Friday, April 5, 2013.
Going Back In Culinary Time At The Little Gem Saloon.
The internet was out this morning. Looks like we've burned out another modem. All I can do about it is the best I could do--put out today's Menu Daily tomorrow. I finished all the writing and brought the data to the radio studio, thinking I could use its computer to get the issue out. No such luck. So many parts need to be assembled into the NOMenu Daily that it was inevitable I'd be missing quite a few of them.
The appeal of the two-month-old Little Gem Saloon overcame my usual reluctance to go to restaurants recently opened. I got curious when Chef Robert Bruce was on the air with me recently, and he and I reminisced about old Creole cooking, in particular that served at the long-extinct Maylie's. His step-grandfather was Willie Maylie, and Robert clearly has a soft spot for him and the ancient cooking he did at his 115-year-old restaurant.
Maylie's was across the street from the Little Gem, and Robert thought the proximity too good a force to ignore. His menu is riddled with old specialties from Maylie's and other restaurants of its era.
This fits in well with the Little Gem's own story. It fills one of the few remaining buildings where the early jazz greats worked out their revolutionary new music. South Rampart Street was cheek-by-jowl with music joints, many of dubious repute. Almost all of it was destroyed in the mid-1950s when both South Rampart and Dryades (now O'Keefe) Streets had all the buildings on one side bulldozed to widen the lanes. (Maylie's original dining room was one of the tear-downs.)
The Little Gem's structure survived, but sat there crumbling for decades. Then Dr. Nicholas Bazan bought it, performed a superb restoration, and installed--saints be praised!--a jazz club with a bar and restaurant.
In fact, there are two jazz clubs. The downstairs--where are found the tables for dining, and a large stand-up bar--has continuous live music from artists ranging from piano soloists to small combos. The club upstairs is clearly the venue for larger acts, with much more of a music-hall feeling. It kicks off later in the evening and, I gather, keeps going later, too.
I love music, but I came here hungry. My cover was blown immediately--Chef Robert happened to be on the sidewalk talking with some customers when I stepped up. Inside, Dr. Bazan--who was talking with well-known attorney Morris Bart--caught sight of me. (He had been on the radio with me recently, too.)
A lady who, I was told, had played for a long time at Pat O'Brien's was ticking the ivories and playing a mix of standards and more recent hits. She would be followed by a trio of two young men and one older one--a common configuration in jazz these days, what with the shortage of greats with a lot of years on them.
I began with a strong (their idea, not mine) Negroni. Then, on Chef Robert's suggestion, an oxtail soup--basically vegetable beef, with its Maylie's roots showing. Very nice. After a basic Caesar salad, I did away with a sirloin strip--not steakhouse thick, but grilled accurately. (This would be a good place to adopt my New Orleans-cut sirloin, in which you get thicker steaks by starting with a double-cut job then cutting it into two pieces with the approximately shape of a filet.) The steak was wet down with brown butter, which Robert likes. So do I.
Fresh-cut fries--a bit too thin, not crisp enough--were on the side. Bread pudding came last. A number of people I didn't know came to my table to say hello, and I did the same thing to some people I did know. That's what's supposed to happen in a place like this.
The place was filling up, but not so rapidly that they'd need my table. I could have stayed a long time, and would have, had I been with anyone else. Errol and Peggy LaBorde, that's who I'll call next time. Peggy likes to sing as much as I do, and maybe the combined forces of our minor celebrity would get that job done. And I need to reason with Errol anent his endless, boring complaints about the loss of four days of the Times-Picayune.
I hope the Little Gem is here permanently. It fills a cultural niche that is primed for revival.
Little Gem Saloon. CBD: 445 S Rampart St. 504-267-4863.
