Tuesday, November 27, 2012.
The Best Hash Browns. La Louisiane Returns.
The final movement of the abortive breakfast attempts of the past two days left a good taste in our mouths--literally. Mary Ann had plans for the surplus potatoes that didn't get mashed for Thanksgiving dinner. But even though the cooked spuds were approaching the end of their useful lives, she couldn't bear to throw them away. They became hash browns.
Mary Ann's hash brown potatoes are a) the best dish she cooks and 2) the best version of that dish I've ever had. It grows from her habit of turning heat up too much and walking away, returning when she smells something burning. In this recipe, she grates the semi-baked potatoes directly into a pan over a high heat with a bit of butter in it. She snips green onions into the pan between potatoes. She walks off, smells the smoke, then returned to turn the pan contents. Next time they burn, she slides them out of the pan onto a plate. Magnificent! Really!
We were invited to attend a preview of the reborn La Louisiane. At various times in its long history, which goes back to the 1870s or thereabouts, La Louisiane was one of the most celebrated of New Orleans restaurants. Antoine Alciatore of Antoine's and his family were involved at the beginning, giving it a French tone that lasted until Diamond Jim Moran made it a lively place in the 1940s. His son Jimmy had a more sophisticated tone, and better standards of food and service. He left La Louisiane to open Moran's Riverside (which became Bella Luna and now Galvez). The Marcello family did its usual fine Creole-Italian coking for a time with the food of Elmwood Plantation downtown.
But after that things got spotty, with good food alternating with mediocre grub and with complete closings. The most recent operation was a very uninteresting Brazilian all-you-can-eat steakhouse.
Now the owners of the New Orleans Hotel Collection--a group of small-to-medium hotels with more charm than most--has bought La Louisiane along with the former St. Louis Hotel (now called Hotel Mazarin), and they have big plans. The St. Louis--a marvelous property that opens mostly onto Bienville Street but stretches all the way to Iberville, with a large courtyard in the middle--had fallen in grace and was offering lowball room rates. The new owners renovated it into a classy hostelry again. And in a location like that, why wouldn't it be?
I dined at La Louisiane dozens of times and thought I could remember the layout. It is much changed, although after awhile I figured it out. The look is much more rustic than it had been. And where are the Baccarat crystal chandeliers the restaurant once boasted? Nobody knew.
La Louisiane, unfortunately, will not operate as an a la carte restaurant. That's a shame in one way. Its chef is Agnes Bellet, whose association with this property stretches all the way back to the well-remembered Louis XVI French Restaurant. Agnes is still officially the chef of that famed dining room, but breakfast is the only meal it serves anymore. That she has not forgotten her French roots or anything else about fine cuisine was clear from the hors d'oeuvres that were being passed around.
But for those having a wedding or a business meeting, here is another good place to have it. The bar was open and a retro band assembled by an outfit called NOLA Talent demonstrated this as well as Chef Agnes had with her food.
