TANA Italian was long-awaited in Metairie, by me and everyone else. Here was a first class Italian place with glamorous everything, and presumably delicious food. Chef Michael Gulotta had made a name for himself as a very talented chef, who was excellent at fusing disparate cuisines together. His roots are Italian, but he became smitten by the flavors of Vietnam as a very young man. His first restaurant, MoPho, was a hit from Day One. He followed that one with MayPop, a terrific restaurant that was a victim of its location. The building that collapsed closed the street, and the endless construction finished it off. Not to mention the COVID effect.
Michael Gulotta closed them both at the same time, to the shock of his many fans, shifting focus to Metairie, where an opportunity awaited that he would call TANA, after his grandmother.
Just speaking for me, TANA has been a disappointment. I couldn’t wait for a place of this caliber in Metairie, and its location on Metairie Road was so promising. The space is all I had hoped, but the food isn’t. I’m not even sure what I am trying to say here. On the Northshore we have Del Porto, a fantastic modern Italian place whose food is second to none. The physical place is also modern and glamorous, so when I want a top-of-the-line Italian meal I’ll go there. I was hoping to feel that way about TANA, but I don’t. It’s also too expensive. And annoying with its rules.
For example, today I dropped in for lunch. It was a gorgeous day so I wanted to sit outside on the patio, which seems like they forgot they put it in back there. It could be so inviting, like the one at Shaya, but it seems like an afterthought. And the service is bizarre. When I called early afternoon Saturday, I was told I could eat out there but I’d have to order at the bar and take it out myself. Huh? Like in to-go boxes? Just the fact that I had to call to ask if permission to eat outside would be granted is absurd. I'm a customer, it's a beautiful day. Makes sense.
It wasn’t quite that bad. I did have to order at the bar, but the bartender told me he would bring it out. So, essentially fast casual. In a place like this? With prices like this? This was as absurd as when I had Tom there with my sister for Happy Hour where pizzas the size of personal pans are $9, and where I was told that I would have to make Tom move to sit on a high top at the bar if we wanted to add something from the regular menu to our tab. Apparently, Happy Hour festivities are only in bar seating. We would have to close out a tab and start over to ADD MORE TO OUR BILL. When this was affirmed by the manager I just had to laugh. Who turns down business? Surely I wasn’t going to move my obviously compromised husband to accommodate this nonsense.
I went back one afternoon late for the Wednesday Braciole special. This was fantastically good, even though for $36 I had only little bits of the Braciole because that was probably all that was left in the pot. The sauce was so perfect I want to go back and have it again, even for $36. So when Michael taps into his Sicilian roots, with no tricks like adding cherries to an olive salad, his food is swoonable. But I don’t want cherries in my olive salad.
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I asked for this cherries and olives thing separately today, when I ordered the most boring thing possible here. It was a creamy Italian Bibb lettuce salad with sunflower seeds, dried cherries, and olive salad. I added grilled chicken and asked for the other ingredients on the side. I like cherries, and I love olive salad, but not together.
The dressing was great, the chicken tender and juicy, in other words perfectly done, and I enjoyed it very much….deconstructed.
My companion vacillated between the fish or fried chicken sandwich, and the burger. He settled on the fried chicken sandwich, and was heartbroken with his choice. It looked like a gigantic thing, with a huge pile of very nice fries.
But in the end, there was more breading than chicken, and so many contradictory ingredients that he agreed with one of Tom’s favorite Dick Brennan quotes, repeated to me often: “When a dish has a lot of ingredients, what does it taste like? Answer…Nothing.” This was a chicken thigh (of course) overcome with breading, with spicy tomato jam, pickled peppers, and Caciocavallo cheese, which to me melts too much into anything. He picked it apart and also ate it deconstructed.
On the plus side, they are still making an irresistible small seeded and braided Italian loaf of bread, served with olive oil and peppers, as well as cultured butter. I could make a meal of this.
Oh well, I am going to keep going to TANA, and I remain hopeful that one day this gorgeous Italian place in a perfect location will become, well, more “regular.” With Michael Gullota’s skills, that would be a place to return to again and again. Even at those prices.
