Special post: Lüke Restaurant in NOLA

Quality	Ambiance	Service
9.0	8.0	8.0

Location: 333 St. Charles Ave., New Orleans, LA 70130
Phone: (504) 378-2840
Cuisine: Modern American
Price range: each item $6 - 25
http://www.lukeneworleans.com/

Over spring break, I was travelling to the lovely city of New Orleans for some fun Mardi Gras fun. Of course, this calls for some delicious Cajun food and fresh seafood. So, we went to Luke Restaurant,owned by John Besh (he was a guest judge on season 5 of Top Chef!), for their lovely half off raw seafood happy hour deal. $6 for a dozen raw oysters? Totally worth it.

The ambiance was homey and warm. The servers were extremely welcome and a warm loaf of bread was brought out in a towel with fresh butter along with lemon and hot towels. Service was immediate and even though the restaurant was extremely busy, the noise level was still acceptable and orders were carried out with dutiful speed and thoughtfulness.

The menu was extremely impressive. It was truly a challenge to pick out an entree. We ended up ordering appetizer in the form of a rabbit and duck liver pate. Don't grimace, this was truly amazing. Served on a flat wooden board along with the crispiest baguettes, diced pickle radish, pickled cucumber, and other things, the pate had a smooth finish but the liver was not overpowering. Seriously-if you don't like liver, you'd still like this. (rabbit and duck pate, image courtesy of Arnaud H. of Yelp.com)

The oysters came out soon after we got our pate. The oysters were fresh, and well...awesome. Served with their house cocktail sauce and also horseradish, they give the oysters a strong kick and scintillate the taste buds. If you've never had raw seafood before, give it a whirl before you turn your nose at it. Of course, if you are allergic to shellfish...I'm sorry and don't try it-eat more pate. (raw oysters, image courtesy of Goodfella M. of Yelp)

For entree, we ordered shrimp and grits and shrimp farci, which was a collection of crabmeat stuffed shrimp with blood orange hollandaise. The grits were perfect-wonderfully creamy and just the right amount of grainy with really tender shrimps. The broth that the grits were in brought out the texture and seafood taste really well. The shrimp farci were good, but it was a tad too rich right after the pate. Otherwise, the shrimp farci was wonderful. It was possible to distinguish crab from shrimp

which is often rare in fried seafood, and the hollandaise sauce was super creamy and had an attractive orange/yellow color. (shrimp and grits, image courtesy of Tu-van L. of Yelp)

The amount of food that came was kind of monstrous...it was a pity we didn't save any room for dessert. Otherwise, I'd totally try their black forest pot de creme.

If I could, I'd go here again and again and again. Honestly, I could probably live on that pate and oysters. Luckily, John Besh doesn't have any restaurants in Houston or else I'd probably be living there. He did open a Luke in San Antonio though, so if you happen to be in New Orleans or San Antonio...I'd definitely give it a spin.

Any suggestions as to where I should go next? Leave a comment!