If we had any hopes of trying to watch our weight on this holiday weekend
trip to New Orleans, that would have been stupid.
Our first night we thought we might be a bit tired, so we decided to eat in
our hotel, the Waldorf Astoria Roosevelt, where New Orleans uber chef John Besh
has teamed up with Israeli Alon Shaya to create, of all things, an Italian
bistro, DOMENICA (www.domenicarestaurant.com). The
space is quite noisy with wooden floors, wooden tables and lots of hanging
crystals with bulbs.
I didn't feel that a lot of love went into the design, but we loved our
corner table with a full plate glass wall window view of the gorgeous onion
domed church across the street where we were able to witness a local wedding
replete with min-band, handkerchiefs waving and the bride and groom with
tasseled white and black umbrellas respectively!
In charge was Chef Phillip Mariano, who indeed was Italian and did his
heritage's cuisine great honor. We were sent glasses of Prosecco which we
enjoyed with the AFFETTATI MISTI, a chef's selection of salumi and formaggi
along with warm marinated olives, pepper jelly, pickled raisins, spiced peaches,
cherry-kiwi mostardo and almond panneforte. Our meats were COPPA, a cured pork
shoulder, BRESAOLA, air dried beef, LANZA, which I never found out what it was
and the most divine creamy rich DUCK LIVER PATE with moscato jelly in a jar that
seemed to never end. The cheeses were a creamy LATUR and a new blue to me called
BERDA CAPRA. An accompanying basket of savory beignets were amazing and great to
spread the various pate, cheese or just anything we wanted in any combo on.
Samuel, in an attempt to win points for prizes, started to taste new things.
First came the raisins, peaches and even the mild creamy blue cheese, which all
went over quite well; the pate was less of a success. He ordered the MARGHERITA
Pizza and that was pretty good as well we have to admit.
I also need to mention the bread, peppery olive oil and the wonderful
sparkling water which is Mountain Valley from Arkansas!
We moved on to a bottle of GRECO DI TUFO 2010 from Cantine di Manzo in
Campania that our charming and helpful server, Angel, recommended. She guided us
very well through the large paper place meat menu and we really were able to
taste many dishes without overloading. That said, it seems all the dishes in New
Orleans seem to be giant-sized! The OCTOPUS CARPACCIO Antipasti for $14 with
fennel, citrus and olive oil could have been a meal. Shaved as thin as could be
these medallions were superb, and again Samuel went for a taste (not a winner).
The CHANTERELLE MUSHROOMS (they seem to be ubiquitous at this time of the year)
were treated with great respect as they were served with smoked marrow butter
that exuded such flavor on toasted ciabatta slices.
The decor doesn't offer much here with wood floors and tables making it
quite noisy. The light bulbs have crystals hanging around them. We were blessed
with a table at the corner against the tall street windows overlooking the
gorgeous onion-domed church across the street. The police arrived to block the
street and then a band, and then a wedding emerged replete with waving
handkerchiefs and white and black tasseled umbrellas for the bride and
grooms--totally local New Orleans style.
We moved on to a bottle of YARDEN "Odem Vineyard" 2010 Chardonnay from
Israel, which we figured had to be good at a restaurant where the chef/owner was
Israeli, but it became apparent that it was cloyingly intense like an old okay
Napa Chard. It wasn't awful, but not what we wanted. It did do better with our
two half pasta orders which were intense themselves:
GARGANELLI with Maine LOBSTER, tomato, burrata and bread crumbs was nice,
but the SQUID INK TAGLIOLINI with tons of Blue CRAB and herbs was the big
hit.
We all looked at each other after 3 hours of this meal and declined
dessert, but Angel brought out some BRUTOS, soft gooey chocolate espresso
cookies that we could not refuse. What a superb start to our long weekend
away.
