Toups' Meatery

Restaurant Review

Anecdotes & Analysis

My wife keeps telling me that I have to stop eating carbohydrates completely, and that I should scale up the proportions of proteins in my eating, especially in the evening. I am losing weight at a steady enough pace that I think it's probably okay for some of my food to metabolize into sugars. And I've never ignored the meat kingdom, eating enough of it to break many of the old rules. In this I have a lot of company. The meat that was once bad for us is now good, say the dietitians. This puts Chef Isaac Toups into a nice position. Some five years ago, he opened his first restaurant as chef-proprietor, with a menu intensive with meats. In this he followed the pleasures of his Cajun ancestors (he's a native of Rayne, down on the bayou where the frogs live). As well-known as Cajun chefs are for their crawfish and other seafood, Acadiana is full of great little butcher shops where their owners make sausages, smoke and cure meats of all kinds. It may be the most brilliant and unique part of Cajun cuisine--a fact that has lately transformed a lot of restaurant menus in New Orleans.

Backstory

Toups's Meatery opened in early 2012, after Chef Isaac's tours of duty at Emeril's and the extinct Cuvee. His wife Amanda runs the dining room and the wine cellar. Pre-Eatery, she managed the Wine Institute of New Orleans. For their restaurant te Toupses took over the dreary old Mediterranean Restaurant, a few blocks away from City Park, making this a good restaurant neighborhood. This is clearly not a spiffy bistro making an architectural statement. The floor and odd corners are a little beat up. None of that is less than a draw for the regular clientele, which fills the restaurant most evenings. I doesn't look like a reservations kind of place, but you are well advices to get your name on the book--particularly if you plan to dine late.

For Best Results

Even the appetizers are big here. It's a good place to dine with two to six friends, and sharing plates.