Tom Fitzmorris: "Red Fish Grill hooks fresh catch in land of tourist traps"

by Tom Fitzmorris

If a restaurant serving precisely the same food the Red Fish Grill does were in a shacky, funky kind of place somewhere on the corner of two backstreets Uptown or in Mid-City, and if it were owned by a young couple you never heard of, it would not only have a waiting list every night but would be among the most revered restaurants in town.

However, the Red Fish Grill is on Bourbon Street. It looks like a chain restaurant inside. And it’s owned by Ralph Brennan, part of the most successful restaurant family in New Orleans history.

Nevertheless, it’s packed most of the time with people piled up at the bar waiting for tables. However, I suspect most locals look upon it with a little suspicion. Lots of tourists in there. Bourbon Street. The Brennans. (Past accomplishment, these days, is a negative in the minds of many. What is this idea that you have to be incompetent to be a real New Orleanian?)

I’ve had several meals at the Red Fish Grill lately, and I’d be lying if I told you I wasn’t tremendously impressed by them. I don’t think we take this place seriously enough.

The premises are so cool that they could, indeed, be the prototype for a chain, although I don’t think Ralph is thinking along those lines. The place was the first restaurant design from the quirky mind of artist, sculptor and metalworker Luis Colmenares, who has been working on restaurants in St. Bernard Parish lately after working a few months on roofs over dere in da parish.

He and Ralph turned what had been the Men’s Department of the old D.H. Holmes department store into something totally different. Battered brick walls — some real, some fake — give the impression this is an ancient building that should have fallen down but didn’t. The neon and artwork on the walls, floors and tables prove this is only an illusion.

The menu was largely inspired by Mr. B’s, where Ralph Brennan broke into the family business. When Mr. B’s moved upscale, it left behind a lot of casual ideas that were perfect for the Red Fish Grill. Ralph implemented many of those and added something no Brennan restaurant had ever had — an oyster bar.

That was 10 years ago this past January. The restaurant — the first owned not by a collection of Brennans but just one of them — evolved through rough patches into the restaurant it is now. When last I wrote about it eight years ago, I predicted it, too, would become more upscale. It hasn’t. It’s become more casual than it was when it opened.

In fact, the Red Fish Grill’s menu now is downright rustic. That’s what I like about it.

The dish that exemplifies this is crawfish etouffee. It’s not often prepared well in restaurants because they make it too polite. Not here. The sauce has a great dark roux, a big flavor of crawfish — the stock they use must really be intense — and a spice level just this side of the rambunctious one at K-Paul’s. When you eat this, you’ve eaten something, and I suspect even a back-bayou Cajun would find the Red Fish Grill’s version convincing. It’s a contender for best in town.

Starting at the beginning of the menu, we find a major specialty that’s so delicious that even the waiters and cooks aren’t tired of eating it whenever they can. The name “barbecue oysters” suggests the dish for which Drago’s is famous, but in fact it’s more like Buffalo chicken wings: fried oysters, served on the shell with a squirt of butter emulsified into Louisiana hot sauce, with a bit of blue cheese dressing. I’m quite sure if I kept them coming, I could go through two or three or four dozen of these things.

A similar dish for shrimp lovers is coconut-crusted shrimp, a Mr. B’s classic that seems more appropriate here. Also good is the fried calamari — a big pile, right out of the fryer and drizzled with aioli. There are crab cakes, but to avoid disappointment they ought to rename them “crab patties.” They look like burgers and are made with a lower-level crabmeat that results in something well below what comes to mind when we think of a crab cake.

The centerpiece of the entree menu is, logically, redfish. But when the Red Fish Grill opened, it didn’t have that. Now that it’s easily available from local fish farms, redfish can once again be served widely. (In the wild, it’s strictly a game fish in Louisiana, which is absolutely ridiculous.) The Red Fish Grill runs it across its wood-burning grill and sends it out with a crawfish sauce around the perimeter, plus some fried potatoes with ham and peas. Very substantial plate of food, that.

Blackened redfish is also here. That became a local joke some years ago, to the point that we don’t see it much anymore. It’s good, spicy (once again, they’re unafraid of the right amount of pepper) and crusty. That comes with some of the barbecue oysters, in case you missed them in the first round.

The grill is also brought to bear on steaks. But that’s for the tourists and other non-seafood-eaters. What you want, if the redfish didn’t get you, is the andouille-crusted fish — a strange idea that works pretty well. The crusting is really more like a dressing and reminds me of the stuff we make for the turkey at Thanksgiving. The sauce makes the dish, though: a thick, tan meuniere with a touch of Bourbon.

The sweet-potato-crusted catfish is another long-running specialty, but I can’t say it pushes my button.

Good desserts. The famous one is the chocolate bread pudding — but only if you’re a chocolate fanatic. This is more than just a pudding; it flows chunks of chocolate and about blows the top of my head off, but my girls love it.

The regular bread pudding is very light and excellent. A new banana cream pie looks as if it will be very rich, but isn’t.

The service staff is top-notch. I’m sure this is a remunerative place to work, and it attracts good people.

The same cannot always be said about the hosts and hostesses. One of them actually argued with me about my table preference.

The Red Fish Grill was the first major restaurant in the French Quarter to open after the storm, and it’s been rocking ever since. I love to see tourists come here because I know they’ll be eating real food.•