Thursday, October 11, 2012.
A New Look At Johnny V's.
Mary Ann agreed to go on a date with me, and she had an idea for the venue: Johnny V's. It's still too new for review, and seems to be struggling to establish its identity. That's never easy, but complicating the matter here is that the key management people were longtime figures at Clancy's, the solid Creole-French bistro four blocks away. Whether it's said or not, a dining experience something like Clancy's is what most customers expect to find at Johnny V's.
The first chef emphatically did not deliver that. His menu was highly original. Too original, I'd say--with or without Clancy's in the background. Result: empty dining rooms.
I was very pleased to hear the identity of his replacement. It's chef Armand Jonte, a journeyman haute Creole chef who, after the required stint at Commander's Palace, became the first dinner chef at Gautreau's. Gautreau's and Clancy's came from the same condensing cloud that formed the nouvelle-Creole bistro boom in 1982.
Chef Armand's cooking, then, will register as kind of like Clancy's. Not because it is--Armand has cooked the same repertoire and style for decades, and it belongs to him--but because he's a product of the same culinary culture. He's a brilliant choice for chef at Johnny V's because of that.
We started off with Armand's signature dish, one that goes all the way back to his Gautreau's days. Eggplant Eloise is a raft of panneed eggplant topped with crabmeat and shrimp in a creamy sauce. Sounds routine now, but in its day it was an original dish that made Armand's reputation. And it was delicious tonight.
Nice soup (shrimp bisque) and a salad with at least a dozen vegetables made up the next course. Then drumfish with crabmeat and brown meuniere sauce (below)--Mary Ann's favorite dish, and a classic plate from the gourmet Creole bistro menu. The fillet was enormous--a bit too large, resulting in too much meatiness, said Mary Ann, who is picky. The couple of bites I had seemed good enough to me.
On my side of the table was a new-to-me dish called veal Carmen. Veal leg, sliced and cooked with a braised quality. The veal was layered above mushrooms in a light, winy demi-glace, with slices of tomato and an herbal bearnaise all over. The veal bank was backed up with asparagus, potatoes, squash, red cabbage--really too much stuff. Probably a reflex left over from the days when Chef Armand had a restaurant in Waveland, where people demand overflowing plates.
Finished with a very good (and large) slice of bread pudding. Like everything else tonight, it had many garnishes. And got into a conversation with the eponymous Johnny Vodanovich, who told me something I should have wondered about but never have: that he's related to Chris "Bozo" Vodanovich, the longtime owner of Bozo's Seafood Restaurant in Metairie.
Johnny V's (the rest of its name is "Grille Under The Hill," a reference to the Monkey Hill Bar next door, owned by the same people) is still in its early stages. It clearly needs to do something to fill the dining room, which was sparse tonight. I don't think this is a mysterious proposition: the restaurant needs a visible, distinctive outdoor sign. Even if you're looking for it, you might drive right past it. That has hamstrung better restaurant than this one. Vizard's, for example.
The vice-presidential debate was on. There was no way Mary Ann and I would engage in that, but we did step into a private room where a half-dozen people were dining and watching the action. One of them was Dr. Siddharth Bhansali, a heart doctor with whom I had lunch at the Sazerac in about 1978. Although I haven't encountered him since, he remembered me, and I him. What stuck in my mind back then was that he drank a Coke with the rather fancy lunch. And that's exactly what he was drinking tonight. I hear that he's a good cook.
Johnny V's Grille Under The Hill. Uptown: 6106 Magazine St . 504-899-4880.
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