Marti's

Restaurant Review

Anecdotes & Analysis

Forty years ago, Rampart Street--the thirteen blocks of it that formed the northwestern frontier of the French Quarter--looked is though it would shortly be the place to be. Nice wide avenue, with lots of available space in cool old buildings, the Municipal Auditorium, and the soon-to-open Armstrong Park, where the Jazz Festival was recently born. A handful of serious, much-talked-about restaurants opened. All this played out by the mid-1980s, with a sort of literal death knell when Marti Shambra died and his trendsetting restaurant vanished. Even though the excellent Peristyle took over the space for a good while, the idea of a reborn Marti's kept floating around. It finally came to ground in 2013, right about where it would be if it and Marti had never left. [caption id="attachment_43591" align="alignnone" width="480"] Marti's exterior: today's is just like yesterday's. [/caption]

Why It's Essential

New Orleans has so many long-running restaurants that there's not much need to revive long-dead restaurants, even those with memorable names. But Marti's might be the effort worthwhile. With the city's two major auditoriums for live performances nearby, a growing demand for Rampart Street restaurants has emerged. The surroundings and memories the new Marti's brings back to the scene seems perfect for this development. To say nothing about the new flowering of the Treme section. [caption id="attachment_42555" align="alignnone" width="480"] Raw oysters.[/caption]

Backstory

The original Marti's was the city's first openly-gay gourmet restaurant. Unstated but quite obvious, that quality brought in a large number of customers from the local arts world, with their audiences. The big name was Tennessee Williams, one of many well-known regulars. Marti's opened in 1972 with a menu like that of a neighborhood cafe. A few years later, owner Marti Shambra pushed the concept upscale. The place shortly became a four-star eatery, and it remained so until Marti's deteriorating health and a fire brought the restaurant to an end. The building became Peristyle, which had its own four- and five-star run. Chef Tom Wolfe took over in the early 2000s, but he never really reopened after Katrina. The building sat there until Patrick Singley--owner of the superb Gautreau's--thought the time was right for Marti's to return, sans its old socio-sexual quality--which nobody would notice anymore, anyway.

Dining Room

You enter through the long, narrow, tiled bar, where oysters are shucked and cocktails are mixed, both with aplomb. A dozen steps through a narrow passageway puts you into the main dining room, with large windows on two sides and a general retro-modern-deco look. With terrazzo floors and unclothed tables, the sound quotient is high when the place is full. The servers are easy to imagine as French Quarter denizens, sophisticated and young.

For Best Results

Start with a cocktail and an order of fries. That will give just the right amount of time to let the menu sink in, and you get used to the idea of eating some of the less-familiar ideas. Have a discussion with the waiter, and go along with much of his advice.