Restaurant Week returns, see how to cut into menus from dining deals to mini chef tastings

This year’s Restaurant Week New Orleans (June 19-25) arrives the same week as the official, solstice-directed start of summer. That’s no coincidence.

It’s the second year for a new format for Restaurant Week, an annual promotion organized by the Louisiana Restaurant Association and New Orleans & Co. to encourage locals to dine out more and draw regional travelers in during slower tourism times. The hospitality industry leveraged it heavily through the ups and downs of the pandemic, and it accrued many changes throughout.

That starts with the date. Restaurant Week was once held in September as a final assist towards autumn. Now it is recast as a summer kick-off in June.

The city’s other big summertime restaurant promotion, Coolinary, is scheduled for the entire month of August, as usual. When Restaurant Week was held in September, the two campaigns essentially blended together. The new June timing gives Restaurant Week its own space, and perhaps a different draw.

The other big change becomes clear when you start parsing the Restaurant Week menus.

Gone is the price cap that once pitched these meals all under the premise of a dining deal. Instead, it’s up to restaurants to pick their own path.

Some go with bargains (or perceived bargains, at least); others make the case for more indulgent meals or focus on seasonal ingredients and dishes. Some even resemble petite chef tasting menus.

There are more than 70 restaurants taking part this year. Not all the Restaurant Week menus were posted at this writing (find the updated roster at neworleans.com), but plenty were, and I went through the crop available to draw out some promising examples below (caveat: I haven’t tried these particular menus yet, so I’m going on spec here and past track record).

Here are a few ways to cut into it.

Old-school classics, different tunes

Among those back this year are the old classic New Orleans restaurants, starting with the very oldest, Antoine’s, dating to 1840, (two-course lunch, $24; three-course dinner $60; two-course brunch $40). Arnaud’s, dating to 1918, uses its Restaurant Week menu (three-course dinner, $59) to flex beyond its French Creole classics, with dishes this year like risotto with crab and spring peas, seared scallop with Saint-Jacques cream or grilled quail.

Meanwhile, the newest on the Restaurant Week roster is also one of the hottest seats in town right now, Osteria Lupo. It’s the Uptown Italian restaurant from the same crew behind the nearby Spanish restaurant Costera.

And like Costera, its Restaurant Week offering is a take on a family-style tasting ($55 at Costera, $45 at Osteria Lupo). This one is structured as antipasti, pasta and dessert, drawing on dishes that make up much of the regular menu. The number of dishes served varies by the number of people at the table, so a larger group can sample practically the entire menu. Osteria Lupo will continue offering that format as a tasting menu after Restaurant Week too.

Others offer many choices through the progression of courses. If I were at the Bower (three-course dinner, $49), for instance, that would be the whipped feta, the teres major steak with shishito peppers, and the flourless chocolate cake with salted caramel, thank you very much.

Some of the city’s higher-end restaurants get into the action in different ways. At Restaurant August (four-course dinner, $80), that includes bluefin tuna crudo with chanterelle mushrooms, roasted eggplant agnolini and lomo iberico bellota, a pork loin from Spanish pigs.

Commander’s Palace pegs the price for meals to the entree choice (two-course lunch between $23 and $42; three-course dinner between $44 and $55). These menus run through seasonal summer dishes, elegant items (like crudo or a “bone marrow canoe”) and house signatures, and that includes the bread pudding soufflé at dinner. That entails a $3.50 up-charge (but, come on, this is destination dessert in its own right, it's worth it).

The menu at Jack Rose (four-course dinner, $65) has clams and linguini and whole fish bracketed by salad and a crème caramel.

GW Fins, meanwhile, can only list a sample menu because (as usual) the particular offerings change with what the kitchen brings in day to day; still, its Restaurant Week menu is structured as a three-course dinner for $55. A sample list of potential dishes shows the inventive house style, with drum crusted with prosciutto and “fettuccine” made from calamari (no, it’s not pasta).

Trying something new

You could use the week to try some flavors coming from very different vectors.

Consider Maypop, the Asian fusion restaurant (or is it Italian Asian fusion?) from chef Mike Gulotta. Its Restaurant Week menu (three courses $45, or $60 with wine pairings) shows its style with dishes like crawfish and andouille tom yum over gnocchetti pasta or fish sauce caramel-glazed sticky pork shoulder with roti, and to start the house Bibb lettuce salad which doesn’t sound like much but is always a craving of mine.

Nearby, Carmo has a bargain lunch menu (three courses $25) and a four-course dinner menu ($45) with a mix of Brazilian heritage dishes, vegetarian options, salads and tropical desserts.

The South American way with steak is on the table at Brasa (three-course dinner, $55) in Old Metairie, where you can start with tuna ceviche, get into a choice of steaks (skirt or filet) or pork chop from the grill, and finish with chocolate pecan pie.

If Restaurant Week means branching out, one find on the list is Filmore in the Oaks, part of the Bayou Oaks golf course at City Park, which has a two-course lunch for $20, and that includes a mid-day glass of wine. Why not? It's about to be officially summer in New Orleans, after all. Cheers.

See the list of restaurants and menu details for Restaurant Week New Orleans at neworleans.com/restaurantweek.

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