The April Hit List: Rizzuto’s, Plume Algiers, Couvant, and More

Plume still serves some of the best Indian food in New Orleans, but it’s doing so a bit differently of late. Lunch is currently to-go only. Dinner, served on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights, now has a prix fixe option, too. It features five dishes for $46, and a recent menu included a zippy banana chaat with coconut chutney, chicken kofta, and carrot halwa for dessert.

The original location of Metarie bakery and snack house Wishing Town cultivated quite the following over the last few years. Now, New Orleans proper can experience why the hullabaloo is so very warranted. Good luck trying to only order a couple of the many dumplings available: The cheeseburger and crawfish options are staunchly untraditional; the onion-beef triangle and dragon shrimp ones less so. The cakes are superb, too. Maybe a taro chantilly cake or durian mille crepes to finish?

We all could use a stalwart destination for great oysters and strong, simple cooking, and Le Chat Noir, in the space that once housed Marcello’s, is here to provide. Happy hour runs Tuesday to Saturday from 2:30 p.m. to 5 p.m., which is when dinner service begins. With its arrival you’ll find bold appetizers like anchovies and focaccia with chiles and chives, and mains in a kind of steakhouse format. That means the options include pork or steak for two, served with your choice of vivid sides like beets with Stilton or fingerling potatoes with Parmesan and brown butter.

We have two words for you: “waffle” and “bowl.” At Twisted Waffles in Nochi, yes, you can have your waffles sweet-ified, with, say, warm peaches or caramel apples and graham cracker crumbs. If you’re feeling savory, get a waffle bowl loaded with scrambled eggs, bell peppers, cheese, and your choice of protein. Then go harder and “twist it up,” as they call it, adding one of many add-ons such as crab meat, shrimp, and mushrooms.

Crab-stuffed mushrooms; brussels sprouts with cane syrup vinaigrette; oyster Bordelaise: The dishes at this Lakeview fixture couldn’t exist anywhere other than southeast Louisiana. And, really, they couldn’t exist anywhere but New Orleans specifically. Also served are Italian-American classics like spaghetti and meatballs, and sausage and peppers, of course. Come on a Wednesday when select wines are half-off.

What’s not to like about a breezy downtown spot focusing on mezcal? There are a variety of food options, including tacos, of course, but also Creole queso with crawfish and a salsa flight. Try a mezcal in one of the house cocktails, such as the Carta de Amor with sweet plantain and hazelnut. Or, for purists who want to learn more about the agave spirit, there is a weekly mezcal tasting on Thursdays. Be sure to reserve a spot though: Planning ahead ensures you need not go mezcal-less due to a full house of other mezcal-heads.

Chef-owner Sue Zemanick of Zasu is a local legend. There’s a beguiling intimacy to her cooking, and that allure is part of the magic of dining at Zasu’s location: a converted house on North Carrollton. Anytime is a good time to dine here, but spring is especially fine since the menu, which changes frequently, offers dishes like Little Gem lettuces with radishes and tahini ranch, and tuna crudo with yuzu-soy ponzu. One thing that doesn’t change is Zemanick’s famous wild mushroom-and-potato pierogies dish, which never leaves the menu.

Manish Patel’s Indian concept Tava has just moved from its stall in Auction House Market to a space all its own on O’Keefe. And a good dosa is hard to find in New Orleans, but Patel’s is magnificent. As is everything he makes, including his Chicken 65 wings and his vegetable pakora garnished with rings of fresh green chile. It’s a thrill to see Patel expand.

This gorgeous restaurant in the Eliza Jane Hotel has been on hiatus since the pandemic began but is now open again, this time under chef Ryan Pearson. A New Orleans native, Pearson recently returned home from New York and Paris. His menu at Couvant is blessedly explicit in its Frenchness (pâté en croûte; gougères with truffled mornay sauce; côte de boeuf) and its use of regional ingredients. For proof on the plate, look to the poached Royal Red shrimp with brandy-spiked cocktail sauce, the crawfish with potato gnocchi, or dirty rice with dry-aged duck. 

This new dual-concept venue is the Marigny’s latest blessing. By day, Cypress Cakes is a bakery run by Margo Robert. Her baked goods are impeccable: One recent springtime hit was the multi-tier pistachio cake layered with zippy lemon curd. Come 7 p.m., from Thursday through Sunday evenings, the space morphs into The Cypress Lounge, a bar run by Thomas Haulard and Joseph Robert. The standout cocktails currently include the Caribbean Money, which is an old fashioned made with pineapple rum, and a genius frozen espresso martini that happens to be dairy-free. Get in on the Lounge’s patio action while the southeastern Louisiana heat is tolerable.