Wednesday, October 12, 2011.
Vizard's Needs Some Excitement.
No Eat Club dinner this week, so I thought I'd create my own at Vizard's. An assortment of obstacles kept me from going there for the past couple of years. And I didn't think the place had changed much since in that time. It's The Consistency Paradox: restaurants that prove themselves steadiest are the ones I go to least often.
I wanted to check on a rumor I heard that Kevin Vizard (rhymes with "wizard") had gone to an all-appetizer menu. (He did, but dropped the idea after a few months.) And I wanted to eat his food, regardless of the menu format. For over twenty-five years in at least a dozen restaurants, I've always loved what he cooks.
Last time I tried to eat here, it was a spur-of-the-moment attempt. The place was fully booked, I was told, although when the lady at the front door discovered who I was, she found a table that was unassigned, after all. I don't play that game, and I begged off. Tonight, it was the opposite situation. I made a reservation, but the restaurant was nearly empty.
Uh-oh. Has Kevin been in one place too long? He's three years here. Five, if you count the time he spent on St. Charles Avenue at Jackson. (He was forced to look for a new home when the hotel it was in closed for major renovations.) That may be his longevity record.
"Well, I don't have to tell you how much I like opening new restaurants," he told me, triggering another cautionary frisson. Thing is, his style is a linear evolution from the early years of the bistro revolution in the 1980s, and he's one of the few chefs from that era still active. His cooking not only is excellent but exemplary of an exciting time.
The current Vizard's is a small restaurant, with fewer than sixty seats. The menu is abbreviated, too. Eight starters, six entrees, specials. I usually feel constricted by such a brief card, but here choosing a meal is delightfully difficult. (As opposed to maddening difficult, when you can't find anything on the menu that grabs you.)
That's how I wound up with two entrees. Kevin said he would downsize the soft-shell crab entree special to the size of a large appetizer. In addition to the good-sized crab itself, two sauces enriched the eating. Guacamole and beurre blanc (or was that hollandaise? There wasn't a lot of it.)
I stretched out the dinner with the house salad, a good one: greens, apples, pecans, blue cheese, balsamic vinaigrette. I had the time but not the light to read the New Yorker. (I think I've read about a thousand of those in restaurants over the years.) But Vizard's is designed not for readers but daters. I wished Mary Ann were there, because this is her kind of food.
The entree was a seared duck breast with two great enhancements: 1) duck demi-glace with foie gras worked in, and b) pureed sweet potatoes. (Not mashed, because not a lump could be found.) Delicious, but. . . as much as I like certain rare (and even raw) meats, the long-running vogue for serving duck very rare does nothing for either the flavor or the edibility of the bird. I never remember to ask for it cooked a little longer. Since I am perceived by chefs as a gourmet, or at least someone who ought to be with the times, they always give me undercooked duck. I wish they wouldn't.
Arnaud's was the first New Orleans restaurant to serve creme brulee, but Kevin made it hip, back in the early 1980s. He still makes the best in town. But I know that already (see "The Consistency Paradox," above), so I got the bread pudding with bruleed bananas. In that, he slices the nanner as if it were destined to top a bowl of Special K, then tops them with brown sugar. They go under the broiler until they get brown, shiny faces. The pudding part is good, too.
As if it needed one, my ego got a boost on my way out. Every single table of people in the place wanted me to come over and say hello. Two of them had been to Eat Clubs. I'll have to come here more often, that's clear.
Vizard's. Uptown: 5015 Magazine. 504-895-2246.
