Wednesday, February 9, 2011.
Dominique's. About Richard Collin.
Sic transit gloria mundi! Richard Collin was one of the five or so most important people in the history of the New Orleans business, but his memory is not lingering widely.
Collin was the Underground Gourmet, and the first real restaurant critic in New Orleans. He was also my mentor, and inspired me to take up this career. He was the talk of the town in the 1970s, when he was most active. I learned when he died last year that a shockingly small percentage of New Orleans diners recognize his name anymore. I always have to tell his whole story whenever I bring him up in conversation.
To many restaurateurs--mostly small ones, but some majors like LeRuth's--he was a hero. To others, however, he should have gone to hell. Among those were several places that were so angry with what he published that they sued him. Most of that rancor came out late in Collin's career as a food critic. I think it caused him to retire from that. He continued his long tenure as a history professor at UNO, but with a much lower profile.
A Loyola professor of history called me a couple of weeks ago and asked if we could meet to talk about Collin. Mark Fernandez is writing an article about Collin and the effects of his court cases on the law as it regards criticism. Specifically, he wanted to know what I knew about Mashburn's, a Hammond restaurant that sued Collin. It stuck to the suit until it has to be said that the restaurant won.
I remember the review well. It ran in the States-Item, and had a tone the likes of which I could not recall previously in Collin's reviews. And that was saying something, because Collin never shrank back from saying inflammatory things. I particularly recall a dish being described as "a la green plague."
Mark will give a better reading of the matter than I will. (I'll find out when it's published and put the word out.) So I can move on to our dinner at Dominique's.
Dominique's On Magazine is the official name of the place. Dominique Macquet's former restaurant--now Le Meritage, in the Maison Dupuy--apparently still has the right to the name and the phone number. It was very busy this night. It's just what Uptown diner's love: new, hip, cool-looking, in a converted cottage in the burgeoning Magazine Street BistRow. Dominique himself is an outgoing personality, and his menu is well calculated to tap into the likes of affluent young diners.
Dominique's opened in October, and appears to be one of those new restaurants that gets its act together well before the average six-month figuring-it-out period. I'm happy Mark got there first, because he got a table that would in no wise ever have been given to me: a narrow deuce in the middle of everything. It's moments like that that I see what really goes on.
Mark already had a martini when I arrived, and it was my pleasure to join him. He's clearly a foodie. He's also a former student of Collin, and just talking about that experience made for an entertaining preamble.
First course: A beet salad with frisee and a puff-pastry turnover filled with goat cheese. Mine was a Wagyu-beef tartare, with avocados and a few other things: terrific.
One of the specials tonight was (really) spaghetti and meatballs, the latter made with Wagyu beef--an absurdity, but good menu copy. I asked to have just the pasta, which was cut in house and tossed with a roasted tomato sauce. It made a good middle course, as pasta always does.
My entree was a dish that is already a signature at Dominique's: roasted black drum with a risotto studded with corn, sharpened with lime and grapefruit juice and a shot of habanero pepper.
On Mark's side was a quartet of big grilled sea scallops, with more homemade pasta and fava beans. Seafood and beans! Always a natural.
We went through a couple of glasses of big red wine with all this fish. I thought of how Richard Collin, had he been with us in more than spirit, would have liked this dinner. Including the martinis.
I finished with a panna cotta flavored with passionfruit. Served in a martini glass, which made it too big. But I ate it all anyway. Dominique's offbeat little touch--cotton candy, with various fruit flavors--showed up. I tried to take a picture of it but cotton candy apparently cannot be focused upon. That may be a food thing.
Dominique's. Uptown: 4729 Magazine St. 504-894-8881.
