Wednesday, March 16, 2016.
Checking On Clancy's.
Most of this week the radio station is running basketball games over the last half-hour of my program on 3WL. It doesn't happen often on that station, but it's the first time in awhile that it's been more than a day here, a day there. It throws my rhythm off a bit, but I can't really complain.
[caption id="attachment_50989" align="alignleft" width="320"]
The bar at Clancy's. If my back were aching, I would have had dinner there. [/caption]A good effect of this displacement is that I am cut loose early enough to be in the first seating of almost every restaurant in town. With that in mind, I take a shot at Clancy's. It's on my mind because tomorrow is the restaurant's thirty-third birthday. It's an easy birthday to remember: St. Patrick's Day. I'm sure its regulars will keep the place quite full tomorrow, so I will celebrate today.
The opening of Clancy's was one of the most important moments in the Great Uptown Dining Evolution. Here was a restaurant with the culinary excellence of the major restaurants of the day, but in casual circumstances. Clancy's and its like (The Upperline, Gautreau's, Mr. B's, and Brigtsen's were among the long-term examples) would shortly change the way New Orleans people dined out.
I am not a frequent diner at Clancy's. The long list of new and much-changed restaurants I need to cover keeps me from showing up as often as I would like. And I would very much like. My first course explains why. It's an appetizer of veal sweetbreads with wild mushrooms and a creamy sauce. One bite and I am transferred to another era in dining, when French and French-trained chefs ruled, with creamy sauces with demi-glace and Cognac and other flavor heighteners in the mix. The food of the current era has taken us a long way from this, and I can't say we're in a better place. There certainly are no better versions of sweetbreads in any New Orleans restaurant.
[caption id="attachment_50991" align="alignleft" width="360"]
Clancy's Brad Hollingsworth.[/caption]
During my savoring that dish and thinking about it, several people visit my table. The waiter has taken care of me at many restaurants over the years, mainly at Commander's. We share stories of the Dick and Ella period over there. Now here is Brad Hollingsworth, the proprietor of Clancy's for most of its history. He was a waiter at Galatoire's, LeRuth's, and the Caribbean Room before that.
Next comes Frank Maselli, Jesuit classmate, 1968. He is attending a party upstairs, and so are a few other people I know.
Wine wholesaler Mark Hightower comes over. His wife has waited tables at Clancy's for decades. She visits, looking exactly as she did twenty or thirty years ago. You go to Clancy's as much for the socializing as for the food and service. Which is saying something.
[caption id="attachment_50988" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Crawfish chowder at Clancy's. [/caption]
My dinner continues into a bowl of crawfish chowder. They always have great soups at Clancy's. Then a fillet of pompano with a sauce of butter, orange juice, and a spicy sambal, with meaty shrimp and enormous brabant-style potato cubes strewn about. I am drinking a nice Sancerre with all of this.
[caption id="attachment_50987" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Pompano with an orange-butter sauce with a spicy sambal and big shrimp.[/caption]
I'm talking with the waiter again. I tell him that I'd come to Clancy's more often were it not for the parking issue. Annunciation Street in particular is lined on both sides by canyons. The waiter says that Henry Clay Avenue is the great secret. It's a block away, and has many accessible curbside spots. Indeed, that's where I did park today. Knowing that, maybe I'll make reservations and come more often. Just what Clancy's needs: more regulars.
My new car has satellite radio, a first for me. (My first VW--1960, blue, ragtop sunroof--made do with an AM radio as its only audio.) The new blue automobile lets me listen to an all-Frank Sinatra channel. The voice of Frank Sinatra Jr. comes on to welcome me to Seriously Sinatra. Later, I move to CNN for the news, and learn that Frank Sinatra Jr., on tour in Florida at 72 years old, died of sudden cardiac arrest tonight. I remember something his father told him, disapproving of his son's style as apathetic. "The audience is like a broad," said Big Frank. "If you're indifferent--Endsville!" The Chairman performed accordingly. You always felt he was singing directly at you.
Clancy's. Uptown: 6100 Annunciation. 504-895-1111.
The bar at Clancy's. If my back were aching, I would have had dinner there. [/caption]A good effect of this displacement is that I am cut loose early enough to be in the first seating of almost every restaurant in town. With that in mind, I take a shot at Clancy's. It's on my mind because tomorrow is the restaurant's thirty-third birthday. It's an easy birthday to remember: St. Patrick's Day. I'm sure its regulars will keep the place quite full tomorrow, so I will celebrate today.
The opening of Clancy's was one of the most important moments in the Great Uptown Dining Evolution. Here was a restaurant with the culinary excellence of the major restaurants of the day, but in casual circumstances. Clancy's and its like (The Upperline, Gautreau's, Mr. B's, and Brigtsen's were among the long-term examples) would shortly change the way New Orleans people dined out.
I am not a frequent diner at Clancy's. The long list of new and much-changed restaurants I need to cover keeps me from showing up as often as I would like. And I would very much like. My first course explains why. It's an appetizer of veal sweetbreads with wild mushrooms and a creamy sauce. One bite and I am transferred to another era in dining, when French and French-trained chefs ruled, with creamy sauces with demi-glace and Cognac and other flavor heighteners in the mix. The food of the current era has taken us a long way from this, and I can't say we're in a better place. There certainly are no better versions of sweetbreads in any New Orleans restaurant.
[caption id="attachment_50991" align="alignleft" width="360"]
Clancy's Brad Hollingsworth.[/caption]
During my savoring that dish and thinking about it, several people visit my table. The waiter has taken care of me at many restaurants over the years, mainly at Commander's. We share stories of the Dick and Ella period over there. Now here is Brad Hollingsworth, the proprietor of Clancy's for most of its history. He was a waiter at Galatoire's, LeRuth's, and the Caribbean Room before that.
Next comes Frank Maselli, Jesuit classmate, 1968. He is attending a party upstairs, and so are a few other people I know.
Wine wholesaler Mark Hightower comes over. His wife has waited tables at Clancy's for decades. She visits, looking exactly as she did twenty or thirty years ago. You go to Clancy's as much for the socializing as for the food and service. Which is saying something.
[caption id="attachment_50988" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Crawfish chowder at Clancy's. [/caption]
My dinner continues into a bowl of crawfish chowder. They always have great soups at Clancy's. Then a fillet of pompano with a sauce of butter, orange juice, and a spicy sambal, with meaty shrimp and enormous brabant-style potato cubes strewn about. I am drinking a nice Sancerre with all of this.
[caption id="attachment_50987" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Pompano with an orange-butter sauce with a spicy sambal and big shrimp.[/caption]
I'm talking with the waiter again. I tell him that I'd come to Clancy's more often were it not for the parking issue. Annunciation Street in particular is lined on both sides by canyons. The waiter says that Henry Clay Avenue is the great secret. It's a block away, and has many accessible curbside spots. Indeed, that's where I did park today. Knowing that, maybe I'll make reservations and come more often. Just what Clancy's needs: more regulars.
My new car has satellite radio, a first for me. (My first VW--1960, blue, ragtop sunroof--made do with an AM radio as its only audio.) The new blue automobile lets me listen to an all-Frank Sinatra channel. The voice of Frank Sinatra Jr. comes on to welcome me to Seriously Sinatra. Later, I move to CNN for the news, and learn that Frank Sinatra Jr., on tour in Florida at 72 years old, died of sudden cardiac arrest tonight. I remember something his father told him, disapproving of his son's style as apathetic. "The audience is like a broad," said Big Frank. "If you're indifferent--Endsville!" The Chairman performed accordingly. You always felt he was singing directly at you.
