Commander’s Palace, one of the gems of the Brennan family’s wide umbrella of New Orleans hospitality empire, is a beautiful restaurant. On a lazy, lush-green street (ominously across from a cemetery), the bright sign for Commander’s Palace Restaurant buzzes alongside the row of lanterns. If I had a horse-drawn carriage, it would seem an appropriate entrance to the scene.
There are multiple floors, all white tablecloth’d and dimly lit. I felt transported to a different era, one of antebellum over-civility – and for that reason, I felt slightly out of place. But would I allow that to get in the way of enjoying butter-laden food?
C’mon.
We kicked off with heirloom tomato salad with gorgonzola.
Shrimp with pickled okra and hot pepper jelly.
Gumbo. With smoked ham or ham hock or something fucking delicious. Rich and smoky and RICH.
Myra got some pecan-crusted fish, with a creamy sweet corn sauce and Prosecco-poached Louisiana blue crab.
I had the chicory coffee-lacquered quail, with risotto and greens, plus a little more Tabasco pepper jelly.
Plus a side of the Prosecco-poached crab.
We went with a trio of desserts, because why not? The bread pudding soufflé.
I don’t remember what flavor the ice cream was – Creole cream cheese, maybe? Something dope, but super heavy.
Speaking of heavy, check out these phenomenal fig beignets. These, honestly, were probably the highlight of the night. My quail was pretty good, and the gumbo knocked my socks off, but nowhere else during the trip did I have anything quite as unabashedly decadent. It was absolutely a Devil-may-care order, because we’d already had a bajillion courses before this came to the table.
See what I mean when I say antebellum?
Commander’s Palace
1403 Washington Ave, New Orleans, LA 70130
(Google Maps)
House of Hao's 
Um we also got pecan pie to go. Teehee.