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interview are fried and stuffed into a bread bowl doused with garlic and oil. Bucktown Burger & Fish Co. retains Live Bait’s beach shack look, with nautical decor across the bar, dining room and covered front patio. The restaurant’s view is mainly of the levee and pumping station across the street, but visitors can hike to the top of the levee to see the small fishing harbor on the other side. The restaurant also hosts live music. In Lakeview, Jaeger Burger Co. is a tiny operation with counter service and a short menu of burgers and sandwiches (including a grilled fish sandwich and chilled shrimp salad), and a few sides, such as poutine-style cheese fries.
Pizza Delicious tests brunch
Many Sunday mornings have been salvaged with a slice of pizza resurrected from Saturday night’s leftovers, so it seems fitting that a local pizzeria is testing the waters for brunch service. Pizza Delicious (617 Piety St., 504676-8482; www.pizzadelicious.com) is experimenting with a trial-run brunch through Sunday, July 28. If it proves popular, co-owner Michael Friedman says it may become a regular Sunday fixture. The brunch menu is short but eclectic: stone fruit salad, poached drum and farro salad, “Sugerman’s NY bagel plate” with lox and fixings, and a breakfast pizza topped with sliced new potatoes, cheddar cheese, cherry tomatoes and sunny side up eggs. The restaurant’s normal menu of New York-style pizzas also is available. Brunch is served from 11 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.
ISAAC TOUPS
FIVE in FIVE GREAT QUAIL DISHES
CHEF AND CO-OWNER, TOUPS’ MEATERY Raised in the small Acadiana town of Rayne, La., Isaac Toups started his culinary career in New Orleans at Emeril Lagasse’s restaurants. In 2012, he and wife Amanda, a local wine professional, opened Toups’ Meatery (845 N. Carrollton Ave., 504-252-4999; www.toupsmeatery.com), a casual restaurant serving Toups’ rendition of modern Cajun cooking. On Tuesday, he’ll present a meal in New York City at City Grit (www.citygritnyc.com), which hosts chefs from across the country for one-night guest appearances. Why did you switch from fine dining to a more casual approach? Toups: I loved what we did with food in fine dining — the attention to detail, the farm-to-table sourcing — but it was the fussiness I wanted to get away from. The staff wearing ties, the plate presentations. I want it to be like, here’s the food, come in wearing shorts if you want and let’s eat. I think that’s why we’ve become a neighborhood spot. We get a lot of customers from the blocks right around us. Early in the evening there might be kids running around here. Heck, sometimes they’re my kids. How have things gone in your first year as a chef/owner? T: The chef part I felt like I had down. Now no one tells me what to cook, except Amanda, and she’s my muse anyway. But the owner part? I guess you just have to get open, screw up, don’t screw up the same way again and make it work. There’s a burden of responsibility now, but it’s still the best decision we’ve ever made. You’re always going to be busting ass working hard in this business and now we’re working hard for us. How did growing up in Cajun country influence your culinary career? T: I was extremely lucky growing up: Everybody in my family cooked. We were always outside boiling something, grilling something. Dad would smoke the ducks we shot. We’d make squirrel brain sauce piquante. There isn’t a lot of meat on a squirrel, so you have to throw in the whole thing, and a lot of them, to really have a stew. The brains have the most fat, the most flavor. You want to talk about using everything? Squirrel brain sauce piquante. I thought everyone grew up like this. — IAN MCNULTY
Apolline 4729 Magazine St., (504) 894-8869 www.apollinerestaurant.com Fried quail are served with smoked pork belly and barbecue sauce.
Atchafalaya 901 Louisiana Ave., (504) 891-9626 www.atchafalayarestaurant.com Quail are stuffed with boudin and wrapped in bacon.
Little Chinatown 3800 Williams Blvd., Kenner, (504) 305-0580 www.littlechinatown.net “Salt and pepper quail” is coated with garlic and jalapeno.
Mariza 2900 Chartres St., (504) 598-5700 www.marizaneworleans.com Pancetta-wrapped quail is drizzled with saba.
Tan Dinh 1705 Lafayette St., Gretna, (504) 361-8008 Vietnamese-style rotisserie-roasted quail is served with crunchy rice cakes.
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GAMBIT > BESTOFNEWORLEANS.COM > JULY 23 > 2013
Two pairs of Slippers
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Another Ruby Slipper Cafe (139 S. Cortez St., 504-309-5531; 200 Magazine St., 504-525-9355; 2001 Burgundy St., 504-525-9355; www.therubyslippercafe. net) is in the works at 1005 Canal St., where co-owner Erich Weishaupt says he plans to begin serving the restaurant’s breakfast, lunch and brunch menus before the end of the year. This Canal Street expansion will mark the fourth location for the Ruby Slipper, which Weishaupt and wife Jennifer started in 2008 by converting what had been a rundown corner store into a Mid-City hot spot. They opened a CBD location in 2010 and late last year opened their third Ruby Slipper inside a renovated historic bank building in the Faubourg Marigny. “We didn’t intend to grow this fast; we’re about two years ahead of what we thought we’d do, but the opportunity was right,” Weishaupt says. “So much is happening on this stretch of Canal, we thought we should get ourselves established there.” All of the Ruby Slipper locations serve similar menus of diner-style breakfast and lunch dishes punched up with local seafood, fresh produce and creative specials. Weishaupt says the Canal Street location will function as a commissary kitchen
producing some of the baked goods, sauces and other staples used across the four restaurants. The new restaurant space is five blocks from the Ruby Slipper location on Camp Street. But Weishaupt believes a second location will draw people staying at different hotels and perhaps alleviate some pressure from the busy Magazine Street restaurant at peak hours. The Canal Street building has been home to a string of short-lived restaurants, but its history goes back much farther. This address was part of the national McCrory’s department store chain, and in 1960 a group of civil rights activists staged a sit-in at the store’s segregated lunch counter. They were arrested, and their case eventually went before the U.S. Supreme Court, which overturned the convictions against them. Weishaupt says remodeling work for the restaurant will accentuate the building’s Art Deco features, terrazzo floor and some structural elements they’re now uncovering from past renovations.
Regional dinners
While prix fixe menus and other special deals proliferate at local restaurants in the
summer, some also stage dinner series that dial in the cooking of specific food regions around the globe. The format gives chefs a chance to explore particular cuisines. Two in particular have become annual traditions. For more than a dozen summers, Vega Tapas Cafe (2051 Metairie Road, Metairie, 504-836-2007; www.vegatapascafe. com) has produced its Mediterranean series, featuring a different country’s cuisine each week on a special menu available Monday through Saturday. This week, the tour hits Egypt (through July 28) and subsequent menus feature Turkey, Greece, Italy, France and Spain. Each menu includes five to eight small plates and costs $27 and optional wine pairing is an additional $15. In the Warehouse District, Adolfo Garcia’s restaurant a Mano (870 Tchoupitoulas St., 504-208-9280; www. amanonola.com) focuses on specific regions of central and southern Italy for special menus served on Wednesday nights only. The Calabria region is featured Wednesday, July 24, and the series will include Sicily, Campania, Sardinia and Tuscany. These regional menus are served through Aug. 21, and each multicourse meal costs $35.
Trends, notes, quirks and quotes from the world of food.
“Announce your tipping practice to your server as soon as you sit down. Virtually every other employee in America knows how much they’ll be paid up front, and somehow the man who sells me shoes and the woman who does my dry cleaning still manage to provide adequate service. I have no doubt waiters and waitresses are the same.” — Brian Palmer, “chief explainer” columnist for Slate.com, in an op-ed arguing for the end of restaurant tipping, calling it a “repugnant custom” that’s “bad for consumers and terrible for workers.”