Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Two Tony’s on the move
Posted by Ian McNulty on Wed, May 11, 2011 at 3:19 PM
The next phase of the New Orleans-area’s future flood control systems has spurred the move of one Bucktown restaurant fixture.
Two Tony’s pulled up stakes this week and relocated less than a mile away, just across the parish line to the New Orleans lakefront, taking over the former address of Pontchartrain Point Café.
The Creole-Italian restaurant sat in the shadow the 17th Street Canal, and the temporary pumping station and related earthworks built at the mouth of the canal after Hurricane Katrina towered over the small, low shoebox of a restaurant, enclosing it on three sides. Two Tony’s chef/owner Anthony Montalbano Jr. had been concerned about the future of his restaurant beside this mammoth piece of engineering for some time, and when the Corps began finalizing plans for its much larger, permanent pumping station at the site,
began making his own plans to relocate.
Montalbano first opened the restaurant in the French Quarter in 1987 in partnership with his father, the late Anthony “Mr. Tony” Montalbano Sr. (hence the name Two Tony’s), and they moved it to Bucktown in 1994. The restaurant is the continuation of a family restaurant tradition dating back for more than 50 years to such long-ago French Quarter places as Montalbano's Seafood, the Blue Angel Supper Club and Eva's Spot.
Montalbano says the restaurant’s format and recipes will remain unchanged, which is good news (see my review from May 2009). A menu that ranges from a $9 plate of spaghetti and sausage that's too large to finish to a $17 slab of tuna grilled as rare as tataki helps explain why Two Tony's has long maintained such a diverse local clientele. At its Bucktown location, it was as common to hear a family saying grace together before Wednesday dinner as it was to hear a pair of ladies whooping it up over second glasses of Pinot Grigio at Friday lunch. Here’s to hoping the same crowd follows Two Tony’s to its new address.
Two Tony’s
8536 Pontchartrain Blvd., 831-0999
Comments (2)
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Hats off to the Chef! Great seafood, love the friendliness of the workers (especially when Chef Tony visits you at your dinner table) and it is a wonderful new location in the heart of the lakefront. My perfect dinner at Two Tony’s starts off with the seafood au gratin, followed by their delicious house salad, with an entre of their rich and creamy spicy shrimp fettuccini and to complete the meal I like to end it with their homemade bread pudding. This is a New Orleans restaurant that I always recommend to friends and family to dine at for a true New Orleans Italian Seafood dinner.
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A great New Orleans neighborhood restaurant and now located in New Orleans. The service is as good as the food and the food is very good. The new place is so beautiful with great ambiance. Whether in coat and tie, dressy casual clothes, or jeans and the latest t-shirt you are welcome to dine on some fantastic culinary creations by Chef Tony. Reasonable prices, large portions, and a decent wine list to pass a great time at one of my favorite restaurants in New Orleans.
