The Reinvention of Emeril's

A few months ago we had EJ Lagasse on the radio show. He is the very impressive son of Emeril Lagasse and is now running the kitchen at the flagship restaurant, Emeril’s. It is newly renovated visually and spiritually. 

Emeril’s is now offering a dining experience seen usually in cities much larger than New Orleans. It is a curated menu for well-heeled gourmets and adventurous diners, offered in two sizes: a 7-course Prix Fixe Seasonal tasting menu for $170 and a 7-course Prix Fixe Classics Tasting menu for $195, wine pairings additional.

The left side of the restaurant, which has always been sort of an interesting side area to the restaurant, is now The Wine Bar. As EJ described it on the show, the a la carte menu included things “he liked to eat,” rattling off an assortment of items very appealing to me, including one I didn’t expect to hear... fried rice.

It will surprise no one that I love fried rice, and I made a mental note to get over there as soon as possible to try some of the things he mentioned. A few months later we finally did make it to The Wine Bar, and we found a completely different list of offerings than expected. Here was all the same type of food as on the prix fixe side, without the commitment. This was not the place for me. I had a hard time deciding what to order, not because I wanted too much, but because I didn’t want anything.

Shrimp toast is kind of a hip thing now, so I ordered that. And I never met a pate I didn’t love, so we got that. There was an andouille sandwich with butter and cornichons that sounded appealing, so that was included in our order. Since we were in Tom’s wheelhouse I ordered accordingly for him, with tuna tartare and sweetbreads.

There will be no more shrimp toast for me unless it is in a Chinese restaurant. This is the second bastardization of the dish that bears no resemblance to what is understood to be shrimp toast. 

It took me a long time to warm to the idea of shrimp puree on a slice of toast coated in sesame seeds and deep-fried. Tom introduced me to the dish at the late great Peking in New Orleans East many years ago. I have had only one other good version, in Los Angeles. 

What I have had instead are several bad examples of the dish, which offered the extremely unpleasant experience of grease released into the mouth when you bite into it. The first time this happened, the shrimp toast came from a kitchen helmed by someone way more concerned with innovation and hipness circa 2023 than deliciousness. I was not expecting that sensation here. 

What I was also not expecting, but should have, was a dish that was a fresh take on the concept. Whenever this comes up on the show I say I have no problem with the innovation of a traditional dish if it is an improvement on the original. I very much object if it is just weird.

I can’t deny the beauty of what came to the table. A slice of Pain de Mie soaked in butter, covered in a lemon herb aioli, studded with morsels of chopped shrimp. Springs of cilantro and fresh dill, tiny circles of scallions, and dollops of salmon roe dotted the landscape. It was arresting with its pops of color.

To my taste, there can be too much of a good thing. I don’t care for very large shrimp. If a shrimp must be cut to eat, that’s too big. If a shrimp must be chopped, and even those pieces are too big, forget it. And the generous dollops of roe accounts for the $30 price I guess, but pretty as it was, all of this added up to bizarre.

As stated earlier, I love Paté. Chunky Paté is even better.  A Paté En Croute they called Hamhock Terrine, was a pretty mosaic of chunks of ham oddly sealed with a Foie gras gelatin, dotted with pistachios. The pastry crust was the best thing on this plate, which included a sweet apple mustard and the requisite baby pile of frisée in a light vinaigrette dressing. I didn’t finish this either, and that never happens.

Across the table, Tom was fairing better with his Tuna Toro Tartar. He ate his stack of raw tuna methodically, without the usual comments of delight when he is eating familiar gourmet food. Tom’s palate has not failed him, and he will routinely exclaim about something in his wheelhouse. The accompanying Nori just puzzled him.

He did recognize the sweetbreads in General Tso sauce, which came with a small dish of buttered rice.  After 35 years with Tom, I can’t say I am an expert on sweetbreads, but I have encountered them more than a few times. My memory of them is that they are usually served sliced and are buttery and tender. These were in chunks, and not especially tender. The sauce was good, and I’m sorry to say the buttered rice was my favorite thing on the table that night.

The other thing I ate, and finished, was the andouille beurre with cornichons. A buttered baguette with thin slices of grilled andouille came with a dish of Zapp’s regular potato chips. There wasn’t a proper ratio of andouille to bread here, since the bread was dense and chewy. A few slices of cornichon completed the sandwich. The andouille was not too spicy and grilled nicely, and the bread was warm and crusty. I liked this sandwich.

The last thing on the table was Emeri's signature Barbecue Shrimp. It was served with a little biscuit on a plate rather than in a bowl. I don't know if it was my general mood by this time or that they were also less than I remember, but they seemed less impressive than I remember.

The waiter asked if we wanted dessert and I passed. It seemed unlikely that we would be thrilled by what came to the table and we had already spent enough on food we didn’t like. And that hurts.

I’m not going to say the food is bad. The food is beautiful and made with high-quality ingredients by skilled chefs. The place is legendary, the renovation gorgeous, and the service sophisticated. More adventuresome gourmets who linger over craft cocktails and great wine will savor this experience. They can have my seat.