Liuzza's is a pleasant throwback: a neighborhood "Bar & Rest." The signature drink is frozen glass schooners of root beer and not-so-root beer. The menu is implausibly large, starting with a really good roast beef poor boy and continuing with homestyle daily specials, seafood platters, and Italian dishes. Fresh-potato fries and the hole in the dining room wall through which you see evidence of a bursting kitchen are artifacts of the style, once far more commonplace than it is now.
In Mid-City, a neighborhood blessed with an abundance of neighborhood cafes in the old style, Liuzza's feels most as if it had been transported across time from fifty years ago. The big schooners of frozen root beer and not-so-root beer are a trademark. The enormous menu serves a bit (a large bit, at that) of everything. The conversations could only be heard in New Orleans.
Founded in 1947 by the namesake family--which left the place behind for more modern and less interesting restaurants--Liuzza's changed hands a few times over the decades. The family that owns it now has held it since before Katrina, but the tragic loss of its two most dynamic members marked a sad low spot. The restaurant recoved, thanks to its many regulars.
The stucco building with rounded windows is a throwback to another era's neighborhood "Bar & Rest." The bar is on the right, the dining room on the left; both are busy most of the time, the customers very comfortable to this unalloyed expression of New Orleans tastes in everything.
Everything here is too big to remain good through the entire eating. Come with friends and split appetizers and entrees.
| Attitude | 1 |
|---|---|
| Environment | 0 |
| Hipness | 0 |
| Local Color | 2 |
| Service | 0 |
| Value | 2 |
| Wine | 0 |
