The June Hit List: Rosedale, Bar Pomona, Coquette, and More

There is New Orleans dining before Susan Spicer and New Orleans dining after Susan Spicer. People have eaten well here for ages, but since Spicer’s debut at Bayona in 1990 the Crescent City has become endlessly more delicious.

These days, Rosedale is the hidden emerald of her restaurants. It is situated in a roadhouse behind the cemetery center off City Park Avenue and Canal. The food, like the pimento cheese sandwich and shrimp Creole, is comforting without being basic. It is the type of restaurant you could eat at weekly and be content. Come to think of it, maybe we will.

A few months ago, Sara Levasseur, the mind behind Jamboree Jams, took over the storefront that once housed the butcher shop and diner Shank Charcuterie. She uses the space to make her jams, which are served and sold across the city. But as she settled into the space, she and her team started providing fresh offerings. Their baked goods, like an egg galette and supple focaccia, are superb. There’s also now a tight evening menu that might include pull-apart brioche loaf, a conservas or cheese plate, and a list of singular wines. Oh, and there’s soft serve. Really good soft serve.

Find more info here.

Donald Link’s homage to his southwestern Louisiana youth is the same kind of reliable all these years on. The boucherie section is a standout, being that it honors the charcuterie know-how of his Cajun roots. Head cheese, fried boudin, spicy cracklins: You’d probably have to travel to at least to the Lafayette area to find these kinds of flavors done as well. Do not sleep on the vegetable sides. The collards are braised with bacon, the field peas are a seasonal treat, and, this being New Orleans, yes, mac ‘n’ cheese casserole counts as a vegetable side.

It is refreshing when a restaurant has a laser focus. It is both refreshing and welcomed when that restaurant is a stellar taqueria from Pablo Castellanos Reyes, who has worked in kitchens across town. At his new-ish taqueria, the menu is taut: Just tortas, tacos, burritos, and quesadillas with a choice of, say, carnitas, barbacoa, lengua, or shrimp. In keeping with the raging trend, there is quesabirria, too, and occasional specials like pozole rojo. If 2 Brothers is in your Westbank backyard, go. If you need to cross the river to visit, do it.

Find more info here.

Any steakhouse that serves hash browns or a loaded baked potato is an instant beloved, far as we are concerned. And Chophouse serves both. Barbara and Jerry Greenbaum’s well-established spot in the CBD also serves a collection of enviable steaks, as you would expect. A rib eye, a porterhouse, a New York strip. But also lesser bovine treats, such as chopped steak with sauteed onions and a Cajun-style Delmonico steak. The cocktails, with a Sazerac and a Bee’s Knees, run classic, as does the heavily Californian wine list.

The season is here … for snoballs, obviously! Stop Jockin has some of the softest ice in town and a large — but not overwhelmingly so — list of flavors. There are classic syrups like Tigers Blood and Nectar, alongside lefter-field ones like Margarita, Iced Tea, and Silver Fox. Should you need fortification before or after your sugar blast, the shrimp fries and crawfish nachos have a fervent fan base.

Keep up with Stop Jockin Snoballs here.

This breezy St Claude restaurant remains one of the best places in New Orleans for a fine-dining meal. Emphasis on “fine.” Chef-owners Blake Aguillard and Trey Smith embrace luxury; they just define it in ways beyond truffles and caviar, though those often appear on the menu as well. The prix-fixe dinner is served only Thursdays through Sundays and for a maximum of about 12 guests in the dining room at one time. The bar and patio are a 180: They are for walk-ins only, the snacks — especially the stunning crudités bowl — are sublime, and on Wednesdays wines by the bottle are discounted.

Susan Spicer’s flagship restaurant is more than 30 years old. That is a milestone to celebrate — and one to relish over the restaurant’s exalted goat cheese crouton with Madeira-cream mushrooms or the smoked quail salad with bourbon-molasses dressing. Or anything the kitchen serves, really. These days, recently appointed chef de cuisine Candis Koerner is maintaining the Spicer standard. Seems inconceivable Bayona will be around for another three decades. But who knows?

Andrew Lu, like so many chefs, put together a pandemic survival plan that involved a pop-up concept. Thus was born Get Your Mom & Dim Sum, a deliriously inventive play on the local saying “Get Your Mom ’n’ Dehm Some.” He channels his Vietnamese and Chinese upbringing and merges those influences with south Louisiana. The result: crawfish boil dumplings; sticky rice served like jambalaya; crawfish cake Benedict with miso hollandaise. Lu’s food plays well with beer, so he typically appears at a roving list of local breweries.

Find more info here.

We love a fixture, and Coquette is quite the LGD institution. Michael Stoltzfus has been cooking smart, inviting food for years — and chef de cuisine Kelsey Carter and pastry chef Kayleigh Buvens have amped that up even further. The long wooden bar is a stunner. It is also an optimal location to eat dishes like spring onion gumbo and carrot Bolognese. But then there isn’t a wrong place to dine here, as is sometimes the way with a fancier breed of New Orleans restaurant. The tables downstairs are lively; the upstairs room feels secluded. Pick your seating poison — and if you want to pick nothing at all beyond your dream table, select the blind tasting menu. You’ll get five courses for $80, with an optional wine pairing for $40 more, and that will be the end of choosing for the evening.