Iris To Close In Mid-May.
Here's some disappointing but understandable news: "After a long, hard deliberation, Ian and I have decided to close Iris after eight and a half years. We have been doing okay, but need a little more time to enjoy our lives. We believe having one job and one restaurant--Mariza--will afford us that. Our last night will be May 24th." The message is from Ian Schnoebelen and Laurie Casebonne, the married -to-one-another owners of Iris. The highly creative bistro opened after the hurricane in Riverbend, in the building where Boucherie is now. They made a drastic move to the French Quarter in 2009, taking over the restaurant in the Bienville House Hotel. The location looks good, but it has hosted at least six restaurants over the years, most of them very good (as Iris was), none of them long-term. A lack of easy parking and a great increase in new French Quarter eateries are my guesses as to what brought Iris to its end. Ian and Laurie opened Mariza in 2013 in the Bywater. In its oddly solid old rice warehouse there, it immediately became a cult success with mostly Italian food. It's much more casual than Iris, a fine-dining establishment in a time when that category is woefully in decline.Iris
French Quarter: 321 North Peters . 504-299-3944. www.irisneworleans.com/.
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