Just three months ago I wrote in this newsletter, "Pay no attention to recent rumors of Brennan's demise. It's still a family business, the wine cellar is still one of the best in the South,  and Chef Lazone Randolph, who began here in 1965, is a demanding steward of Brennan's culinary traditions.”

    Sadly, I must report that the rumors have proven true.  Without getting into the details (you can read the Times-Picayune report here), I can only say that it is a family squabble irritated further by competitive real estate interests in a building at 417 Royal Street where Brennan’s has resided since 1946.

    An earlier family conflict four decades ago resulted in one branch of the family, headed by Ella and Dick Brennan, to break away and run Commander’s Palace in the Garden District, and various members of that side of the family have opened numerous other restaurants since, including Brennan’s of Houston.  Owen’s sons Pip, Teddy and Jimmy Brennan, seen in the photo below in happier times, continued to run Brennan’s, maintaining its eminence as one of the great New Orleans classic dining venues, in the tradition of places like Antoine’s, Galatoire’s, Broussard’s, and Arnaud’s.

    Over the years (Antoine’s opened in 1840), the city and its restaurants have had their ups and downs, none worse than Hurricane Katrina, which destroyed some restaurants and devastated others. Brennan’s lost its nonpareil wine cache, and not long afterwards, Jimmy, who oversaw the wine collection, passed away.  There were charges of mounting losses and recriminations of mismanagement.

    Pip has retained a financial interest but retired from on-site participation a while ago, leaving Ted and his daughter to carry on at the restaurant, while chef  Randolph kept the Creole menu up to date with signature dishes that included the famous bananas Foster.

    I’ve known just about every one of the Brennans on both sides of the family over the years, and I have enormous respect for them all, including the three brothers who ran Brennan’s.  I drank great Burgundy with Jimmy, rode the Bacchus float with Pip at Mardi Gras, and swapped stories over daiquiris with Teddy. 

                    Brennan’s was always a celebratory place, the restaurant that pioneered Breakfast at Brennan’s, where champagne flowed and rich egg dishes were followed by even richer desserts. Everyone went to Brennan’s--Vivian Leigh, John Wayne, Robert Mitchum, Barbara Stanwyck, Robert Taylor, Gary Cooper, Jane Russell and Tennessee Williams, whose legacy lives on in the annual Tennessee Williams Festival, when Brennan's fetes the celebrity participants at a gala dinner.

    The demise, or at least the current lock-up, of Brennan’s sends the same shiver down New Orleaneans' spines as when any of their historic restaurants close: Broussard’s, Christian’s, Bruning’s and Uglesich’s are all gone, and it’s been touch and go for Tujaques this past year.  Brennan's cuisine might be reproducible, but its spirit cannot, and without any Brennans actually running their namesake restaurant, it would be difficult to resurrect. 

    I’m hoping that somehow this struggle for ownership can be brought to a positive conclusion.  Brennan’s is a cherished place, part of the city’s soul, and without it, the heart of the French Quarter will murmur if Brennan’s is lost for good.

    As readers may have noticed, I’ve been on a lucky streak lately of dining at some of NYC’s very finest restaurants: Aureole, Gotham Bar and Grill, and, last week, Daniel, which, since opening in 1993 and in its present location since 1998, has been a graduate school for many of America’s finest young chefs.

    Daniel Boulud (to whom congratulations are in order for his recent wedding) has for more than twenty years ranked among the most inventive chefs who have also kept thriving the rigorous classic traditions of haute French cuisine.  And anyone who believes “no one wants to go to such places anymore,” just try to get a rez at Daniel on short notice. Good luck.

Boulud has also been a leader in showing how restaurants lower down in class can be exemplary. His restaurants Café Boulud, Bar Boulud, Boulud Sud, DB Bistro Moderne, Épicierie Boulud, and DBGB, all in NYC, are each different in concept and design, and Boulud keeps a tight rein on all of them.  He has also had several non-New York ventures, often management contracts, with varying degrees of success and failure, but his track record is as solid as his commitment.  If you choose to dine at Daniel, his flagship, chances are good you’ll find Boulud there in his whites, back in the kitchen, coaxing perfection out of Executive Chef Jean François Bruel, chef de cuisine Eddy Leroux, pastry chef Sandro Micheli, and his other 130 staff.  

    General manager Pierre Siue keeps it all humming up front, along with maître d’ John Winterman, who keeps close tabs on all his guests, so that the next time you appear at Daniel, you will be remembered to a T.

Sommelier Raj Vaidya, here since 2009, heads a wine cache of 2,000 selections of the very finest wines in the world; happily, you will find 100 excellent recommendations under $50.

    Daniel is composed of a series of dining rooms, including a swank bar and private room, with the main dining area a few steps below the rest.  The décor, changed a few years back to a more modern, art déco style, is not overly formal, though it is not a place a gentleman may come without a jacket. Happily, this is still New York.  Lighting, I’m sorry to say, is lower than it used to be, so you really can't see who’s coming and going or sitting in the mezzanine tier or to the rear of the room.

    The table amenities are of the highest quality, with flowers amid thin glassware and fine silver.  Breads are all made on the premises by Mark Fiorentino, and they are difficult to resist, piece by piece—especially since they arrived nearly an hour after we sat down, an unfortunate practice based on the errant belief that people will eat so much bread they won’t order appetizers.  Since Daniel serves a prix fixe three-course, $119 dinner, that doesn’t make much sense.

    We were treated to several amuses, some from the appetizer menu, like a satiny trio of hamachi,  beet-cured with olive oil (right); a tartare with wasabi and caviar; and a confit with sorrel coulis and yellow beet.  A chilled minted pea soup was just the thing for a summer’s evening, with nubbins of smoked sablefish, carrot confit and rosemary cream.

    In all of Daniel’s cooking there are a number of elements that add much more of the main ingredient, never smothering it with disparate or searing hot flavors.  A duck terrine with cured pepper-poached rhubarb, confit of fennel, almond cream and a little sorrel tasted of numerous subtle flavors, each dependent on the other to bring out the best in the creamy terrine.

    One of the favorite entrees here is the tasting of suckling pig, composed of a roasted chop with pea fricassée; braised belly with young turnips and savory jus; and the crispy skin of the pig with crunchy pistachio and a Port jus—a dish heartier than one might expect in summer but delicious in every morsel, or what is a/c for?

Two otherwise excellent main courses were surprisingly salty—monkfish wrapped in spicy chorizo and stuffed with lobster, accompanied by wild black riced, yogurt-braised eggplant and an artemesia salad; and a duo of octopus with stewed fava beans, Boston lettuce, spring onions.

    There is a splendid cheese cart at Daniel, and only the lateness of the hour prevented us from sampling it, instead giving ourselves over to an array of desserts that included marvels like raspberry-vanilla shortbread with yuzu curd, caramelized croustillant, limoncello-berry gelée, and raspberry sorbet; a coconut vacherin with guava gel, mango-vanilla swirl and meringue; and any of five chocolate desserts, including a Kenyan coffee ganache with dark chocolate crèmeux, rice krispy chocolate sable, and coffee ice cream. Pistachio dacquoise came with white chocolate crisp and pistachio ice cream. Of course, ending the meal was an array of fine mignardises and tiny, warm madeleines.

    Daniel is a restaurant in the grand tradition that is nevertheless as modern as any anywhere, constantly innovative without the need to sensationalize, consistently refined without pretension and glamorous without being flashy. You know what you get and pay for at Daniel—which is a whole lot more than three courses—and the experience of dining so well and so beautifully is what distinguishes this as one of the world’s great restaurants.

Daniel is open for dinner Mon-Sat.; Pix fixe dinner $116; Vegetarian menu $116; pre-dinner supper, 5:30-6:00 PM, with wines included $133. Eight course tasting menu $220, with wines $130 additional.

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