AE DC DS MC V
Website
The most useful aspect of Andrea's is that it's a white-tablecloth restaurant capable of serving a first-class repast made with excellent fresh ingredients, with excellent service and a seriously good wine list in pleasant surroundings. . . in Metairie. Where there are surprisingly few such restaurants. Another advantage: Andrea's is open all the time.
Chef Andrea Apuzzo is a classically trained chef who can rise to the heights of Italian cookery. He buys superb ingredients, the best of which are the many species of fresh, whole fish (he fillets them all in house) and shellfish. Few restaurants have a greater variety of fresh seafood, and the kitchen cooks it with skill. When Andrea's is on--which it isn't always--it cannot be beat in its specialties. But the inconsistencies are maddening. It opened with a Northern Italian menu. Over its twenty-eight years, however, the chef's desire to serve every perceived customer desire caused the cooking to drift southward, in both the directions of Sicily and New Orleans.
Find out whether Chef Andrea is present. He usually is, but when he's not, things can slip badly. The restaurant is overambitious, and often fills the facility with more people than can be served at the restaurant's best level. Overbooking occurs on holidays. The dining room staff is always on the brink. All this results in inconsistency. If something isn't right, make a fuss and they'll start paying attention.
The restaurant feels distinctly suburban, but after importing Italian art and furnishings for many years the place has personality. The main dining room is bright and glittery, in a somewhat old-fashioned way. Private dining rooms, some capable of serving a hundred people, line up one after another. The new Capri Blu Bar is striking and comfortable, serving a menu of pizza and appetizers. It has live entertainment most nights. The service staff is low-key and widely varying in its competence. Chef Andrea himself spends a lot of time in the dining room, schmoozing the regulars.
BEST SEAFOOD DISHES
Raw oysters on the half shell, remoulade and cocktail sauce
Seafood salad Portofino
Scampi alla Caprese
Fried or pan-sauteed calamari
»Mussels with white wine or marinara sauce
»Oysters en brochette
»Baked Italian oysters
Crabmeat ravioli
»Risotto Jazz (shrimp, crabmeat, creamy Parmigiana sauce)
Littleneck clams aglio e olio
Angel hair, smoked salmon, vodka, cream sauce, caviar
Grilled salmon Fiorentina (spinach, lemon herb sauce)
»Sauteed speckled trout, lump crabmeat, lemon cream sauce
»Red snapper acqua pazza
»Speckled trout Villa d'Este or amandine
»Cioppino (stew of mussels, clams, scallops, shrimp, crabmeat, squid, onion, garlic, wine, tomatoes, linguine
»Shrimp scampi arabbiatta or with wine garlic butter $25.00
Dover sole meuniere
A more detailed review can be found here.
