Deep Six Opens At Pumping Station Of Same No. A Restaurant To Astound, In More Ways Than Six
The idea is such a natural for New Orleans that the first item of wonder is why took so long for somebody to think of it. Isn't it obvious that a city that's mostly below sea level should have an underwater restaurant? Last week, New Orleans added to its long list of unique attractions a restaurant whose dining room is completely submerged. Not during hard rains and hurricane floods, but all the time. Its name is Deep Six. The design comes from a logical place: the Netherlands, a country whose geography has much in common with Louisiana's. There, the German-born engineer named Fenster Werfen tried for years to persuade investors and government regulators to get behind his submersible bistro, to no avail. "New Orleans was the first place where not everybody told me I was crazy," Werfen says. "In fact, nobody did." Werfen had his flash of inspiration in the aftermath of Katrina. "Like everybody else, I was watching the flooding take the city down." he says. "I kept noticing what was going on at Pumping Station Number Six. I knew that was the biggest pumping station in the world, a little bit bigger than the biggest Dutch pump. That's when it came to me: the pump must become part of a restaurant!" Werfen says that the enormous pumping capability of the pump, in conjunction with thick beds of sand on the spot, creates a deep pool of perfectly clear, blue water. The restaurant floats inside the pool, anchored at the top and bottom.
Deep Six's dining room looks like a gigantic aquarium, the walls of which are made of three-inch-thick harpoon-proof glass. "We don't need to worry about bullets, because you can't shoot a gun under water!" Werfen reassures. "And the pool will be too small for torpedoes. But harpoons? You don't know what kind of thing the crazies will come up with."
Access to Deep Six is counterintuitive. You don't enter from the top, but from the bottom. The first of two elevators takes you underground four stories. Then you walk a few feet to a glass-enclosed tube with a glass elevator inside.
That one takes you to the center of the dining room. The maitre d', dressed in what can only be called a wetsuit tuxedo, stands there to greet you.
The watery blue world captures your full attention for a few moments. Then you see something even more striking. Behind the maitre d' stand are several terrariums, each populated by numerous small land creatures. You try to figure it out, and then you realize that these all are potential food animals: rabbits, baby goats, chickens, ducks, and turkeys.
"It takes a minute for the irony to register," says Werfen. "How many times have you seen tanks full of lobsters in restaurants on land? Since we're underwater, we thought we'd do the same thing, but with land animals. The old switcheroo, I think they call it. You can select your own rabbit or chicken, and we'll reach in and grab it to bring it to the chef to cook."
That is, thankfully, the end of Deep Six's weirdness. The dinner menu is familiar. And whatever disturbance caused by watching a struggling bunny being taken away to be cooked, the excellence of the meal and its attractive pricing refocus your attention.
I sampled the table d'hote dinner, consisting of ten courses for $28.95. It starts with a half dozen raw oysters on the half shell, each topped with a generous spoonful of osetra caviar. It's served with a half-bottle of Laurent-Perrier Champagne--that's per person, not for the table. That's an excellent, little-seen bubbly, and perfect with the oysters.
It's followed by an assortment of hot steamed local (and not-so local) seafood, brought out on a platter the size of a child's wagon. I'm no fan of steamed seafood, but the chef has found a way around the boredom: he uses high-pressure air jets to inject the Creole seasonings deep inside the shellfish. The assortment includes some four dozen gigantic shrimp, one lobster per person, a bucket of mussels (I estimate at least eight dozen in there), two dozen large male crabs, and a couple dozen more oysters--these broiled somewhat in the style of Drago's, but a bit pepperier.
This platter is designed to serve the entire table. But if you run out of anything and want more--even another lobster--it will be brought. As will another bottle of Champagne, or if you prefer, bottles of the delicious melon de Bourgogne wine from the lower Loire Valley.
The soup is a magnificent bouillabaisse, brought to the table by submarine. Really. It pulls up to the outside of the glassy dining room and locks into a portal. The waiters reach inside and fetch the silver tureen, chock-a-block with more shrimp, clams, and various species of fish. The saffron component is wonderful, and for once a French chef has added a convincing level of red pepper. They match this with a stunning Gewurztraminer from Alsace, the Hugel Vendange Tardive 1995. It's perfect.
The fish theme continues with whole grilled pompano, served at the table and disassembled by the waiter, sizzled right before your eyes with brown butter, with fresh chopped chervil added as a brilliant final touch. The wine is Meursault Pierre Boillot, one of the very best white Burgundies and rarely seen hereabouts. They don't leave the bottle (how could we expect that, since the wine is included in the price?), but they pour very generously, and refill the glass at the wink of an eye.
The killer entree is an assortment of meats. A six-bone rack of lamb Bearnaise, 28-ounce prime-grade sirloin strip au poivre, marinated and roasted venison backstrap sauce Grand Veneur. And--we knew it was coming--rabbit tenderloins with rabbit foie gras running through their tiny white centers. All this on a heavy platter that requires two waitresses to carry before you.
It is, of course, vastly too much food. But you're invited to select anything on it to take home. And, if you somehow can eat all that, they invite you to ask for seconds of anything to be packed up to go.
I have no idea where they got the wine at a price that allows its being included with the dinner. But I won't hesitate to drink up: 2001 Chateau Branaire-Ducru, a personal favorite of mine for many years, from St. Julien in Bordeaux. This time they do leave the bottle ("You have a lot of food to get through," says the waiter), and check back periodically to see whether you need a second, a third, a fourth. . . well, we wound up going through six bottles for the four of us before it was over.
After a cheese course selected from a cart of over 60 fresh French cheeses, here came hot soufflees, brought to the table as a surprise: twelve different varieties, each better than the other. They're so light that it was easy to eat more than one. And it got even easier, once the Chateau Guiraud 1989 Sauternes appeared. Liquid honey. Peachy finish.
After this, it was hard to believe that thirty bucks was going to cover it all. I thought I was being given the restaurant critic deal. I stopped some of the exiting diners. Indeed, they paid the same price, and were as astonished by it as I was. "I tried to give the waiters each a $100 tip, but they wouldn't take it!" said one, incredulous diner.
He and his friends were equally giddy about the contents of their Deep Six knapsacks, filled with extras. Not just extra steaks and lamb racks, but boxes of housemade chocolates, logo glassware, and cookbooks--all given with the complements of the management to all customers. The knapsacks themselves are already cool at Louise S. McGehee, Newman, and Christian Brothers schools. Their laughter quieted as they passed the terrariums, averting their eyes from those of the playful rabbits.
I have some question as to whether Fenster Werfen's business model will pay for the estimated $23 million Deep Six cost. Let alone the outcry the bunny bins might create among animal lovers. "Pah!" he spat. "Money. We don't worry about such things. We've got it. This is history! The ingenuity of man! Our victory against the forces of nature! Let us celebrate! And how many other restaurants serve rabbit and chicken? All of them!"
Deep Six
Adjacent to Seventeenth Street Canal at Pumping Station #6, Lakeview. Access only by shuttle streetcar from the corner of Pontchartrain Boulevard at Fleur de Lis.
Map: http://mapq.st/e0gzSd
Reservations essential: 504-524-0348.
