TRAVEL Eating New Orleans

Ask anyone in New Orleans where to eat and you won’t get a simple answer, you’ll get a paragraph. Everyone in town is a gourmet, and everyone’s got a different opinion, so when I knew 1 was going to the Crescent City for several days of nonstop eating, I called my friend Joe.

Joe’s been eating and cooking in New Orleans off and on for 20 years. He worked with New Orleans’ queen of cuisine, the late Lee Barnes, and he’s put in a stint at Commander’s Palace. The only times he ever left me city were to be part of the opening start at Kouth Street Cafe and to work as the first chef of Mississippi under Governor Mabus. In short, his is an opinion you can trust if you’re trying to uncover the hidden secrets of New Orleans dining.

Joe picked me up at the airport, and we immediately headed to a restaurant called Bayou Ridge Cafe in the Faubourg Marigny, a neo-bohemian suburb of the French Quarter. The food here tends toward the New American style, but the attitude is easy. The owner greeted us from a barstool and dropped by our table to chat while we ate pasta with garlic, olives, red onions and roasted peppers, followed by a perfect creme brulee and fabulous coffee (two things you can always count on in New Orleans). The food was superb, but as Joe warned me, my dinner at Bayou Ridge was only a warm-up for the eating marathon that would begin the next day.

I’d spent the night in the Faubourg, in a history-laden 18th-century townhouse that is now a bed and breakfast called Sun Oak, so we decided to stay in the neighborhood for lunch. Joe chose the Praline Connection (that’s “prah-lin”), which typifies the Faubourg, a melting pot of the old and the hip. The restaurant, a blend of black and white in every sense, from the decor to the diners, serves simple yet inspired Creole soul cooking. I can honestly say that the fried chicken I had here was the best I’ve ever eaten. Ditto the catfish and cornbread. (You can find the same kind of casual combination uptown at the Camellia Grill, the only diner I know of with a maitre d’. You can eat only at the counter, but the tuxedoed waiters provide you with white linen napkins to dab at the drips from your burger or pecan waffles.)

Over the next few days we ambled (and ate) our way through the Quarter and Fau-bourg Marigny, downtown and uptown, with Joe talking a mile a minute, pointing out how the streets curve where the river bends, correcting my pronunciation (“Burgundy”) and recalling old times and good meals. Discussing the food attitude of the natives, he recalled a dinner at K-Paul’s: “Some schnook asked for a bottle of ketchup, which he poured all over his beautiful chateaubriand, Bui the waitress didn’t let him get away with it-she called oui to the whole restaurant. ’Hey-do you believe this guy with the ketchup?’ ” New-Orleans is one of the few cities in the country where the general population is so used to eating fine food that they take it for granted.

The lineage of New Orleans restaurants is as intertwined and complicated as a Southern Gothic family in a Faulkner novel. Joe’s friend Betty a( the post office traces the tree as she enthusiastically recommends Peristyle, her new favorite restaurant. “Only 22 seats, the length of (he bar under a mural of City Park, it’s owned by John Neal, who was at the Bistro at Maison de Ville after Susan Spicer left to open Bayona,” she explains. (Bayona itself is one of die new stars on the New Orleans scene, with Oriental and world food overtones mixed into a Creole base. And the Bistro at Maison de Ville, despite the seemingly steady stream of chefs who leave, is still highly ranked eating.) We checked out Peristyle and were pleased with a crisp escargot-stuffed potato cake, a ring of fried shrimp around a mound of sweet polenta, a huge grilled pork chop with capers and walnuts and a frisee salad with warm bacon dressing.

The most complex family tree, of course, belongs to the Brennan’s, whose legendary Royal Street restaurant still serves the grandest of New Orleans break-fasts. Commander’s Palace, serving fabled jazz brunches, is also owned by a branch of the Brennan family. Chef Paul Prudhomme. the godfather of New Orleans cuisine ever since he burned a redfish, left Commander’s Palace to open K-Pau]”s Louisiana Kitchen, which still inspires lines down the sidewalk despite its rather haughty attitude and the inconvenience of its no-reservation policy. Descendants of the same Brennan branch have gone on to open Palace Cafe and Mr. B’s Bistro, and the latest in their chain of successes is Bacco, an Italian restaurant complete with a New York chef.

There’s always been a big Italian influence on the food of New Orleans-muf-falettas and stuffed artichokes are really Italian fare, and Mosca’s and Pascal’s Manale have been restaurant mainstays for years-but it’s been strengthened by the trend towards New American cuisine, which has a strong Italian accent all its own. Thai influence was obvious at die G&E Courtyard Grill on Decatur Street, which features opera on the sound system and a menu that blends Italian with traditional Creole fare. We sampled an incredible plate of seared calamari served with fruity, purple olives, tomatoes, garlic and a scoop of homemade ricotta melting into the plate like ice cream over pie. Traditional oysters Rockefeller were interpreted as a soup, the Becks of spicy greens and chunks of oysters swimming in a sexy, creamy broth. A muffaletta sandwich became a salad-the usual sandwich filling of ham and cheese and olive salad tossed with red chard and arugula.

I asked Joe about an old favorite nearby, Tujague’s, and was told “it’s still amazingly the same.” When natives say “the same.” it’s not a criticism. ’The same” is fine as long as it’s good, like the boiled beef at Tujague’s, the beignets at Cafe du Monde or anything at Galatoire’s.

New Oceanians may not accept trends easily, but they do get there eventually. A former Commander’s Palace chef, Emeril Lagasse has recently opened a Creole spot. Nola. but his big success is his New American restaurant, Emeril’s, in the Warehouse District. This area has gone directly from warehouses to restaurants with no intervening bohemian culture. Emeril’s was by far the dressiest place we went-in fact, it reminded me a lot of Dallas. It was one of the few restaurants we visited that required confirmed reservations. But in spite of the exciting menu, Emeril’s seemed more like the Big Uptight-noisy and crowded-than the Big Easy. A few blocks away, L’Economie was more relaxed. Il used to be the Economy Bar, a hangout for stevedores; now it’s a chic French restaurant with the kind of atmosphere we’re used to in Deep Ellum.

Jack Dempsey’s, on the other hand (in the Ninth Ward section of the Quarter), is definitely a place only a native could love for find for that matter). The enormous inexpensive platters of fried oysters, stuffed crabs, shrimp, cattish and soft-shell crabs come with a delicious cup of dark gumbo. Jack’s is nothing fancy-but it’s authentic.

Another native standby is Liuzza’s, which has never been a pari of any trend. This funky little place has been serving Creole Italian since 1947 on school cafeteria-type tables. It’s never made the tourist list, but it’s popular with locals for menu standards like “wop salad” (yes, it’s really called that), topped with chopped olives and whole anchovies, and the gargantuan garlicky stuffed artichoke. (In New Orleans, artichokes are served as often as beans are in Texas.)

The Pelican Club on Exchange Alley was one of the best examples of a new-New Orleans restaurant I tried on this trip. The long lean room with the ceiling fans reminded us of Galatoires. and the food was so good-thick squares of cheese-crusted bread, solid cakes of crab surrounded by sweet corn relish on endive leaves and crab claws, a cassoulet of smoked mushrooms,, escargot and while beans under a buttery crumb crust-that we kept eating in spite of ourselves.

But of all the newer restaurants I visited, there is one that is the keeper of (he flame. Brigtsen’s. with its traditional unpretentious atmosphere and incredible food, is a successful example of the Louisiana dining legacy. Marna Brigtsen greets and seats you. and after seven successful years. Frank Brigtsen still does most of the cooking. A perfect salad of sueeulent duck meat, roasted pistachios, greens and Louisiana satsuma oranges in an orange juice vinaigrette with duckskin cracklings proved the kitchen’s attention to details. A long fillet of speckled trout was perfectly fried and solidly covered with toasted pecans and bits of scallion without, a nod to nouvelle.

At Brigtsen’s, Joe eyed our friendly waitress. Sure enough, she was part of the crew that came with Frank and Marna from K-Paul’s to open Brigtsen’s and the same righteous soul who’d spoken up about that ketchup. And when she heard I was from out of town, she spoke up imme diately, “If there’s one place you should eat in New Orleans, it’s Uglesich’s.” “Uglesich’s?”’ I ask Joe. He shrugs,,”Say it like Bugle, only without the B,” adds the waitress helpfully. Uglesich’s. Well, maybe next time.