[title type="h5"]
Wednesday, July 8, 2015.
Andrea's.[/title]
It has not been a secret that I have been unhappy with my dinners at Andrea's during the last five or six years. Our Eat Club dinners there during that time suffered an assortment of problems--some of them outrageous--that could only be ignored by Andrea Apuzzo's most ardent friends, of which he has many. Personality has always been his strong suit. And dinners in which it was just me or my family have been no better. I remember ruefully one particular lunch I had with the chef himself at the table, and in which every course had a major flaw.
Another of the chef's virtues is that he listens to his customers and acts on what they say, no matter how bad the advice. It is this reflex that caused the transformation of what was once the best Italian restaurant in town, true to the flavors of the homeland, into another hybrid of Italian and Creole cooking. Seafood gumbo? Turtle soup? Shrimp-and-crabmeat risotto? Stuffed eggplant? What is any of this doing here?
About a year ago Chef Andrea took to heart some things I told him in a meeting. He hired Christian Rossit, a very good Venice (Italy) chef, and installed him as chef de cuisine. This meant that the whole kitchen didn't hinge on Andrea, leaving him free to visit all his friends in the dining room.
Since then, we held an Eat Club dinner than went pretty well. But it has been a very long time since I last was back for an a la carte dinner, even though I've had the feeling that it's time for me to do so. I've mentioned it to Mary Ann and Mary Leigh, but until today I got no interest from them.
But Mary Ann is on the South Shore and dressed up today. I ask her if she'd be interested in an Andrea's dinner. She hesitated, and agreed.
Except for a private party going on in one of Andrea's several dining rooms, it is not a busy day. That's typical of the weeks surrounding the Fourth Of July, the beginning of the slack volume months in the New Orleans restaurant community. We had a room to ourselves--the one adjacent to what used to be the restaurant's tiny bar. (There's a much bigger bar off the entrance now, one that seems always to be busy.)
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Pizza at Andrea's.[/caption]
The reason we are here is that Andrea's wanted to show off his stone, wood-burning pizza oven, and his similarly fired rotisserie grill. He talked about getting these two appurtenances for years, and now he has them.
The pizza oven is a particularly good addition. One of Andrea's best recipes is his pizza sauce, which is unusual in being uncooked until it's actually on the crust in the very hot oven. This lends a fresh taste so appealing that I have long used the recipe myself at home. It's basically canned San Marzano tomatoes and a good deal of the juice, garlic, parsley, fresh basil, olive oil, and crushed red pepper. all blended into a sloshy liquid. It's very juicy and very different from the ketchup-like texture and taste of cooked pizza sauce.
The pizza Andrea's bakes for us tonight is along the lines of the pizza Margherita, but with some house-made Italian sausage. It is a widespread error among chefs that making a food item in their own kitchens makes it automatically better than the same item bought from a an artisan who makes it as his main employment. It's certainly not true of this sausage. But there isn't enough of it to mess up the pizza, which is as good as I remember, the crust charred here and there (a good thing) and the sauce perky and fresh-tasting.
Mary Ann is already angry with me for subjecting her to this. She is trying to lose some weight, and starting a big dinner with two slices of pizza makes lightness impossible. Before that came, we had some of Andrea's great bruschetta, topped with ripe, cool tomatoes coated with olive oil, a little garlic, a little grated Romano. It's the best Bruschetta around since Carmelo Chirico left the business last year. But not a diet item, either.
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Cioppino.[/caption]
Really, we are already full. But I have a motivation for coming here other than the obvious ones. I am working up a dozen-best list of bouillabaisse around town. I find that there are not enough restaurants making that dish to make a top five, let alone twelve. So I will include cioppino, the Italian answer to bouillabaisse. It's essentially the same thing, but with pasta.
I know at the very least that Andrea's cioppino will include a great deal of very fine mussels, scallops, calamari, fish, shrimp, crabmeat, and maybe even lobster. I am not disappointed. There's nothing left to be desired among the ingredients. The broth is very subtle in its flavors, and needs a bit more in the way of savory vegetables (fennel and tomatoes would have been nice). And pepper--a lack easily fixed at the table. There is too much pasta in there, and it's linguine--my least-favorite pasta shape. (Why do so many restaurants serve that oval-cross-section pasta? Almost anything else would be better in almost every dish. All it does is add starch.)
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Espresso martini.[/caption]These are minor complaints, and I am relieved that Andrea's cioppino is not only well made, but good enough to make my top twelve. Which now does include twelve venues for me to write about.
Mary Ann has her favorite of Andrea's fish entrees, the grilled fish (from the wood-burning oven) with his salsetta alla minuta. This is a very light sauce made of stock, wine, herbs, a little red pepper, onions, and a few other touches. Like the pizza sauce, it is not cooked to the degree most such concoctions would be. As soon as it comes to simmer, it leaves the heat, and poured around the fish. Not only is this good, but it's one of Andrea's most reliable and original dishes.
At the end, I am offered a new cocktail: an espresso martini. It is a bit creamy, with a touch of sweetness from a chocolate liqueur. Vodka makes up the adult statement. It is much better than it sounds, and something I'm sure I will have again.
And I think there will be a next time. There has been some healing here.
[title type="h5"]Andrea's. Metairie: 3100 19th St. 504-834-8583. [/title]
