MoPho

Restaurant Review

Anecdotes & Analysis

As a restaurant, MoPho is entirely credible. Chef Michael Gullota--formerly head of the kitchen at the five-star Restaurant August--is a terrific cook with a wide range and a strong sense of how to wow diners. But if you pronounce the name of his restaurant the way a Vietnamese would--with a relic of a French accent--well, let's say it's not something I'd say on the radio. That hasn't prevented MoPho from being busy to bursting all the time. Item: many chefs come here to eat on their days off. Item: On weekends, they fire up a pit and roast whole pigs and lambs. With a name like MoPho, it better be good. The timing is perfect. Vietnamese food in New Orleans has gone through four stages. The first began shortly after the Vietnamese people came to New Orleans in the early 1970s. They tried to interest eaters with their food, but found that they had to cook Chinese to make a living. In the 1980s the gourmet types started going to the handful of restaurants serving Vietnamese cooking. Pho--the beef broth with noodles and a host of optional extras--became famous for its very low prices and gigantic bowls in the 1990s. After the turn of the century, younger diners adopted Vietnamese as the hippest thing to eat. In this decade, the second generation of Vietnamese people began rejiggering the recipes and opening restaurant all over town, instead of just the West Bank and New Orleans East. And now, with over 50 Vietnamese eateries in the area, we have non-Asian chefs trying their hand ant pho and its kin.

Why It's Essential

You