Saturday, September 18. Eiffel Society Grandly Opens. Food Easier At Mr. John's. A quiet Saturday, with most of the daylight hours spent loading data into the new website's information pool. No end in sight to that. The radio show was only an hour long--just long enough to build up an audience to let down.
Into town at six, first to write and record a trio of commercials at the studio. Then to a big party at the newly reopened Eiffel Society. It's in the unique structure built on St. Charles Avenue across from the Pontchartrain Hotel in 1985. Chef Daniel Bonnot and partners discovered that the restaurant which for years had been in the middle levels of the Eiffel Tower in Paris had to be removed for structural reasons, and that all the pieces were available. They brought it all to New Orleans, built a web-like superstructure, and inserted the surviving pieces of the original Eiffel Tower Restaurant into the matrix.
That Restaurant de la Tour Eiffel was a phenomenon, what with Bonnot's brilliant French cooking and the catchy story. But the financial structure wasn't solid, and the place went broke after a couple of years. As striking as the building was, it could not be seen by people driving by unless they made an effort. Other restaurants opened there over the years, but never for long. The best attempt was the Red Room, a supper club in the grand tradition, with great food, a live band, and dancing. The overhead brought it down.
I first heard about Eiffel Society a week ago, and the invitation to tonight's grand opening came just two days ago. I don't usually attend such things, and it takes something big to get me to drive across the lake on weekends. But this was intriguing. The chef is Ian Schnoebelen, co-owner of four-star Iris. He is named as Executive Chef here. What about Iris? And there was resonance: I attended the first grand opening of the Tour Eiffel twenty-five years ago.
A young man at the door looked for my name through pages of the guest list, and had trouble finding it. This was a bad sign. At least in restaurant circles, I'm usually admitted by my own recognizance. I moved into the crowd--I was right on time, but the place was already full. The guests were overwhelmingly on the young side, with a noticeably strong Asian component.
A four-man ensemble called The Eiffel Society Jazz Band was playing exactly the kind of music its name suggests. It was fronted by hot local vocalist Sasha Masakowski, slinky and glamorous and sounding great as she went through the jazz-standards catalog. If this is the kind of music Eiffel Society will feature, I'll be back. (If I can find someone to go with. Mary Ann hates music.)
The bar was fully stocked and wide open. A martini in a glass with the classic shape but without the stem was handed to me. I returned to circulation--literally, since most of the traffic patterns in this room are this space are in the round.
The art and the fixtures were too cool. Illuminated messages on the ceiling asked "Where are you" and answered "You are here." "What is art?" "This is art." Tables in a wide range of non-standard shapes were set as if for dinner. A few waiters walked about with hors d'oeuvres. I saw two kinds: oysters on the shells topped with some kind of bright orange stuff, and canapes with a visually unidentifiable topping that turned out to be grilled baby octopus. I had one of those and it was good. I never could seem to be in time for one of the oysters.
The dense population was stylishly dressed if casually so. Most of the women were young and beautiful, with dates who were also young and I guess handsome (if I had any idea what male handsomeness is about). I was single-handedly bringing the average age up by a few months.
It was a half hour before I saw the first familiar face. That was Fred Holley, who is in the wine business. He was working. So were a couple of other food-industry people near him. They didn't know any of these people, either.
I checked my invitation. It says this is a project of the LVX League. "Eiffel Society is the groundbreaking union of contemporary art, cuisine, and cordials." There is an organic garden on the premises for the kitchen to grow things. It all sounds good, and I hope they have better luck than their predecessors.
I got the hell out of there. I didn't know anybody and nobody knew me. If Mary Ann were in town and here with me, she would have been amused. And even hungrier than I was. She doesn't touch octopus.
I walked across the street to Mr. John's Steakhouse. Everybody knew me there. It was a rare opportunity to go off the irresistible steak side of their menu. (I've had too much beef lately.) They brought a small meatball with a thick, good red sauce for an amuse. Then she-crab soup--not something we see around here much. It's a lighter thing than the creamy crab-and-corn bisque that fills that niche in these parts. Although you can't really get crabs with roe (the whole point of a she-crab soup), this was crabby and good.
Now back to the underrated (including by me) Italian side of the menu for a little pasta course. Tortellini and shrimp in a light butter sauce. I could have eaten a big dish of this stuff. Finally, a small soft-shell crab atop a bed of fresh corn. It was an appetizer special tonight, but with all that had come before it finished the dinner nicely.
Almost. Mr. John's is proud of its tiramisu, and with good reason. They're so high on it that they've stenciled a fleur-de-lis on its top in cocoa powder.
Co-owner Desi Vega came by and sat down. It was one of those philosophy-of-restaurant-operation conversations I have less often now than in the days when I was always a single. Desi came up in all the right places--at Commander's Palace and then with Emeril. We talked about them, too. Agreed: they take a lot of shots because they're number one.
Then back across the street to pick up my car from Eiffel's valet. He parked it just a few feet forward of where I passed it off to him. It was the cheapest car in the queue then, too. I guess he must have recognized me. Or he didn't know how to drive a car with a stick shift.
Eiffel Society. Garden District: 2040 St. Charles Ave. 504-525-2951.
Mr. John’s Steakhouse. Garden District: 2111 St. Charles Ave. 504-679-7697.
