New Orleans: Friday Lunch at Galatoire's

Or how I had a martini for breakfast and lived to tell about it.

My most memorable meal in New Orleans has to be the Friday lunch at Galatoire’s in the Quarter. The restaurant is world-famous – it has been open continuously since 1905, and has been written up in numerous food and travel magazines. Friday lunch, however, is a tradition within tradition – a local institution where everyone who is anyone in New Orleans comes out to stand in the hyper-egalitarian line, socialize, gossip, and have a grand time. It so happened that T.S. and I had most of the day open while our better halves were finishing up their conference duties, so of course we had to partake.

As famous as Galatoire’s is, it is a little difficult to get a precise description of exactly how these bacchanalian affairs work. Some people will tell you to show up as early as 8:00 a.m., while others will insist that a half-hour before the 11:00 a.m. opening time is sufficient. I strolled casually by around 9:30, hoping to check out the scene, perhaps grab a beignet and coffee for breakfast before returning, but noticed that a dozen or so people were already lined up, so to be on the safe side, I stayed. T.S. joined me a short while later.

A young gentleman waiting in line in front of me – friendly and gracious true to the reputation of the city’s denizens – finally explained how the process works. At some point during the morning, though you never know exactly when, the maitre d’ comes out with a clipboard and walks the line, taking down names and – a key aspect of the experience –requests for specific servers. Most of the regulars have relationships with their favorite servers going back years. It so happened that a friend of a friend, who spends a lot of time in New Orleans, had recommended his favorite, so we were able to follow the protocol as closely as out-of-towners could hope to.

From there, the m.o. is “follow the crowd.” Sometime a little after 11:00, the doors open and everyone starts filing in and goes immediately upstairs to the bar for pre-lunch cocktails. The bar itself is tiny – maybe eight seats, and the room where it is situated is not much larger, so it fills up immediately with people who jostle, call out drink orders over their friends’ heads, and pass glasses back and forth. The din builds quickly.

T.S. managed to nab a seat at the end of the bar, while I stood nearby, surveying the clientele. At least 80% obviously locals; most, though not all, older than us. A well-dressed crowd. Ladies mostly in dresses, elegant but not contrived, men surprisingly well put-together. Not guys who pulled the default weddings-and-funerals suit out of the closet because they felt obligated, but genuinely well-dressed: properly fitting jackets, well-coordinated ties, pocket squares. I spotted a hat or two while waiting. The restaurant made jackets for men optional some years ago, but clearly the regulars were abiding by the old policy. A handful of patrons, and they all seemed to know one another, were dressed more flamboyantly – silk scarves (on both sexes), stylish glasses, designer shoes -- but they were the perfect seasoning in this dense soup of propriety.

The drinks were old-school. I was surprised, and a bit disappointed, that upon hearing me order a martini, the bartender asked whether I wanted gin or vodka, and whether I wanted it up or on the rocks. If it has vodka and/or served on the rocks, it is not a martini, and he, of all people, would have known that, I thought. But perhaps my age, combined with that certain East-coast dourness that I can’t quite shake, gave me away as an interloper. The martini, when it showed up, was in a tiny 4-oz. glass, and the well gin was nothing to write home about, but the drink was garnished with three enormous and delicious olives.

On the cusp of noon, people started to move downstairs. There was no announcement or even a change of tone in the din of the room – the crowd has acquired its own emergent power of decision-making, honed by years of morning cocktails. There is a second dining room on the same floor as the bar, but eating downstairs is part of the experience – the upstairs, in our contact’s words, is “Siberia. May as well not bother.” The main dining room was smaller than I expected, with mirrors and marble on the walls and ornate brass sconces. The table settings were fairly formal. Most of the tables were large, but there was a handful of two-tops kept for couples or unfortunate souls like T.S. and me who did not have friends and associates with whom to conduct business or merriment.

Our waitress Shannon, a friendly, well-spoken middle-aged blonde, was spectacular. We sent our contact’s regards. She knew him instantly and asked us to take back a message – they weren’t kidding about relationships with your servers – and proceeded to orchestrate our meal for us. Galatoire’s menu has no descriptions, and with most names ending simply in maison, is fairly useless, but we only took a cursory glance anyway. Shannon recommended a cold seafood appetizer – shrimp remoulade, some crabmeat, maybe one or two other things, and advised us to throw in some oysters en brochette – wrapped in bacon and flash-fried. With the monsters from the gulf, you can do that, and they were absolutely delicious – salty, and a perfect combination of soft and crunchy. The rest of the components were delectable as well – just mayonnaisy enough, not too cold, and obviously freshly made. This was not modern, cook-just-enough-to-get-away-with-it cuisine, but it was immensely satisfying.

For our entrees, T.S. and I ended up with the same thing – pompano, another local fish, served with a sauce that seemed to consist of little other than melted butter. It was delicious. Perfectly cooked and perfectly seasoned, it was more flavorful than the redfish, and immensely satisfying. The butter sauce certainly didn’t hurt, but did not overpower the fish. Our side dish – a la carte as expected – was Brabant potatoes, recommended by the blogosphere and seconded enthusiastically by Shannon. They were a paragon of simplicity: cubes of potatoes, fried and tossed with butter, parsley and garlic. Once again, a throwback to an earlier era, but proof positive that classic cuisine needs not be complicated and can be ridiculously good even to our modern palates used to the hyper-fresh and the minimally cooked. I can’t quite remember at this point what we drank – again something from Oregon (in the one concession to current taste, the wine list was surprisingly diverse), a Gewurtztraminer maybe, or perhaps another Pinot Gris. It went well with the meal, and I must be honest – by about half way through our entrees I didn’t care nearly as much as I normally would. We skipped dessert, sticking to coffee. The coffee had no chicory in it – according to Shannon, that would have been déclassé when Galatoire’s first opened in the early part of the last century.

We were not the first to leave around a half past two, but a large number of the patrons were still at their tables when we did. Now you know why no one picks up the phone when you call a company in New Orleans on a Friday afternoon.