Restaurant Antoine 713-717 Rue St. Louis in the French Quarter 504.481.4422 ***** Part II -- The Restaurant, Waiters, Reservations Antoine's is a big restaurant, with 15 separate dining rooms. When you walk in the front door, you enter the first public dining room. Except for the two peak times of the year (Carnival and Jazz Fest), it's not terribly hard to get a table in the front room just by walking in off the street. Unfortuntaely, it's also the source of many of the unfavorable reviews one reads about Antoine's. Coming in off of the street removes many of the aspects of dining at Antoine's that are a part of the overall experience. This room is very bright, like Galatoire's. White walls, mostly white tile floor, and white linen tablecloths really illuminate the front room. If you have reservations, however, you'll be led through the front dining room and to the right, where you'll be seated in the back dining room. This room's dark exposed beam ceiling, russet-colored walls, and more subdued lighting is where the regulars eat. You get a literal night-and-day feeling when you go from front to back. It's as if the front room is really an extension of the street outside, and moving into the back is when you enter a more private realm. I know regulars who have gone to the restaurant on crowded nights and have been totally outraged that they had to be seated in the front room, in spite of the fact they have reservations! Bear in mind that there's only one kitchen, and the food served to both rooms is identical. It's just that much of a difference in atmosphere. Regulars to the restaurant are able to avoid entering the front dining room completely by using the famous "side door" of Antoine's. If you walk past the front doors of the restarant, there's an unmarked door about twenty feet down. This door opens into an access hallway that separates the two main dining rooms from the private rooms in the back. If you have a reservation, you can just walk in this door, and you'll be seated at your table in the back room or in one of the private rooms. The private dining rooms are quite elegant. There are two smaller, unnamed rooms behind the back dining room that can hold small parties, or are used as overflow for the regular customers. Then there's the 1840 Room on the first floor, which can accomodate parties of 8 to 16 or so. This room is great if you're coming to town with a small group. Antoine's, as my father-in-law used to say, is a restaurant best experienced as a group. With 8-10 people, you can do things like order six or so appetizers and let everyone sample some of each. That way, you can try Oysters Rockerfeller, Bienville, and Foch; Shrimp Remoulade, and everyone gets souffleed potatoes. There are two other small rooms private rooms downstairs as well as the Rex and Proteus Rooms. More on those in a moment. Upstairs there are four rooms facing Rue St. Louis that hold 30-50 guests. The first one on the left coming from the stairs is the Capitol Room. Its decor gives you the feeling you're eating in the White House or some other elegant political setting. The other three rooms down the hall are equally nice, each decorated in a different color scheme. Across from these four rooms is the Japanese Room, so named because its decor is all in a Japanese motif. This room was closed shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, and wasn't re-opened to the public until the anniversery of the restaurant in 1990. The Japanese Room is well suited for a large dinner party. Carnival and Antoine's Antoine's has a special place in the world of Carnival in New Orleans. The French Quarter was long the focal point of all of our Carnival celebrations. Parades rolled through the streets of the Quarter, where they disbanded at the old French Opera House, the site of the bal masques of the old-line krewes. Even though Comus first paraded in 1857, Carnival as we know it now really came into its own in the 1880s and 1890s. Rex first paraded the streets in 1872, with the other old- line krewes being formed over the succeeding decade. The krewes all needed a place to get together for lunch, or for dinner after tha ball, etc., and Antoine's was the established restaurant of the time. It got to the point that the School of Design (the organization who chooses the King of Carnival, Rex) was regularly having events here, such as krewe meetings, luncheons for past Queens of Carnival, that the owners designated one of the private rooms on the first floor as 'The Rex Room.' The School of Design contributed various items of Rex paraphenalia, which were framed or enclosed in glass cases on the walls, and the room was decorated in a formal Carnival motif. Just down the hall from the Rex Room is the smaller (but no less elegant) Proteus Room, named after the old-line krewe which used to parade on Lundi Gras (but still at least holds its bal masque on the day before). The Proteus collection of memorabilia includes some of the most beautiful of the 3-d paper ball invitations ever made. Reservations and Waiters Until just a few years ago, you couldn't just call up Antoine's and get a reservation. If you didn't know a waiter (and, more importantly, if he didn't know you), you had to go to the front door and get a table in the front dining room. Competition for the diner's dollar forced the Guste family to make some changes in the time-honored system (you can now call and make a reservation without knowing a waiter), but the waiter system is still alive and well. If you want to book a table for two, four, or you want the whole Rex Room for an evening, you just call your waiter--he'll handle everything. Waiters at Antoine's are sort of like middle management in a company. They interface with the owners, the kitchen, and have a staff of assistants and bus boys working for them. Make no mistake--these folks are not merely working for minimum wage and tips; these are some of the best restaurant people in town. Can you be an Antoine's regular? You bet! When you call for a reservation, ask for Richard Moreland. He's my waiter. My father-in- law's waiter had retired, and I really didn't have much of a rapport with any of the waiters I've had for lunch the last couple of times, so we didn't have someone who knew us at Antoine's. I got a wonderful e-mail note from someone who took my advice and went to Antoine's, saying that Richard was just wonderful. That sounded good to me, so I asked for Richard when I made reservations last week. When we arrived at the restaurant, Richard came up and introduced himself, a bit curious as to how we had heard of him, but he was trying not to be pushy about it. When I told him that someone from out-of-town had recommended him to a local via the Internet, he was truly amazed. It made his night. So, let's continue to astound Richard--ask for him, and tell him Ed Branley recommended him over the Internet (hell, if Tom Fitzmorris can recommend his waiter on his local food and dining radio show, I can do it electronically!) Reservations at Antoine's are for the evening; there's no attempt to turn the tables in the back dining room. Whether you arrive at 7:00pm or 10:00pm, it's your table. The up side of this arrangement is that nobody is pressuring you to eat fast. The down side is that your waiter may vanish into the front dining room for a while, since he has tables to work there as well. This doesn't mean service suffers; you just have to keep an eye out for your assistant waiter, who will bring your bread and such at the beginning of the meal. All of the wait staff wear nametags. Make sure you catch the name of the assistant, so you can grab his attention if you need something. Antoine's waiters are experts at timing courses and such, therefore they tend to appear just at the right time, no matter what they were doing a moment before. If you need something in-between those times, however, just wave for your assistant if you don't see your waiter. Well, are you hungry now that you've read all this background stuff? On to the food! (continued in part III)
New Orleans, LA