New Face, Same Food.

As much as I have always loved the food at Al Copeland’s restaurants, I could never stand to be in the space very long. So we rarely went to any of the restaurants, from Straya to The Cheesecake Bistro, but even going back to the original Copeland’s, now forty years old as of this month. Wholly Mackerel was a brief exception, mainly because I loved the name.

We passed Copeland’s in Covington countless times in a week without crossing the threshold because the cheezy 1980’s decor so disturbed me. 

A few weeks ago I passed Copeland’s and it had a completely different look, right down to the logo and colors. They had clearly expanded the outdoor space to make it a real dining spot, and everything about it screamed new, and definitely improved. It's time for a complete redo.

It was not a hard sell for me to recruit our daughter for lunch because she would often take Tom when it was just those two. She, like so many others, is a big fan of the Penthouse Salad.

We stepped into a completely new world, circa 2023. Muted teal, the current trendiest color, is the main theme, with beautiful modern furniture as supporting elements. The biggest design discussion is whether or not to remove the ceiling tiles and hanging fake ivy from the main dining room. It doesn’t completely erase Al Copeland’s original ideas, so there is sentiment attached to the decision.

We sat in the main dining room, where the old polyurethaned tables remained through the transition. Mary Leigh got the Penthouse Salad and Tom had the Copeland’s burger, flagged on the menu as the original since 1983. The waiter reminded us that it is served on a croissant. I remember the burger from back then was served on a regular croissant which was more linear. This croissant was more like a bun, tightly wound into a circle.

It was a nice patty, with good dressings that included the elusive red tomato, with housemade pickles. Huh? Does anyone else miss good old ruffled dill pickles from a jar? It is hard to improve upon these for a burger. The taste plays off the meat and cheese flavor so nicely. It used to be an anomaly to see a chef make their own pickles, but it is becoming the norm rather than the exception. It is still rare for chef-made pickles to be an improvement.

What was most interesting about this plate was the french fries, which were clearly frozen but exceptionally good. They are beer-battered for some reason and dusted with Creole seasoning. The world of french fries is probably too much covered here, but it is a fascinating topic for me because fries are ubiquitous in American cuisine, and the span of goodness is vast. The fries you see on your plate are determined by one thing: how much the restaurateur wants to spend on them. I am endlessly entertained by this.

Mary Leigh’s salad seemed smaller than when I last saw it, but she swears it is identical. The Colby Jack toasts that shoot out from the edges of the plate were smaller and less ambitious than I remember. This mystery was cleared up on a subsequent visit. The order was for a small Penthouse Salad, which explains the reduction in size. The toasts on the second salad more closely resembled what I remembered about this understandably popular Copeland’s classic.

On that same subsequent visit, Tom got blackened catfish, which came with a delicious white rice dish with shrimp in it. This came with another side, and we got creamed spinach. Copeland’s is very proud of their steaks, and they have a sort of steakhouse thing going on as part of the menu. Tom got it once and liked it very well, but I had not seen the creamed spinach and ordered it this day. It was fine for creamed spinach. Much looser than I am used to seeing, but it was still good. How far wrong can you go with cream and spinach? Tom was simply mad about the catfish, and it went quickly. He raved about the rice too, and he is not big on shrimp, generally speaking. This is a very good plate of food and we will get it often here.

I was curious to see if the fried chicken at Copeland’s was like Popeye’s fried chicken. The answer is, yes. But eating it in the glamorous new Copeland’s makes the experience better. It comes with a pile of these delicious crispy frozen french fries and that fabulous Copeland biscuit.

We made another visit to Copeland’s on a Sunday and tried the brunch. Tom got the blackened catfish, and I got something I would never have gotten if I had been paying attention. It was called Crabcake Pontchartrain, and it is a crabcake over a biscuit with two poached eggs in a Creole sauce. I don’t like Creole Sauce at all. It’s not something I would ever order, but for some reason I had it fixed in my mind that this was a crawfish and andouille cream sauce, which would have been a much better fit for this Benedict, in my opinion. The crabcake was not deep fried, which sold me on the dish, and I even liked the Creole Sauce, but I would ask to substitute it for the cream sauce if I ever got it again. But with a menu of great things this large, why get anything again?

It’s exciting to think that we can now add Copeland’s to our list of regulars in the Fitzmorris dining rotation. We have always loved the food that Al Copeland dreamed up forty years ago. It is the best imaginable casual chain-type version of delicious New Orleans Cajun and Creole classics. And now we can enjoy it in style.