[title type="h5"]Thursday, December 18, 2014.
Reveillon At Richard Fiske's Martini Bar & Restaurant.
[/title]
I have allowed myself to get slightly behind the eight-ball as regards advertisers on the web site and the radio show. The group of partners that operated the Bombay Club for some twenty years moved a block up Dauphine Street to the Chateau LeMoyne Hotel. Most of the dining room and kitchen staff made the move. But they had to leave the Bombay name behind. That belongs to the Prince Conti Hotel, and will remain the Bombay Club, but with its own changes. (That restaurant also gets to keep the drawing of an alluring nude that hangs in the men's room.)
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In Richard Fiske's bar.[/caption]
The new place renamed itself Richard Fiske's Martini Bar and Restaurant. Fiske was the longtime owner-manager of the Bombay. He passed away about a year and a half ago. His successors brought with them the essence of the old place, with Nick Gile reinventing his always-excellent menu, and the bar continuing its good habits. (The old Bombay was far ahead of the current vogue for inventive mixology.)
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Private booths at Richard Fiske's.[/caption]
The main challenge for the Fiske's crew is getting the word out about the move and the new name. Hence the strident advertising package. Aside from the usual new-restaurant wobbles, I figured this was a safe bet. But with all these big birthdays and weddings in my life for the past couple of months, it took longer than I expected for me to get over there and check the place out.
I am there tonight, and from the moment the cocktail arrives (a martini variant involving luxardo cherry liqueur, anong other things) I breathe a sigh of relief.
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Richard Fiske's in Reveillon season.[/caption]
The space has been a restaurant almost since the Chateau LeMoyne opened in the late 1960s. Some of the restaurants were excellent--notably, Peter Sclafani III's Creole-Italian bistro in the 1990s. But it's usually been more of a standard hotel restaurant.
The men and women of the Richard Fiske brigade take full advantage of the larger dining room. It has windows on both sides, giving onto Iberville Steet here and a courtyard with a pool there. Building out the dining rooms, they installed more private, curtained booths than the old place had. This sort of overt romantic atmosphere is not much seen in New Orleans these days. These are the most comfy I've seen. All I have to do is drag Mary Ann in here and get bold.
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Oysters Rockefeller variant.[/caption]
Richard Fiske's has a Reveillon menu, and it's so appealing that I order it with only one minor change: fried oysters au gratin is swapped out in favor of an offbeat fried version of oysters Rockefeller.
That's followed by a well-composed and very large salad of greens, Stilton (the official blue cheese of the British-inflected old Bombay Club, and apparently Fiske's, too), spiced pecans and small black grapes.
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Chicken saltimbocca.[/caption]
One of the choices of entree on the Reveillon menu is identified as Richard Fiske's favorite dish. I can't remember having eaten a chicken version of veal saltimbocca. ("Jump in the mouth" is what that last word means.) But I taste why Richard liked it. Big plate of food, here, with prosciutto, wild mushrooms, and a Marsala sauce intense with demi-glace, all heightening the other flavors.
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Creme brulee with bananas.[/caption]
The dessert is another original: creme brulee with bananas and hazelnuts. It's followed by the house's well-spiked egg nog, a Reveillon tradition for this establishment. I now know I am not leading my readers and listeners astray by recommended this new old eatery. The only matter that gives me pause is the unwieldy new name for the place.
The band--which is here every night--begins playing R&B. The lounge is busy.
[title type="h5"]Richard Fiske's Martini Bar & Restaurant. French Quarter: 301 Dauphine St (Chateau LeMoyne Hotel). 504-586-0972. [/title]
