Tie Score
Impressive service and decor try to beat out suspect seafood dishes at mike
ditka's new orleans..
By Sara Roahen
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MIKE DITKA'S NEW ORLEANS chef Christian Karcher has fashioned a menu
blending dishes from the former coach's Chicago restaurant with New Orleans
fare.
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WHAT: Mike Ditka's New Orleans
CUISNE: New Orleans cuisine with character
WHEN: Breakfast and dinner daily, lunch weekdays
WHERE: Lafayette Hotel, 600 St. Charles Ave., 569-8989
CARDS: Major
Not many restaurateurs have their faces caricatured on dinner plates or
embroidered onto the backs of servers' vests. Then again, not many NFL coaches
open restaurants with menus written and priced to compete with the best in the
city, as well as red-heavy wine lists and stocked humidors. Despite his
release as coach of the Saints in January and his not-so-great reputation
around town, Mike Ditka continues to strive for the big leagues in New
Orleans.
But if a recent visit is any indication, Ditka might have to settle
for a tie in this game.
Occupying the ground floor of the Lafayette Hotel on St. Charles
Avenue, Mike Ditka's New Orleans sounds like a sports bar, is advertised as a
steakhouse, and is run like a spa. Ditka's name is everywhere, from "Signature
Series" cigars to "Ditka's Draft" beer, suggesting both the gruff and the
sportif, yet neither is the dominant vibe here. The lighter and trendier menu
of fried oyster burritos, Cobb salads and roasted free-range chicken attracts
suited, wireless power-lunchers. Dimmed wall lamps, closed shutters, a
pampering evening staff and a more orthodox dinner menu, however, lure the
powerful. From mahogany walls in rooms so all-out classic New Orleans that the
St. Charles streetcar could drive through unnoticed, the former coach's
scowling portrait looks down upon diners.
Although Ditka reportedly calls the plays when he is in town,
familiar locals such as John Goodman, Jon Khachaturian, Fred Gallander and
Storey Charbonnet form an all-star lineup of fellow investors. They discovered
their executive chef, Christian Karcher, when he headed the kitchen at Mike's
on the Avenue, the space's previous incarnation. Karcher, a first-string player
himself, trained in France with Paul Bocuse before a love of travel and his New
Orleans native wife brought him here.
Karcher didn't have to leave the home field, so to speak, but he
weathered many changes in the transition from one Mike to another. While
visiting Ditka's Chicago restaurant, he brainstormed with chefs already serving
Ditka-ized food. The resulting menu is a fusion of the steaks one assumes
football coaches eat, and the New Orleans favorites locals expect. You can
begin in the Gulf, then, with bursting raw oyster shooters (with lemon and
cocktail sauce chasers, of course), followed up by an aged New York strip
(Ditka takes his medium rare, charred on the outside, no sauce, no mushrooms
... hike!) and a side of plain but exactingly crispy hand-cut fries.
Surf and turf.
Although the menu boasts much local product, the regional seafood I
tried (raw oysters aside) arrived consistently overcooked. At lunch, the shrimp
on the Asian vegetable stir-fry were shriveled so that not even the crisp
vegetables or a dousing of the middling salty-sweet sauce saved them, and the
lobster in the risotto at dinnertime was plentiful but shamefully leathery. It
was three-and-out with an enormous piece of medium-rare ginger-seared tuna that
suffered no noticeable seasoning and a few flakes of charred, bitter ginger.
Thankfully, the accompanying wasabi mashed potatoes lent some heat and buttery
flavor to the dish.
If the kitchen poorly executed some obvious offensive plays, the
comfort level is so high for a fine dining establishment -- and the mostly male
floor team's defensive moves are so polished -- that if the busboy told me to
order the Oscar Meyer weenie special, I might have. My garlic-studded "Training
Table Pot Roast" (one of "Mike's Picks") resembled grandma's in its fall-apart
delicate meat, its coffee-brown slurried gravy, its accompanying mound of
Sunday dinner-perfect mashed potatoes, and also the unfortunately high fat
content of a chuck roast. The common complaint about its fattiness could be
avoided by using a leaner cut of beef, a bottom round for example, but what Da
Coach wants, Da Chef serves. When I questioned my server about the choice of
cut, his reflexes were immediate: his eyes made a wordless pass that was deftly
received by the alert maitre'd, who gracefully rushed our table to subtract the
roast from our bill. The move was unnecessary but appreciated, and signified a
gallant dedication to the fan.
Karcher's appetizers ("Kickoffs") outmatch his entrees. The duck
"cigar" spring roll dipped into a piquant jalapeno-ginger sauce, and the
drizzled creamy wasabi on thin slices of rare, sesame-crusted tuna are remnants
of the Asian bent of Mike's on the Avenue. Although all of the plates were
promptly and exquisitely presented, these appetizers boasted flavor contrasts
and attention to seasoning lacking in most of the other dishes I tasted.
Similarly, aside from sweet potato in the bread pudding, desserts
from pastry chef Patrick Phelan lack any cutting-edge surprises. Still,
classics like banana cream pie and strawberry shortcake are well suited to a
steakhouse cum saloon cum plantation salon.
On any given evening, Karcher and General Manager Mason Jambon
recognize the faces of most of their clientele. The mayor even ducks in for a
happy hour now and again. This is a place for good ol' boys and gals to see and
be seen, to unwind in the perfume of pure New Orleans and a humidor worth
thousands. They will keep going back. And if the kitchen starts approaching
each night like the Super Bowl rather than a scrimmage, so will I.
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