NEW ORLEANS: Palace Cafe is fit for a king
You’ll eat like a King at the Palace Café, operated by New Orleans culinary aristocracy.
When President Bill Clinton was in office, they served him a special menu, and rumor has it he ate two entrees.
The Palace Café is part of the restaurant dynasty of Dickie Brennan, who also operates Dickie Brennan’s Steakhouse and the Bourbon House. If you’ve ever heard of breakfast at Brennan’s, you’ve heard of the legendary Brennan family. Brennan and his sister Lauren Brennan Brower and partner Steve Pettus own the place; Executive Chef Darin Nesbit and Chef De Cuisine Ben Thibodeaux lead the culinary team.
Food & Wine magazine called it “the kind of raucous but elegant place where locals come for birthdays and anniversaries and one table or another is always bursting into song."
On the edge of the French Quarter on Canal Street, the café occupies the former Werlein’s music building, with huge Jazz murals on the second floor, floor to ceiling windows and intimate third floor private dining rooms. The café’s collected armfuls of awards since opening in 1991: Best New Restaurant from Esquire magazine and USA Today; the prestigious Ivy Award from Restaurants and Institutions magazine, and Wine Spectator’s Award of Excellence.
The contemporary Creole dishes on the menu sound almost as good as they taste. Crabmeat cheesecake is baked in a pecan crust with a wild mushroom sauté and Creole Meuniére. The baked Fried Oyster "Loaf" is a mound of corn-fried oysters on grilled ciabatta bread with melted St. Andre cheese and sherry-tasso cream sauce. Andouille-Crusted Fish is pan-roasted and served with Crystal buerre-blanc, chive aoli, rissole potatoes and the vegetable du jour. White Chocolate Bread Pudding is served with white chocolate ganache.
The award-winning wine list has 25 varietals and over 200 labels, along with a complete array of cocktails at the full bar.
The “Lite Lunch" menu offers low-sodium, low-fat Creole dishes with local ingredients and fresh produce. During the summer, the Palace Café offers a Temperature Lunch, with two course meals prices at yesterday’s high temperature. (85° on Monday=Tuesday’s $8.50 lunch). Temperature meals end Labor Day.
Palace Cafe Brunch menu
- by Diane Loupe, New Orleans Reporter for HelloMetro
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Diane LoupeA resident of Decatur, Ga., Diane has a M.A. in Journalism from the University of Missouri. She has worked for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the Associated Press, the New Orleans Times-Picayune and Yale Medical School. A freelance writer and editor, she has contributed to The Sunday Paper, Women's eNews, the Agnes Scott College alumni magazine, eSchool News, and PTO Today. Diane is an instructor of College Composition at the Interactive College of Technology in Chamblee.
