St. Louis. New Orleans

Not long ago I dropped into Francesca’s to get a muffuletta to make sure that the Katie’s/Francesca’s version of the classic New Orleans sandwich was nonpareil. Standing at the counter waiting for it to be toasted, I became intrigued by all the different sandwiches available here, as well as plate lunch specials and pizzas.

I have often declared Katie’s (and lately Francesca’s) fill-in-the-blank to be the definitive version of whatever… Cubano? Check. Muffuletta? Check. Hamburger? In the top 3. The same is true for the Club and the Roast beef, which are both excellent but not the very best out there.

Suffice it to say that Katie’s, and its baby sister Francesca’s, are delicious. They are different though. Francesca’s is a newbie, only open 5 years this year, and Katie’s has been around nearly 40 years. Francesca’s is like the quiet baby sister of Katie’s the party girl, with its parade of waiters carrying “the Barge” through the dining room like King Tut. “The Barge”  is a whole poor boy loaf stuffed to exploding, with whatever meats and dressings were ordered This fun little gambit is just one of the things that makes Katie’s such a happening place that a two-hour wait is not uncommon.

Francesca’s is part of a quiet Lakeview neighborhood. It looks like a little store, and it is indeed a little St. Louis-style market deli, Scot Craig has a crush on St. Louis, which started when he met and married his wife Stephanie a native of the midwestern gateway city. In his many visits there, he noticed the Italian influences were similar to what they are here but slightly different. He has incorporated those nuances and a lot of the native products of St. Louis into what he does in both restaurants.

Provel cheese, for example, a staple in St. Louis, turns up in a lot of dishes at both of the restaurants. Sodas and other products line the shelves in the front space. But the sandwiches, pizza, and specialties of the house are so good, who cares how he came up with these tastes? Just be grateful he did. 

On a recent visit, there was a lot of food on the table outside in the little al-Fresco cove created from parking places during COVID. Checkered tableclothed tables with sturdy metal chairs sit under lights and a white tent, making a charming little space for this very casual deli food.

Scot has often rhapsodized on the Boudreaux pizza, so I was glad someone had ordered it. A pizza with smoked chicken is usually off my pizza radar, so I’ve never tried it. Also on the table was a dish of boudin eggrolls, an Italian sausage and pepperoni pizza, half a muffuletta, a fried grouper sandwich, and a shrimp poor boy.

Three of us started on the eggrolls, Italian pizza, and the grouper sandwich. We loved these boudin eggrolls. There were three to an order, they were nicely sized, fried crispy, and greaseless. The boudin was more mushy than I usually like, but it was a good flavor. And I loved the dipping sauce. 

It was very hard to stop eating the Italian pizza. The sauce was thick and tomatoey, with that cooked-all-day flavor. But it was not sweet. The crust was thin and crispy but also chewy. I was surprised to see the Italian sausage as thickish slices rather than crumbles, but it was a good yet very mild taste. I usually like to taste the anise in Italian sausage, but it was absent here, eliminating complaints from the anise-averse crowd. 

The biggest surprise was the Grouper sandwich. It was a thin piece of fish fried nicely in all-corrnmeal with a couple of pickles and a coleslaw wilting under too much mayo. Tom enjoyed it nevertheless, because who doesn’t love fried grouper?

Another round of eating came with the arrival of the rest of the dining companions for the evening. It was then that we broke out the muffuletta, which simply cannot be rivaled. It was unanimously agreed by all participants that this was the definitive version of our beloved Italian sandwich. The perfect bread expertly made by hundred-year-old Gendusa’s bakery is toasted to a char, making the seeds toasty as well. The meats and cheeses are portioned deftly to complement the excellent bread. There is an optimal ratio of bread to meats, and the meats and olive salad are also excellent, though a mix of it is St. Louis provisions.

The Boudreaux pizza was very good, a definite crowd-pleaser. I just don’t think of smoked chicken pizza as pizza, but the flavors of cheese and purple onion and the smoked chicken were indeed a good combo.

It’s a pity the shrimp poor boy was consumed last because it had been sitting a while, and that didn’t do it justice at all. It was overstuffed with cornmeal-battered and golden-fried shrimp. They were not especially large, which everyone here actually preferred. The dressings exploded out the sides of this sandwich, and the Gendusa poor boy bread was pretty great.

We ended this lovely repast with a stack of chocolate chip/chunk cookies, freshly made hours before. They come in a container of three enormous cookies for $4.99. This is a deal and the right end for a delicious meal on a wonderful spring evening.