New Orleans

It must be possible, indeed, advisable, to take a break from eating and drinking when you visit New Orleans but it’s more difficult than you might think since temptation beckons from every street corner. The last time I was there, three decades ago, was when I was close to the age of the older of my two sons, Tom, who is now 23 and – another reason for our visit to New Orleans – a jazz musician. Over the past six years, my boys and I have travelled around America in the Christmas holidays. This trip, to the South, was going to be bitter-sweet as it marked the last time, in all probability, that my sons would be able to carve out three weeks of their busy lives to go on a road trip with their mother and her partner. 

Our holiday had already been delayed by a week because of the snow and as the weather conditions followed us to the East Coast of America, it was touch and go whether we would be marooned in Philadelphia. In the event, we were the last plane that was allowed to leave the airport at 4pm to a huge cheer from the passengers as we lifted off.

Fortunately, given our late arrival, our first commitment the next day was brunch at a reasonably civilized hour but which set the rather louche tone of the rest of our stay. The menu boasted this legend: “Breakfast at Brennan’s without wine is like a day without sunshine”. And so at eleven in the morning, most of the clientele in the packed dining-room of Brennans – a lovely old mansion in the French Quarter – was merrily imbibing and our ancient waiter made it clear that we were expected to do the same. We went for the “eye-opener” of the Sazerac, dating back to New Orleans in the 1800s, made with bourbon, a simple syrup, a lemon twist “and a little mystery” – which is the absinthe in which the glass is first coated to give the drink its distinctive flavour.

There are ten different rich egg dishes on the breakfast menu, as well as omelettes, all with recommended wine pairings. Our eyes already feeling quite wide open enough, we restricted ourselves to water and went for Eggs Sardou (poached eggs on artichoke bottoms, creamed spinach and Hollandaise sauce), Eggs Hussarde (on Holland rusks, bacon, a wine sauce and more Hollandaise) and tried the New Orleans turtle soup – which was pronounced “banging” by Tom and “like oxtail but with zest [a slug of sherry]” by his younger brother, Darcy. The Hollandaise sauce was silky and delicious which was just as well since so many dishes were lathered in it.

We were shown round the rooms upstairs by the young manager, Josh, who regaled us with a high-grade ancient scandal. During the Spanish rule of Louisiana, Don Vincente Rillieux (great grandfather of Edgar Degas) bought the plot of land and built the two-storey house in 1795 – a year after the great fire which had destroyed 200 buildings in the city of New Orleans, now known as the French Quarter, which had originally been designed in 1721 by Adrien de Pauger.

One of the upstairs rooms, overlooking Royal Street, has the original gas-lit chandelier which is still in use. On the main wall, there is a portrait of Vincente, framed by his son by his first wife, as well as a portrait of the old man’s second wife. When the father discovered that his son was sleeping with his new wife, Vincente shot them both and hung himself from the chandelier. Naturally (this being colourful New Orleans) the room is haunted by all three ghosts.

That night , walking to dinner down the main drag of  the French Quarter, Bourbon Street, I remembered the last time I was here – with my sons’ father and I was on the look-out for the extreme characters who populate John Kennedy Toole’s posthumously published comic novel of New Orleans – Confederacy of Dunces. Having driven through various dry cities, New Orleans seemed almost preposterously hedonistic; the bars handing out “go-cups” to enable revellers to carry on boozing as they weaved their way to the next drinking hole.

Well, it is every bit as rumbunctious as it ever was but seems a bit tackier and more commercial. Arnaud’s is a congenial retreat from the mayhem, a family-owned business dating back to 1918 – a series of rooms with tiled floors, wood-panelled walls and ceiling fans. The service is old-fashioned and attentive; I like how many of the traditional restaurants seem to hang on to their elderly staff.  Darcy adventurously ordered the alligator sausage which like so many exotic options (kangaroo, for instance) tasted of chicken. More cocktails were served, prompting Darcy to say that “New Orleans is like Mad Men.”

After dinner, we walked down the jampacked street to Irvin Mayfield’s Playhouse, a jazz club which is part of the Royal Sonesta Hotel. Tom was graciously asked if he would care to join the band on the small stage and play the piano for It Could Happen to You, which has been recorded by a long list of great jazzers, from Miles Davis to Diana Krall. By now it was after midnight and my partner, MJ, a singer, decided that she fancied tickling her tonsils – so we stopped off at a blues bar and she belted out “What I Say” and “Kansas City” and managed to get the previously moribund audience up on  their feet.

Another day, another meal. This time at the decidedly unfancy but hugely popular Mother’s, with queues snaking around the block. Inside, there is an industrial but down-to-earth vibe with exposed brick walls covered in old rock posters and photographs of American military veterans. Our waitress, Pat, had the air of a woman you could trust in a crisis – even if she fed us so much, from po-boys to gumbos, we felt she might create one for us.

After a brisk walk, we met Christine de Cuir – who works for the New Orleans tourism board and had kindly agreed to show us around the Ninth Ward neighbourhood she has lived in since 1989, as well as the even more devastated lower Ninth. She remembers that when the levee was breached by Katrina in 2005, “it was like a bomb had gone off; it just wiped away everything that lay in its way.”

She pointed out the surprisingly modest house and studio of Fats Domino who was born and raised in the Lower Ninth and refused to leave his home, in the end having to be practically carried out. The neighbouring houses are ripped open to the elements: smashed windows, a roof tilting drunkenly, the wings of a ceiling fan bent at crazy angles.

But in the area that was hardest hit – great swathes of housing, just swept away so the land has returned to pasture – there are some more obvious signs of regeneration: rows of funky, improbably-coloured housing on stilts, with waves of sculptural meshed steel for shady terraces. These are the Brad Pitt homes; some of the fifty houses that have been built under the Make it Right Foundation which the actor founded in 2007. The aim is to build 150 houses, not a lot when you consider 4,000 homes were destroyed, but it’s a start.

We are shown round the home of Ann Parfaite, an elderly member of de Cuir’s church, who lives in the Cabinet House designed by the Shigeru Ban practice. It is lovely to witness Parfaite’s  pride and enjoyment as she gives us a tour: “It’s the Japanese style so that you have more floor space for people; it’s so open and airy – I much prefer it to my old home!” She says that her two next door neighbours died in the floods and she remembers the horror of people jumping from roof to roof in their desperate attempts to avoid getting sucked into the undertow.

Pitt’s initiative has encouraged others to rebuild houses – although nothing like on the scale that is necessary to recreate a community. Then we see a really odd sign in this largely empty landscape; in front of one of the Pitt houses, we read the words A COUNTRY ROAD A TREE EVENING. This turns out to be stage directions to Beckett’s Waiting for Godot which was performed in the empty wasteland of the Lower Ninth in 2007; a project by the artist and activist, Paul Chan.

On our penultimate night, we had dinner at Herbsaint, a corner restaurant on the streetcar line: big windows, pale lime walls, imaginative lighting. The service is informal but efficient; the menu is French with a modern Creole twist. Chef Donald Link, the man behind Herbsaint, as well as several other popular New Orleans restaurants, works closely with local farmers, fishermen and other food producers.

The small plates starters were a big hit with us, although some of our party found  the sharing concept a bit of a challenge. There was a delicious beef short rib, slow-cooked until it was tender and falling apart, next to a crispy potato rosti and salsa verde. We all loved the homemade spaghetti with guanciale (hog jowels which tasted like bacon), an amber-yolked half-poached/half-fried egg on the top. The big hit of the desserts was the banana brown butter tart with fleur de Sel Caramel – a real “OmyGod” pudding: as Tom said, “It’s like the best version of a banoffi pie, a pecan pie and a crumble. This is the best restaurant ever.” 

Our last meal, lunch the next day, was – without a doubt – the grandest of our grandes bouffes: Chef John Besh’s August is an imposing four-floor building dating back to the 1800s. It has a series of handsome rooms with the original brick walls, hardwood floors and crystal chandeliers.

The idea was that we would have tapas-sized plates rather than a starter, main and dessert, so we could sample a large variety without getting stuffed. We were served an amuse-bouche of a fish-infused truffled sabayon – Tom: “it certainly amused my bouche.”

Plates of salad followed: organic greens with pumpkin seed brittle, Point Reyes blue cheese and pumpkin seed oil vinaigrette: agreeably salty, crunchy, sweet and spicy. A salad of tiny blanched market vegetables which was fresh and lovely. Then fish: butter-roasted gulf grouper with tarragon pistou; Darcy loved its intense green colours “like an edible Cezanne”, served with tiny brussell sprouts and cooked cucumber.

This was a ceremony of the senses: real artistry in the presentation; wonderful to look at, as well as taste, if veering towards over-the-topness.

Back to our hotel for a little nap before our New Orleans finale: jazz at Snug Harbor, arranged by Tom, to see trombonist and band leader Delfeayo Marsalis, born in New Orleans, along with his five brothers, including Wynton, the trumpeter and artistic director of jazz at the Lincoln Centre. Frenchmen Street is just east of the French Quarter and is packed with bars featuring live music and catering to a younger, less obviously touristy crowd than the Bourbon drag.

There was a long queue to get into the basement room, filled with small tables, and a modest stage which looked decidedly crowded as all sixteen members of the smartly-dressed Uptown Jazz Orchestra trooped on. Marsalis was a winning band leader, with an original line in introductions; one musician was presented as someone who boasts that he comes from the lower-ninth “to give him some credibility; well, he’s certainly got that ‘Nine-itude’.” Another is “the fifth cousin twice-removed of Lady Gaga; we call him Lord Gaga.”

My favourite moment of the whole evening was a gorgeous, dreamy version of What a Wonderful World, the signature ‘toon’ of another late, celebrated N’Orleans jazz great. Soothing as a lullaby, starting just with the piano and a single trombone and building up to a triumphant crescendo as all four trombonists joined in – a dazzle of gleaming brass in the low-lit room. Four hours later we were on a plane for the next leg of our journey. How fitting that we would say farewell to New Orleans, with those sweet, soaring strains still ringing in our ears; ending our amazing trip on a high note, in every way.