Tag Archives: travel
Galatoire’s, New Orleans
Life is grand at Galatoire’s, the century-old restaurant in the French Quarter, where ladies in hats and men in white linen jackets gather under the ceiling fans in the sunny, tile-floored interior for a lunch that stretches into the afternoon. An oasis of air-conditioned civility on rowdy Bourbon Street, Galatoire’s still requires men to wear jackets, even if the mercury’s pushing 95. It’s one of many ways that Galatoire’s hews to tradition, even as the rest of the world constantly changes.
One of the best windows into New Orleans food, Galatoire’s specializes in the remoulades and etouffees that give Creole cuisine its particular French-Southern twist. The crowd is largely local, and there’s lots of table hopping on the main floor. Service is genteel, efficient but unhurried. A recent lunch here began with a cocktail proffered up on a silver tray. Cocktail hour seemingly never ends in New Orleans: the bar here was full by 2 in the afternoon. (more…)
Cafe Beignet, New Orleans
At this location on Royal Street in the French Quarter, prime tourist territory, Cafe Beignet could be serving stale doughnuts and watered-down coffee and still they’d make a profit. Fortunately, New Orleans’ pride in good food is evident even in this little cafe, which specializes in these addictive breakfast pastries.
Each beignet is about the size of your fist, so you’d be fine splitting an order of three for a meal in Cafe Beignet’s charming tree-lined side garden. A beignet isn’t exactly a doughnut, and it’s not exactly Italian zeppoli. (more…)
MiLA, New Orleans
Considering its proximity to vast swaths of upriver farmland, it may come as a surprise that there’s not much emphasis on locally-sourced produce in New Orleans. Seafood here may be as local as it gets, but southern techniques of boiling and frying vegetables and French techniques of butter, butter and yet more butter still rule at most restaurants. Fortunately, a handful of new spots are beginning to bring fresh, seasonal produce to the forefront of the menu.
One such place is MiLA in the Central Business District. Husband-and-wife chef team Allison Vines-Rushing and Slade Rushing acquire many of their ingredients from a nearby farm, Lujele, which is described in detail on the restaurant’s website. This all sounded vaguely Dan Barber-ish at first, but then came the clue: this duo, originally from Mississippi (“Mi”) and Louisiana (“LA”), logged several well-regarded years at Jack’s Luxury Oyster Bar (Vines) and Fleur de Sel in New York (Rushing) before heading back south. An appetite for green market produce came back with them. (more…)
Posted in food, New Orleans, restaurants
Tagged duck, New Orleans, seafood, travel
Comments Off on MiLA, New Orleans
Chez Julien
Though efforts to modernize Parisian dining with slick interiors and fusion cuisine should be commended, if you’re a visitor with only a few days to dine there, what kind of restaurant do you really want? Chances are it’s the beautiful Belle Epoque setting and bistro food of Chez Julien.
This gorgeous, mirrored jewel box of a restaurant, with a private upstairs dining room that’s often reserved by a fashion crowd during Paris fashion week, was established in 1780. It was revamped in 2007 by the Costes group, which seems to be snapping up Paris restaurants with the speed of Michael “Bao” Huynh in New York. (Given my previous experience that week with a Costes restaurant, I might not have gone had I known this, but Chez Julien is a radically different type of endeavor than Delaville.) (more…)
Georges
A huge amount of light and space, bordered by clean lines, with a stunning backdrop of the Paris skyline: Georges on the top of the Centre Pomidou is a veritable temple to modernity. But before you get all serious in the face of art, know that Georges is not nearly as austere as it seems. It’s New York’s Modern meets Fred’s at Barneys – a sleek, contemporary space that’s a real social scene, with forward-leaning French cuisine to match.
Though you could have a romantic dinner here, Georges is the perfect spot for a long, leisurely lunch. Just take the escalators to the top floor before you view the museum and put your name in at the door. (more…)
Brasserie Lipp
Though New Yorkers may think of a cool restaurant as something new and trendy, one of the coolest restaurants Marie Fromage and I visited in Paris was also one of the oldest: Brasserie Lipp. Here the maitre’d will greet you with the hauteur befitting a place that’s been a see-and-be-seen destination since 1880. If you walk in without a reservation, they will look you up and down and see if they could possibly find a place for you, and the odds aren’t good. Fortunately for us, we made it to the back room, where we found a very good dinner and some familiar faces from Paris fashion week.
Delaville Cafe
Sometimes just getting a meal in Paris can be a titanic battle of wills. Take the steak frites place we tried to go to on a recent night. Though recommended by a seemingly reliable guidebook (plastered on the windows there), it was nearly empty at 9:30. We walked in, walked out to consider our options, then walked back in to give it a chance. “The kitchen is now closed,” the proprietress told us. “We can’t stay open just for you. We are tired.” It was a Friday night, and two in our party had put on five fashion shows in one day. Tired.
On to the next place: Delaville, a newish addition to the slew of Costes restaurants in the city. When we asked for a table in the shabby chic dining room, we were referred to a tall guy who barely paused between waiting on tables, bartending, and managing the staff to tell us that the wait for a table would be at least an hour, though there was no sign of anyone else waiting. We were welcome, however, to eat in the bar, so we settled in there. Our table on the cold, glassed in patio had all the charm of the old Dallas BBQ on 8th Street. Ah, Paris. (more…)
La Ferrandaise
By Parisian standards, La Ferrandaise is a very young bistro. Open only a few years, manned by a chef who has yet to see a gray hair on his head, this spot in St. Germain falls into the same traditional category as venerable institutions that have been open a hundred years or more. Yet it hasn’t had any trouble keeping up: it was packed on a recent night, and it won the Lebey award for Best Parisian Bistro in 2006.
Barcelona Street Chic
Personal style in Barcelona reflects the city’s modernist architecture: playful, sometimes colorful, and daring. There’s little focus on logos and labels and more on line, organic shapes, and playing colors off of one another.
A mustard-yellow velvet jacket adds a pop of color. The skirt is also interesting, pleated and slightly deconstructed. (more…)
Posted in fashion
Tagged Barcelona, bikes, street chic, travel
Comments Off on Barcelona Street Chic
Cocktail Trends: El Gin Tonic?
Cocktail trends come and cocktail trends go, and sometimes they even come back again before you even know they went. According to today’s Times, rum is on the up and up, meanwhile, it seems like just yesterday that tiki bar Waikiki Wally’s opened, then closed, in the East Village.
But you really don’t realize how ridiculous cocktail trends are until you see them at work in another culture. In Barcelona right now, the coolest possible drink to order is not something involving bitters, chartreuse, absinthe, or even rye, it’s a good ol’ gin and tonic, pronounced “GIN TOH-neek.” That’s right Mom and Dad: Your taste in drinks is big in Barcelona. (more…)
Posted in food
Tagged Barcelona, bars, East Village rants, travel
Comments Off on Cocktail Trends: El Gin Tonic?
More Chatham Eats
For such a small town (pop. about 6,500), Chatham, Cape Cod has a lot going for it food-wise. Not only are there good restaurants, but there are excellent take-out shops, from the humble to the gourmet, that will free you from the kitchen on vacation.
Chatham Cheese Company * Wequaussett Outer Bar & Grille * The Cape Sea Grille * Nantucket Wild Gourmet & Smokehouse * Marion’s Pie Shop * Marine Cuisine
The Chatham Squire, Cape Cod
Cape Cod: land of baseball caps, Red Sox fans, microbrews on tap, and really good seafood. Marie Fromage and I found a lot of all the above on a recent trip to Chatham, Massachusetts. Located on the “elbow” of Cape Cod, Chatham was home to the Nauset Indians and settled by the English in 1665. Much of the town is a historic district, and there are still a lot of (slightly spooky) 18th century houses in town.
One of the most popular restaurants there, the Chatham Squire, feels like it’s stuck in a time warp of its own, though this one may be closer to the Caddyshack-esque golden years of the ‘80s, much like Bertha’s Mussels of Baltimore. Vanity plates and old wooden signs line the walls, the game is on TV, and the beer starts flowing at lunchtime and doesn’t stop until close at 1am. There’s a restaurant dining room here, but the place to be is the bar, which operates like a town lunch counter for tourists and locals alike. (more…)
Martha’s Vineyard: What to Wear
Even if you arrived on the island of Martha’s Vineyard stark naked, you could acquire all the necessary clothes in no time—the shopping here is that perfectly tailored to the experience. Many of our favorite stores there are not online yet, but the clothing and shoe brands are. Here are four looks to get you through the weekend.
Posted in fashion, shopping
Tagged guides, Martha's Vineyard, preppy fashion, travel
Comments Off on Martha’s Vineyard: What to Wear
Martha’s Vineyard Shopping
Edgartown in Martha’s Vineyard is a preppy shopper’s paradise. You can find everything from basics (Lacoste shirts) to frills (Milly dresses). Unlike in East Hampton, where your only choice is to go the designer route at pricey boutiques like Catherine Malandrino or stick to plain old J. Crew, in Martha’s Vineyard, you can find cute, chic clothing and accessories at a reasonable price point. There was so much we couldn’t hit it all, but here’s a round up of some of the best stores for clothing and gifts.
More Martha’s Vineyard Eats
As will become clear from this article, we didn’t make it out of Edgartown during our entire three-day stay on Martha’s Vineyard. (We did the preppy version of this weekend’s NYT tour.) While the picturesque Victorian town of Oak Bluffs is definitely worth visiting, there’s enough dining in Edgartown, Martha’s Vineyard to fill a long weekend’s worth of meals, if you don’t mind ending up at the same bar every night. Best of all, you can walk everywhere.
Posted in food, Martha's Vineyard, restaurants
Tagged bars, lobster rolls, Martha's Vineyard, travel
1 Comment