Friday, September 12, 2015.
Dominique Rises Again.
Some chefs don't stay in one place very long, particularly if they came from the European tradition, in which constant roaming from kitchen to kitchen is typical. Let's see if I can accurately chronicle the New Orleans career of Dominique Macquet. The first I heard of him, back in the late 1980s or early 1990s, was as the third or fourth chef at the Bistro at the Maison de Ville. Next he turned up under his own name in the restaurant of the Maison Dupuy Hotel. He was there quite a few years, and during that time he developed a unique tropical style. In those years, he was the ceviche king of New Orleans. (He was born on the French island of Mauritius.)
[caption id="attachment_48858" align="alignleft" width="320"]
Chef Dominique Macquet at Saveur, carving his new beef shank. As always, he seems just to have returned from a visit to the Fountain of Youth.[/caption]
A change in management put Dominique briefly on the street, but then he turned up at La Crepe Nanou, then at Martinique. That was followed by a long waiting period while a restaurant that would carry his name was built. (This did not keep him from appearing in a number of restaurants as a guest chef, nor at events like the New Orleans Wine & Food Experience. Finally Dominique's opened in a cool space on Magazine Street, but that didn't go long-term. (The place is now Apolline.) Next he and his name graced another, even cooler space on Magazine Street that has since become Shaya. Not long after Dominique left there, he moved into the former Baie Rouge, across the street from Shaya. The owners entered some kind of deal that changed the name to Saveur and changed the menu to Cuisine Dominique.
That's where things stood when my friend and dermatologist Dr. Bob invited me to join him and his fiancee Julie for dinner at Saveur. Maybe he heard that I am home alone these days, maybe not. But I was glad to get the invitation.
Dr. Bob and I ate a couple of times at Baie Rouge about a year ago, and he was intrigued by what was going on there now. The big news is that Dominique's menu includes a $75 beef shank. This is osso bucco all grown up, and not on steroids. It's more than twice the size, with all the meat collected at the bottom of a bone the size of a Little League baseball bat. Indeed, you could probably kill somebody by swinging this thing around. It requires a full twenty-four hour day of braising. Before it's served, it's returned to the braising liquid to warm it through.
This is enough meat for at least three people. It is well known that most diners--even those who are members of the same nuclear family--are unlikely to split large roasts of red meat in a restaurant. That's why we see so few restaurants serving dishes like beef Wellington, Chateaubriand, racks of lamb, porterhouse steaks, or veal shanks in the style Chef Willy Coln used to cook. It's hard enough to get the members of a dining team to agree about which sides to get, let along three or four people agreeing to eat meat from a mutual bone.
[caption id="attachment_48856" align="alignleft" width="480"]
Venison sirloin at Saveur.[/caption]
Still, if anybody can create a phenomenon about this, Dominique will. He brought the baseball bone to the table and sliced off a modest steak's worth for each of us. It had the look of a round steak, but was much tenderer and with a big, big flavor--perfect for the expansively flavored wines Dr. Bob brought from his collection. Imagine a steak cooked at a low temperature in beef stock, with the gelatin from the bone adding mouthfeel. It's the kind of thing Dominique could become famous for.
[caption id="attachment_48859" align="alignleft" width="480"]
Red snapper crudo at Dominique.[/caption]
He still has a knack for sashimi, crudo, and ceviche. The three of us split an order of red snapper that also had spent some time in a marinade. Wonderful. An order of marinated fresh beets and arugula came pursuant to my order, but once again I find that far fewer people than I thought have a taste for beets. I wind up eating all of it. My entree is a ribeye of venison, sent out with a crepinette of elk. A lot of red meat on this menu, we all thought.
[caption id="attachment_48857" align="alignleft" width="480"]
Red snapper with Israeli couscous.[/caption]
Julie found one of the seafood dishes for her entree: sauteed red snapper. (Dominique brought the entire red snapper to the table, to make the point that it really is fresh red snapper. Dr. Bob was also eating seafood, but it slipped my notice.
I don't know when, how, or why this got started, but I have been answering the offer of dessert in restaurants lately by asking for a single scoop of ice cream. Nearly all restaurants have this--even Asian restaurants, as notorious as they are for not having much in the way of sweet endings. The waiter or sometimes even the chef will offer to add chocolate syrup or whipped cream or berries, but all I want is the ice cream. It's not low in calories or fat, but it is simple, good, and smaller than the desserts in most restaurants these days. Dominique had a dulce de leche ice cream, and that worked perfectly for me, even though he insisted on giving me two scoops.
Saveur. Uptown: 4128 Magazine. 504-304-3667.
Chef Dominique Macquet at Saveur, carving his new beef shank. As always, he seems just to have returned from a visit to the Fountain of Youth.[/caption]
A change in management put Dominique briefly on the street, but then he turned up at La Crepe Nanou, then at Martinique. That was followed by a long waiting period while a restaurant that would carry his name was built. (This did not keep him from appearing in a number of restaurants as a guest chef, nor at events like the New Orleans Wine & Food Experience. Finally Dominique's opened in a cool space on Magazine Street, but that didn't go long-term. (The place is now Apolline.) Next he and his name graced another, even cooler space on Magazine Street that has since become Shaya. Not long after Dominique left there, he moved into the former Baie Rouge, across the street from Shaya. The owners entered some kind of deal that changed the name to Saveur and changed the menu to Cuisine Dominique.
That's where things stood when my friend and dermatologist Dr. Bob invited me to join him and his fiancee Julie for dinner at Saveur. Maybe he heard that I am home alone these days, maybe not. But I was glad to get the invitation.
Dr. Bob and I ate a couple of times at Baie Rouge about a year ago, and he was intrigued by what was going on there now. The big news is that Dominique's menu includes a $75 beef shank. This is osso bucco all grown up, and not on steroids. It's more than twice the size, with all the meat collected at the bottom of a bone the size of a Little League baseball bat. Indeed, you could probably kill somebody by swinging this thing around. It requires a full twenty-four hour day of braising. Before it's served, it's returned to the braising liquid to warm it through.
This is enough meat for at least three people. It is well known that most diners--even those who are members of the same nuclear family--are unlikely to split large roasts of red meat in a restaurant. That's why we see so few restaurants serving dishes like beef Wellington, Chateaubriand, racks of lamb, porterhouse steaks, or veal shanks in the style Chef Willy Coln used to cook. It's hard enough to get the members of a dining team to agree about which sides to get, let along three or four people agreeing to eat meat from a mutual bone.
[caption id="attachment_48856" align="alignleft" width="480"]
Venison sirloin at Saveur.[/caption]
Still, if anybody can create a phenomenon about this, Dominique will. He brought the baseball bone to the table and sliced off a modest steak's worth for each of us. It had the look of a round steak, but was much tenderer and with a big, big flavor--perfect for the expansively flavored wines Dr. Bob brought from his collection. Imagine a steak cooked at a low temperature in beef stock, with the gelatin from the bone adding mouthfeel. It's the kind of thing Dominique could become famous for.
[caption id="attachment_48859" align="alignleft" width="480"]
Red snapper crudo at Dominique.[/caption]
He still has a knack for sashimi, crudo, and ceviche. The three of us split an order of red snapper that also had spent some time in a marinade. Wonderful. An order of marinated fresh beets and arugula came pursuant to my order, but once again I find that far fewer people than I thought have a taste for beets. I wind up eating all of it. My entree is a ribeye of venison, sent out with a crepinette of elk. A lot of red meat on this menu, we all thought.
[caption id="attachment_48857" align="alignleft" width="480"]
Red snapper with Israeli couscous.[/caption]
Julie found one of the seafood dishes for her entree: sauteed red snapper. (Dominique brought the entire red snapper to the table, to make the point that it really is fresh red snapper. Dr. Bob was also eating seafood, but it slipped my notice.
I don't know when, how, or why this got started, but I have been answering the offer of dessert in restaurants lately by asking for a single scoop of ice cream. Nearly all restaurants have this--even Asian restaurants, as notorious as they are for not having much in the way of sweet endings. The waiter or sometimes even the chef will offer to add chocolate syrup or whipped cream or berries, but all I want is the ice cream. It's not low in calories or fat, but it is simple, good, and smaller than the desserts in most restaurants these days. Dominique had a dulce de leche ice cream, and that worked perfectly for me, even though he insisted on giving me two scoops.
