Based on a recent visit, much in the historic areas of downtown New Orleans has remained the same since my last visit about a year after Hurricane Katrina. Bourbon Street still looks and sounds like Bourbon Street. Galatoire’s Friday lunch remains packed with partying locals. Brennan’s (left), although under new ownership, still serves a bevy of richly sauced egg dishes and decadent Bananas Foster from early morning through mid-afternoon in an upscale setting. Café du Monde draws crowds all hours of day and night for its chicory-laced coffee and sugary beignets. The line for breakfast at Mother’s still stretches down the street with locals and visitors waiting for eggs and “debris” (the shreds of meat and grease falling off rotisserie roast beef), and Commander’s Palace in the Garden District still draws an upscale crowd.
    And as for lodging, there are the usual French Quarter standbys like The Royal Orleans and Royal Sonesta as well as the plush, recently refurbished Windsor Court (right), just across Canal Street from the French Quarter and in easy walking distance to the Warehouse District restaurants (see below), with a top-notch restaurant of its own called the Dining Room, featuring a beautiful room ringed with murals of Louisiana lifestyle.
    But much has changed. In particular, the revitalization of the Central Business District with restaurants and the not-to-be-missed World War II Museum. Housed in two separate buildings are a series of rooms showing photos, movies and memorabilia of the histories of the two theaters of operation (Europe and the Pacific) that comprised WWII. Even if you think you know all about “the war,” plan to spend a few hours fascinated by the stories of the campaigns.
    On the dining scene, even more has changed, especially so since I co-authored the book The Best Wining & Dining in New Orleans some 25 years ago. In particular, the once desolate Warehouse District and Central Business District, which used to be gourmet wastelands, are alive with a range of toothsome eateries, two of which, owned by celebrity chefs Donald Link and Stephen Stryjewski, are discussed below.

 

Cochon
920 Tchoupitoulis Street 
504-588-2123

  Expanded in 2016, Donald Link's Cochon is now under the day-to-day reins of chef-du-cuisine Bret Macris, who grew up in Burbank, California, and has had stints at Los Angeles’ famed Campanile and New York’s Rosewater in Brooklyn. The setting for the Cajun fare served is “casual-chic”—a  converted warehouse with exposed brick walls, one of which features a large painting of a “cochon”—and reasonably spaced tables with white cloths and good silver and wine glasses. The noise level is surprisingly reasonable, and service is very knowledgeable and prompt. And, while the fare is based on long-standing Cajun home cooking recipes, the ingredients are primarily locally sourced and prepared with a deft hand. Moreover, portions are quite large. For example, a popular must-try starter of smoked pork ribs (left) with watermelon pickle brought four very meaty ribs, and a dish of wood-fired shrimp with chili-garlic butter and lemon held enough crustaceans that it could have made a main course.  Other appetizers, like the heady roasted duck and hot sausage gumbo or flavorful port-braised pork cheek with pumpkin puree and pistachio, also  provide hearty portions of tasty fare.
    As to main courses, popular choices include the classic Louisiana cochon, shredded on a heap of cabbage and topped with cracklin’s and accompanied by pickled turnips. There are daily grilled gulf fish specials as well as the smoked beef short rib with tomato butter and mushrooms. Also, when available, be sure to try a side of the heirloom carrots, prepared with a mint sauce. For dessert an oatmeal tart had just the right amount of sweetness and for wine, from a short but well-thought-out list, we chose a 2016 Savigny-les-Beaune that had just the right amount of cherry flavor and gusto to mate well with the fare. And for the aficionado there’s long lists of whisky and small-brewery beer choices, especially bottles from Louisiana and nearby states. 

(Expect dinner for two to cost $100-$110, not including wine, tax or tip.)

 
Peche
800 Magazine Street
504-522-1744

    What Cochon does for the pig, Pêche, also owned by David Link, does for denizens of the deep,  again in a refurbished warehouse with exposed walls and wood-beamed ceiling, and, as one might expect, a large painting of a fish on one wall.  And, while listed as a seafood restaurant in area guides, the fare, prepared under the direction of James Beard Award-winning chef Ryan Prewitt, is quite a bit different from the simple seafood houses of Louisiana. For example, a “raw bar” starter of “crab claws with pickled chiles” was a large bowl of small, dewy claws swimming in a red-tinged sauce, enlivened by jalapeño peppers. A creamy crab salad topped with chives, apple slivers and toasted pumpkin seeds came adrift in a sauce of chives and African spices.  And, a moist, meaty grilled red fish for two with a crisp skin coated with a savory parsley and basil pesto, with a side of fried brussels sprouts flavored with chili oil, was one of the best dishes we had on our visit to the city. We accompanied the meal with an appley, slightly sweet Reinhessen Seehoff Riesling and for dessert, from pastry chef Maggie Scales, we enjoyed a generous slice of rich Key lime pie topped with decadent Chantilly cream.  

(Expect dinner for two to cost $65-$70, not including wine, tax or tip.)

  

Upperline
1413 Upperline Street
504-891-9822

    Situated about a 15-minute car ride from the French Quarter, Upperline has for more than 15 years been a local favorite, serving huge portions of upscale southern cooking on well-spaced, clothed tables in one of three rooms that have yellow walls crammed with paintings of different sizes and subjects. Appetizers run the gamut from fried green tomatoes with shrimp in a remoulade sauce that could have shown a bit more zest, to spicy shrimp with jalapeño corn bread and garlic aïoli that had plenty of zest, to andouille and duck étouffée with cornbread and Louisiana pepper jelly, to a turtle soup with sherry.
    Main course items sampled included a “12 hour” half roast duck that was crisp on the outside and easily shreddable on the inside, served with a garlic-Port sauce, and a buttery baby drum fish meunière topped with fresh jumbo lump crabmeat. Of note, pieces of a loaf of good crusty bread were great to “mop up” the sauces.
    For dessert we had a rich pecan bread pudding with toffee sauce and a sinful “Sundae Eugene” (vanilla ice cream, almonds and chocolate sauce). And we accompanied the meal with a concentrated, berried Turley Lodi Zinfandel.

(Expect dinner for two to cost a very reasonable $80-$90, not including wine tax or tip.)

 

   

    And, if after all the eating, you need a few hours of exercise away from the madding crowds, there’s the Jack Nicklaus-designed English Turn golf course (a 20-minute car ride from the French Quarter), which for a long time was considered one of the most challenging on the PGA Tour. In fact, not only does the course feature the classic elevated, undulating, tiered greens surrounded by sand traps typical of a Nicklaus course, but water comes into play on almost all of the holes. And, while at over 7,000 yards from the “tips” it’s quite a challenge for long hitters, the fairways are wide enough to offer the average golfer an enjoyable experience, with lots of local birds watching most of your shots. (Green fees are a very reasonable $60-$100 per player.)

NEW YORK CORNER

NOTES FROM THE WINE CELLAR

    Nature has not made it easy for the JONATA wineries. The estate in Ballard Canyon is a 586-acre property of sandy soil, with 84 acres of vines, including more than 11 different varieties planted, along with high-acid experimental Greek plantings like Xinomavro and Assyrtiko. The Hilt estate in the Central Coast’s Santa Rita Hills focuses on Chardonnay and Pinot Noir in vineyards bathed in fog and whose north-facing slopes approach 45-degree temperatures and 50 mph winds, terroir that winemaker Matt Dees refers to as “growing in the margins.”
    Joining JONATA in 2004 when he was just 25, Dees (left) was not an enologist but had instead studied plant sciences far from any vineyards at the University of Vermont. His youthful exuberance was key to JONATA/The Hilt’s unorthodox experiments in that marginal terroir, but after 15 years on the job, the boyish-looking Dees is as devoted as ever to go rogue in the vineyards. I dined with him in New York and found him gleeful when speaking about all his projects, as if Tom Swift Jr. had carte blanche to create a Super Vineyard.
    “We are ten miles east of the ocean, so the area is colder than in the north,” he said. “It never gets warmer than 80 degrees, whereas it can go up to 110 in Napa.” Dees noted that the region of JONATA has sandy maritime soil (called Careaga Sandstone) and showed me photos of how small his vineyards’ grapes are by comparison with the sun-drenched, sugar-plump grapes in Napa and Sonoma. The Hilt’s diatomaceous soil, by comparison, is like lunar dust. Yet, despite mis-steps and outright flops along the way—three successive vintages of Merlot ranged from mediocre to poor—Dees has had total freedom to keep on experimenting. The high acid Greek wines are a current infatuation, but he has no plans to release any unless they work in the Santa Barbara terroir.
    Such largess is rare, if not unique, in the California wine business, where very wealthy people often lavish more money on their country mansions than their vineyards. In the case of JONATA, carte blanche, rather than conventional wisdom, seems a mantra, thanks to owner Stan Kroenke and his wife, Ann, daughter of Walmart co-founder James Walton (right), whose business empire includes Kroenke Sprits & Entertainment, a holding company for the NFL’s L.A. Rams, the English Premier League football club Arsenal, the NBA’s Denver Nuggets, the NHL’s Colorado Avalanche, the MLS Colorado Mammoth and the LA Gladiators. He is also owner of Napa Valley’s prestigious Screaming Eagle winery, and The Land Report magazine ranked him as the ninth-largest landowner in the U.S. in 2015. In 2018 Stan Kroenke was estimated by Forbes to be worth $8.5 billion.
    The name JONATA commemorates the original 1845 Spanish land grant of the region, Rancho San Carlos de Jonata, which in the Chumash Indian language means “tall oak.”
    For all that ongoing push to try new projects, the 2017 The Hilt Chardonnay ($45) is for me a superb expression of a varietal that in California is so often over-oaked, over-caramelized and overwrought. It’s a blend from three barrels, and the symmetry of fruit and acid, a 13.4% alcohol level and aging in 40% new French oak gives it roundness and body, as expressive of healthy Chardonnay grapes as you’d find in the best traditional Burgundies. The single-vineyard  Bentrock Vineyard Chardonnay ($75), while a little pricey, has an even richer flavor and complexity, making it a superb match for shellfish in buttery sauces.
    I was not as fond of The Hilt’s 2017 Pinot Noir ($45), which I found had an odd, green vegetal flavor, but the 2017 Radian Vineyard Pinot Noir ($75) was a beauty, aged in only 5% new French oak and 95% neutral French oak, which allows the grape flavors to evolve with minimal interference. It’s a superb Pinot Noir at a reasonable price.   
    Over dinner I also tasted two library releases that showed how the JONATA wines can mature so gracefully over a decade, a grace that over-extracted California Pinots never achieve.  The 2010 El Desafio de Jonata “The Defiance” Cabernet Sauvignon Ballard Canyon (whose name must set a record for its length) is made from grapes out of the best of the estate’s lots, coming in at 14.5% alcohol. There are tannins still waiting to tame down, but the whole amalgam is a wine of luscious ripeness without being cloying in any way. It’s got plenty of years ahead to get better.
    The 2006 “The Blood” Syrah from Ballard Canyon (left) has a delightful, peppery quality and an intensity you expect from Syrah, with only 2% Viognier added. It aged in 50% new French oak and 50% neutral, which complements the big fruit flavors. At 14.9% it’s skirting the stratosphere for alcohol but that’s not out of bounds for a big Syrah like this. A JONATA Todos Santa Ynez Valley 2016 tilts that way, too, as a blend of all ten different varietals grown on the whole estate, which was not a convincing argument for a repeat.
    JONATA Fenix Ballard Canyon 2016, a Bordeaux-style blend of 58% Merlot, 30% Cabernet Sauvignon, 10% Cabernet Franc and 2% Petit Verdot, weighs in at 15.2% alcohol, which can be felt on first sip. The wine is not translucent, the color is inky and the plummy flavor not appealing.  Back to the lab with this one.
    It goes without saying that the Kroenkes and Dees are wholly committed to sustainability—herbicides and pesticides are banned—utilizing what is called polyface farming by which viticulture co-exists and integrates with agriculture (they make their own honey and grow olives) as well as with livestock. Having acquired hundreds of chickens, they’d forgotten that hens lay lots of eggs and the estate now sells their production in the area. There are pigs, turkeys, sheep and goats, even a couple of mean-spirited llamas.
    “People bring us animals and others think we’re a petting zoo,” said Dees. “It’s a pretty wonderful place to work.”