Friday, May 31, 2013.
Red Gravy Cafe Rules.
To dinner at Red Gravy, a five-block walk from the radio station, and next door to Le Foret. The latter restaurant's waiters were standing on the sidewalk, waiting for something to happen. They waved me inside, where Danny Millan invited me to have a drink with his everlasting ear-to-ear smile. A year ago I would have accepted happily, but I have come to the conclusion that I can no longer drink cocktails or even wine beyond the normal amount served at a dinner without feeling repercussions.
This was my first visit to Red Gravy, a little restaurant on Camp Street in a building whose previous occupant nobody seems to remember. I don't, and I worked within a block of here twice, for several years both times. Was it a shoe repair shop? Or was this Joe Gemelli's old place?
The Red Gravy opened here not long after the hurricane, when Roseann Melisi Rostoker came here to help fix one of her favorite cities. She's a native of New Jersey, one of many other places where the expression "red gravy" is immediately understood. A certain segment of the local crowd took a liking to the place, and it was a phenom for awhile. I get calls and emails about it, all with reports of excellent food.
The Red Gravy Café is the kind of place a lot of people fall in love with. The long, narrow room is colorfully and quaintly decorated, though not in an antique style. It was fairly busy this night.
The menu wasn't what I expected from a restaurant with a name like "Red Gravy." It was more complex and hip than it was homestyle. You could get spaghetti and meatballs or lasagna, but most of the menu is along contemporary American lines.
I started with a glass of Livio Felluga Pinot Grigio. That's a winery in Friuli whose wines we rarely see around New Orleans. I visited the winery in 1988 with a bunch of Italian restaurateurs. A row of olive trees next to the winery had just been planted. In our honor, the Felluga family named each tree for one of their visiting Americans, including me. I wonder if my plaque is still there, and how big the tree is now.
After a bruschetta (that's "brooss-KET-tah") that was nearly impossible to get to my lips without its falling back to the table, I had an original appetizer that brings together an oval of panneed eggplant with miniaturized insalata Caprese. Grape tomatoes with coins of fresh mozzarella about the same size topped the eggplant, for a warm-cool contrast.
My entree would be the beef cheeks with marsala sauce. After I made that clear--that I would order an entree--I asked for a small order of the ravioli of the day. It sounded good, stuffed with cheese, sauced along the lines of a carbonara. "I'll have to ask the chef," said the server.
The chef said no. Why not? I asked her later. "What would I do with the other half of the order?" she asked.
"Sell it to someone else who likes pasta the way they do it in Italy, as a preliminary course," I said. She said she'd have to eat it. Well, isn't that what she was asking me to do? I told the server to just bring me the whole portion, and I'd eat what I wanted of it.
The ravioli was very good, with a scattering of guanciale in the light cream sauce. But it created a desire for bread. I asked the server for that. "I'll have to ask the chef," she said.
Pause. Eat another raviolo while waiting.
"The chef said that bread is only served with the entree," the server replied. I began to try to think of another restaurant (other than in chain restaurants, which are often disagreeable about serving bread at all) where this policy was in force. But I was sidetracked by another thought: I have an entree of ravioli here. But I didn't bring it up, lest this turn into an argument. Without having to have that imbroglio, the kitchen--seeing the half-plate of ravioli that went into the trash--moderated unilaterally and charged me an appetizer price for it.
The beef cheeks came out in a much-reduced sauce, and were melt-in-the-mouth tender and good. The two pieces of rather hard bread were a contrasting element.
Then a pretty bread pudding. I will come here with the Marys, who I think will like it.
With one glass of wine and my usual tip, this dinner was $103. It was worth it, I guess, even with the unexpected house rules. But the idea of a hundred dollars per person in a place called Red Gravy is still settling in my mind.
On the way back to the station, I peeked in at Le Foret. The main dining room was full. Mary Ann will be pleased to hear that. She loves Danny and his restaurant.
Red Gravy Cafe. CBD: 125 Camp St. 504-561-8844.
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