Who doesn’t love Mr. B’s? I ask this question whenever the subject comes up. The place is not one that anyone can feel ambivalent about. People love it. They swoon when they talk about it. Yet one day at brunch with a longtime friend from California, she wondered what the fuss was about. I dismiss the errant opinion because I know the contrarian.
What is it though, about the place that engenders such enthusiasm? I wouldn’t call it a cult restaurant, which elicits such strong feelings that any dissenting opinion is not tolerated by members of the cult, i.e., the restaurant’s fans. Usually in these cases, there is plenty of cause for dissent. With Mr. B’s, no contradictory opinions emerge.
First, this restaurant looks different than all the others. With dark green leather booths and brass aplenty, it resembles an ultra-classy pub or a French brasserie. It’s a bit dark for my taste, but I love everything else about it so much that I don’t even notice. And if you are lucky enough to snare a space at a window booth, you have one of the best seats in the house.
Mr. B’s turned 40 in 2019, and I remember it in the very beginning, when it was terrible. The place looked great, although very different from all the rest, but the food was not good. It took years for it to turn around. When Gerard Maras ran the kitchen, its fortunes shot up. He turned the place into the dining powerhouse it is today, setting standards that remain long after his departure.
He left to become a farmer on the Northshore, settling on the other end of the farm-to-table program he pioneered in this city. Mr. B’s was certainly at the forefront of this cooking revolution we still enjoy to this day.
Mr. B’s set another now-common kitchen practice into place. This restaurant was the first one in town where you saw fish grilled. Emeril made a name with his Home Depot cedar-plank grilled fish years later, but it was here first. The Gerard Maras Gumbo YaYa with its impossibly dark roux set tongues a-wagging around town. Soon it became a challenge to get roux its darkest without burning it, and the roux here is so dark the restaurant has more than a few sent back with complaints of it being burned.
The menu at Mr.B’s is not very large, but what is there is so solid you cannot go wrong. We usually go for lunch, when I can get their fantastic burger with the housecut fries. At right under $20 now, it’s still a steal. I used to always like the fried Buffalo Chicken salad, but it had been replaced by a grilled airline chicken breast salad. Tom pretty much sticks with fish, usually getting the grilled fish. I might expect that here the Amandine preparation would be great, but it isn’t here. They do a pecan-crusted fish with a real Creole Meuniere Sauce. They also do a different twist on BBQ shrimp and grits. Gerard Maras was the first to change the sauce into the Worcestershire-based classic it is today.
This restaurant would be one where we are regulars, except that we don't get out much anymore, especially on the Southshore. But we dropped in last weekend on our staycay while our son and his family were here. He insisted we have at least a snack at Mr. B’s, even though we were headed right after to a large family party that was to be catered with a lot of great food.
Our party of nine was seated way in the back where it was quite dark. There were three little kids with us, so it worked out well. It was also close to the “secret” bathroom, and we liked that.
We ordered only a few appetizers, but some good ones. We had a few orders of the crispy oysters with jalapëno mayo, There was also a dish or two of the catfish bites, with more of a remoulade sauce as accompaniment. We got a couple of orders of the housecut fries, and I had to get a crab cake. Several gumbos, both YaYa and seafood were also on the table.
The kids quickly filled up on the bread in the individual bags. They had never seen this before, and even though we had, we also love this signature characteristic bread service here. The grown-ups ate too much of this too.
The waiters had the kitchen split up bowls of gumbo into smaller sampler bowls. These dotted the table. The consensus was that the YaYa was as good as ever, and the seafood gumbo was too spicy.
One of the kids balked at the fish bites because it wasn’t Cod, wondering what this catfish fish was. By the time we finished explaining it, the plate had been devoured.
The crispy oysters kept getting replenished, because they were delicious, and Tom has an insatiable desire for these. The order was quite ample, the oysters were large, plump, golden brown, crispy, and greaseless. Perfection. The tartar sauce had a nice kick to it. A solid home run.
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The crabcake was small in circumference but tall, seared just right, and bursting with jumbo lump crabmeat. I took a fork to it and a lump popped right out. This is definitely one of the best if not the best version of the dish we poached from Baltimore. The sauce had a tarragon flavor, which I admit I love. There was a side salad of what seemed like flash-fried spinach in a perky vinaigrette. Everything on this plate was sensational.
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One of the most distinctive things about this place is and has always been, to me at least, the service, I like to recount an amusing anecdote from many years ago. The kids were little and we were finishing dinner with dessert. A spoon flipped out of Jude’s hand and went up in the air. There are so many apron-starched waiters buzzing about the dining room one caught the spoon in mid-air. He returned it to the table with a smile. Now, that’s service!!
Service is and has always been the trademark of the Brennan brand, yet here it seems to extend even beyond that. So many years later, that same level of can't-do-enough-for-you service is still here everywhere. Bread was replaced before it was emptied, teas refilled after the last sip, plates cleared without any waiting, food delivered hot, and every desire anticipated.
I left with a strong desire to return as soon as possible, and to eat a real meal here. Everyone does love Mr.B’s, me maybe more than most.
