Hotel restaurants go in and out of vogue, and this is not an especially good time for them. Tastes in restaurants these days are in the very casual direction, while the strengths of hotel eateries focuses on atmosphere and service. Too often, corporate hotel management has no good idea of what New Orleans eating is about. The greatest hotel successes have come from partnerships between hotel operators and well-known local chefs. (The Brennans and John Besh have led the field in that regard.) When that chemistry is right, we get some very tasty and beautiful places to dine.
1. 
R'evolution. French Quarter: 777 Bienville (Royal Sonesta Hotel). 504-553-2277. One of very few fine-dining restaurants to open in recent years, R'Evolution's premises are spectacular and the food is impressive. The menu doesn't quite fit together, and the lack of tablecloths in this expensive dining parlor is curious. Still, you can't help but leave the place happy.
2. 
Lüke. CBD: 333 St Charles Ave (Hilton Hotel). 504-378-2840. The most successful of John Besh's properties (enough so that they opened another location in San Antonio), Luke calls itself an Alsatian-French bistro. This is credible, but so too are the downtown-style daily specials, the raw bar, and the belt-driven ceiling fans and tile floors.
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R'Evolution dining room.[/caption]
3. Criollo. French Quarter: 214 Royal (Monteleone Hotel). 504-523-3341. Dining at the Monteleone Hotel was dreary for decades. A few years ago the management completely rebuilt the Iberville@Royal corner, adding big windows and handsome, comfortable furnishings. The menu manages to be both traditional and adventuresome in its decidedly Creole tastes, with striking presentations.
4. Borgne. CBD: 601 Loyola Ave (Hyatt Regency Hotel). 504-613-3860. Chef John Besh has hit nothing but home runs in his partnerships with hotels. There's no better example of this than Borgne, whose mostly-seafood menu covers a wider spectrum of Southeast Louisiana cooking than any other hotel bistro.
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Rotisserie at the Rib Room, with a table set for 20.[/caption]
5. Drago's. CBD: 2 Poydras (Hilton Riverside Hotel). 504-584-3911. The most successful Hilton Hotel restaurant in the world (yes!), this is an exact copy of Drago's in Metairie. Oysters are at the center of the menu, of course: big, beautiful bivbalves on the half shell, or the famous, original char-broiled jobs. The entire range of local seafood is here, from gumbo to fried platters to grilled fish. And it's one of the very few New Orleans restaurants with credible lobsters worth going to for lobster.
6. Compere Lapin. CBD: 535 Tchoupitoulas (Old #77 Hotel). 504-599-2119. Chef Nina Compton hails from the Caribbean islands, growing up in Santa Lucia. But her menu blends American Southern, Creole, and Cajun flavors, as well as those of the islands. The specials should be explored first.
7. Cafe Adelaide. CBD: 300 Poydras St (Loews Hotel). 504-595-3305. One of the first restaurants to take bartending seriously, Cafe Adelaide begs you to have a cocktail, then investigate an abbreviated list of local eats. The branch of the Brennan family that owns Commander's Palace is here, and the influence is clear.
8. Trenasse. CBD: 444 St Charles Ave (Hotel Inter-Continental). 504-680-7000. A spinoff of a funky, wildly successful Gulf Coast seafood eatery, Trenasse comes across as a standard hotel cafe. In fact, it can stand up to the fare offered by even the best local seafood houses, with five or six species of fresh local finfish every day and a stridently excellent oyster bar (for raw and cooked oysters.
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Trenasse.[/caption]
9. Domenica. CBD: 123 Baronne (Roosevelt Hotel). 504-648-6020. Leading the New Orleans pizza revolution when it opened in 2009 with a big wood-burning oven from Naples, this is a perennial crowded hangout with a short but impressive selection of pizza, Italian dishes, and house-cured salumi. It's another John Besh place, in partnership with Chef Alon Shaya.
10. Rib Room. French Quarter: 621 St Louis St (Omni Royal Orleans Hotel). 504-529-7045. For most of the last fifty years, the Rib Room has been one of the top two or three hotel restaurants in New Orleans. After a long period of uninspired mangement and chefs, it's now in the hands of Chef Tom Wolfe. Too soon to say whether he will return the place to its glory days when locals filled the dining room at lunch daily. But we're hoping. The famous prime rib is the least interesting part of the menu.
11. The Grill Room. CBD: 300 Gravier (Windsor Court Hotel). 504-522-1994. The best part of the Grill Room these days is the meat-and-three lunch offering, which is brining many locals back to the beautiful dining rooms. The dinner menu needs further development. But it's atmospherically hard to beat on a special evening. Live music of high quality most nights.
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Dining room at the Bourbon House.[/caption]
12. Bourbon House. French Quarter: 144 Bourbon (Astor Hotel). 504-522-0111. The Bourbon House is not obviously allied with the Astor Hotel, but it is. Operated by the Dickie Brennan wings of the Brennans, the Bourbon House is the seafood balance to Dickie's steak house up the block. When it good, (and it usually is), the food is reminiscent of what COmmander's Palace served in the 1980s. Which is a good thing.
Written by Tom Fitzmorris May 13, 2016 11:59 in
