Hip & Hungry

Section: Food

Brett Anderson

French Quarter Bar at The Ritz-Carlton
921 Canal St. , New Orleans, LA 70130

Type of Establishment: Bars,Dance Clubs
Price Range: Expensive
Telephone: (504) 524-1331
Hours: 11a - Midnight Sun - Wed; 11a - 1a Thur - Sat
Payments Accepted: Debit,Diners Club,Discover,Traveler's Checks,Cash
Review(s): Hip & Hungry
More Info: 2 stars

On certain evenings, it may be possible to put your ear against a streetside wall of the Ritz-Carlton New Orleans and hear a buzz. The racket would be coming from the third floor, which has to be one of the better known "hidden" corners of the French Quarter.
The setting is, as you might expect, a vision of grandeur, one populated by a crowd that's at once well-pressed and a tad raffish -- upper-echelon managers on the convention circuit, loosening their collars and getting rowdy on their expense accounts; champagne-sipping beauties of all stripes, enjoying the better-than-home embrace of plush furniture; locals who've decided that coddling should be appreciated by more than just visitors.

On a good night, and even sometimes during the day, a kind of community springs from the profit centers located on the Ritz's third floor. The draws here are sundry, from the stately Library Lounge (cigars, cordials, chess) and the Lobby Lounge (tea, cocktails, tapas made "live") to the ballyhooed Victor's (daring multi-course meals). Even when weather doesn't permit loitering outside on the enclosed courtyard, a fortune's worth of fresh-cut flowers turns the air permeating this collection of lounges and restaurants toward the natural.

But given that this is New Orleans, it's perhaps not a surprise that when there's excitement on the third floor, its locus is regularly the French Quarter Bar. Since the hotel's opening two years ago, the FQB has acquired an unlikely patina of hipness, thanks in large extent to the smart booking of two sexy local musicians -- singer Ingrid Lucia on Tuesday and Wednesday nights, crooner/trumpeter Jeremy Davenport on Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

But despite its name, the FQB is a restaurant more than anything else, and its chefs have worked diligently to give it a reputation for serious dining. Matthew Murphy is the latest to take on the task, and with a resume that includes tours through Europe and a sous chef gig at Commander's Palace, he seems uniquely suited to it.

It's easy to see how the handsome FQB could stir a chef's ambitions. With its polished woods and heavy marble, there's a sturdiness about the place that suggests a classic brasserie or a Cambridge professor's reading den. The look is timeless because it's versatile; viewed from one of FQB's soft leather banquettes, a thick hamburger would look as sensible as a gravity-scoffing Napoleon.

The scales here could easily be tipped toward familiar comforts, the kitchen's forte. Some of FQB's best food is found on its list of daily specials -- creamy red beans and rice on Mondays, duck and wild mushroom gumbo on Thursdays. In a city overrun with Cajun-Creole standards, FQB's blackened red fish smothered in shrimp courtbouillon, a Wednesday special, and seared shrimp Creole, a menu mainstay served over creamy grits, distinguish themselves with top-shelf seafood and pitch-perfect recipes; Murphy grew up in Ireland, but either dish could pass as the handiwork of a seasoned Louisiana home cook.

Sparked by a swirl of pesto, roasted tomato soup on a recent visit was as rich as good pasta sauce and just as satisfying; accompanied perhaps by a few slices of crawfish corn bread (someone was passing out free loaves during lunch one day), the soup could be a lunch unto itself. The veal scaloppine left me wishing more chefs would be gripped by the urge to lightly batter this fork-tender meat, saute it brown and pair it with starch -- although this particular starch, a bed of overcooked angel hair in a runny cream sauce, left something to be desired.

These dishes primed me for what I expected to be a cagey bit of counter-programming -- if Victor's isn't your thing, chances are FQB's comfort food is. The problem is that while comfort food is a FQB strong point, it apparently isn't the kitchen's intended specialty.

More often than not, the appetizers fell victim to half-hearted attempts at snazziness. An oversized piece of duck confit sat awkwardly on a crouton that had long since lost its crunch; the apples in the accompanying salad were brown. A man could become addicted to the mushroom-artichoke-gruyere fondue, although he would need a constitution stronger than mine to finish the rich cheese dip with the cheese-covered toasts provided. What the menu called a seared crab cake was closer to a crab salad, a round of cold, stringy crab set in a puddle of corn maque choux. Horseradish-crusted fried oysters, which came scattered in a salad, broke all rules of frying science and fried-oyster appreciation: They were cold.

Apathy ruined several entrees. Never mind, for example, that the pan-roasted salmon was dry and fishy; the real substance of the dish was an out-of-place tomato ragout and a mass of mashed potatoes the consistency of a milk shake. The scallops were only seared on one side; the bright sauté of crisp vegetable threads provided an indication of what might have been.

I had better luck with beef. The filet mignon was tender and done to order, crowned by a tuft of steamed lump crab meat and draped in béarnaise. There's pleasure to be had simply partaking of the Ritz experience: One spotty meal garnered smiles simply because we were able to order off Victor's multi-national wine list.

The floor staff had the tendency to show stress as the restaurant filled at night. At lunch one day, our waitress was obviously not happy to be there. She had to ask my friend what he ordered -- three times.

A larger problem at the FQB had to do with identity. The daily special is priced well, but the cheapest regular menu item is a $17.50 pecan-crusted chicken breast. The hotel obviously caters to an affluent clientele, but in the context of what's already available in town -- not to mention on the very floor of the building where the restaurant is located -- it's unclear what culinary niche FQB is expected to fill.

Desserts don't provide any answers. They tend toward the quaint, but with disappointing results. The pecan pie's filling was pasty, like the inside of a Fig Newton, and the gorgeous cakes on display near the entrance turned out to be more lovely on display; our slice of praline cake was stale.

The Abita Root Beer float was just as it should be, a creamy, soothing reminder of this kitchen's strength. In these luxe surroundings, the common marriage between ice cream and soda pop captured what the menu clearly desired: my attention.