Tom always said that hotel restaurants are largely ignorable, but there are certainly exceptions to that rule. Borgne at the Hyatt CBD was a very good restaurant until Chef Brian Landry left the Besh group (and New Orleans) to pursue his own path. The restaurant closed in the COVID whirlwind and sat idle until recently.
The new tenant in the space that is accessible from Loyola is Rizzuto’s Prime, the new iteration of steaks and Italian food from the Rizzuto brothers. These guys first turned up on our radar on Magazine St., with a pizza place called Amici that was red. That’s what I recall most about it. I also loved the food and most everything else about it. The wood-fired oven turned out great pizzas and forno dishes and it surprised me when it closed. In a weird reversal, the Besh group filled this space with their odd and short-lived concept Warbucks, but I digress.
The Rizzuto brothers moved into the old Tony Angello’s when that space became available, opening a sumptuous and delicious place called Rizzuto’s Ristorante & Chop House. This is an unbelievably delicious (and expensive) place that upset the Tony Angello’s devotees, who were left homeless until Nephews kept it all going out in Metairie. (The status of that one is murky as of last December.)
Rizzuto’s opened a more casual place on the Westbank a few years ago, and now Rizzuto’s Prime opened as a third outpost around Superbowl, and I had lunch there recently. It was surprising to me that almost nothing was done to the space, which is unmistakably a seafood restaurant space. The unique oyster shell posts are still there, as are the benches for waiting and the bar with its distinctive tile backdrop. The only thing different is some cool lighting that meanders overhead in spots.
The menu at Rizzuto’s is difficult to peruse, because everything on it sounds so good, (and it is,) that you want it all. The same is true here, in a smaller version. I was grateful for that but happier still when our waiter with the gigantic man bun presented us with a lunch specials insert.
These specials are a steal. Large portions of fantastic food for $17 - $26. The place should have been packed, though I’m not sure its existence is known. My companion works across the street and he was unaware until I told him.
We didn’t have a large leisurely lunch, getting only two entrees from the specials menu. He had the Veal Parmesan, and I got the more expensive entree (maybe the most expensive on the list) at $26. Mine was a Spinalis burger and it caused us a long delay. I started to wonder if they were not only forming it to order, but grinding it to order.
The manager came out after our extended wait to explain that they were hand-forming the patty and that was the hold-up. I can hand form a burger patty in a few minutes, so perhaps they were grinding it that fresh?
It was a pretty great burger. Clearly hand-formed, it was a normal-sized burger, not a smashed patty, grilled, with melted cheese and thin housemade pickles. Lettuce and tomato and onion were also there, making it a classic. Juices dripped from the side. The meat was ground well but not too thin, and the flavor was outstanding. The accompanying potatoes were not especially good. I don't want to see anything but fries with a hamburger, and if they were housecutting cubes I wondered why they weren’t just doing fries. Peculiar.
My companion had Veal Parmesan that was under a thick blanket of sauce. It was nicely breaded and pretty large. The mound of cheese and red sauce obscured angel hair pasta. This looked fine but not special and if he was excited about it he didn’t show it.
But we were there to do business, as were all the other people in there, and by that I mean two tables. This place should be full of suits. This is a financial area and a legal area, and there are a lot of people needing to do business.
I guess because we waited so long for the burger, the waiter offered us dessert. It was, …well, I'm not sure what it was. A sandwich of chocolate cake with some berries and cream, and a dusting of cocoa powder, This didn’t interest either of us.
A week or two later I went back and this time I ordered ravioli which is sort of a du jour thing, and by process of elimination I chose the the Alfredo with shrimp as an entree. The menu at Rizzuto’s is very large and I have had a lot of it and written about it, so for this location I was interested in what was new, and the lunch special menu was new…to me, at least. It is also a deal, and I love to report on deals. I love them, and other people do too.
But the specials menu was largely pasta, and the Alfredo won by default. I'm not usually a fan of grilled shrimp, especially large ones.
I was surprised to find both dishes arrive at the same time. This used to be maybe the one thing that really annoyed Tom, but I almost never see it these days. He would say, “Which of these should I let get cold?” And it is a valid question, however awkward for the table.
I had a few bites of the ravioli, which was an odd preparation. There were two round ravioli in a Rosa sauce with corn kernels atop the mix. Inside was a lobster sort of mousse. It was fine but underwhelming for its “premium” ingredients. The dish was tasty, and the pasta cooked just fine, but something as delicate as lobster is eclipsed by a sauce like this.
The housemade linguine pasta in the Alfredo was sticky and clumped by the time I got to it. This dish resonated as a zero. Colossally uninteresting.
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I find the kitchen slow, and the service slow, and the food just ordinary. The place is huge and empty, which could be because they are newly-opened and no one knows of it. But there is such potential here with the neighboring building full of people doing business this could be a hot lunch spot for them. No other steakhouse nearby is open for lunch. It seems a pity, especially since the original Rizzuto’s is so good. I hope it’s just a case of opening jitters.
