The simple good sense behind the concept at Le Meritage, a hip new restaurant in the New Orleans French Quarter, tends to disguise just how edgy the notion actually is. After all, even in a world with lots of “small plate” restaurants, organizing those small plates by type of wine suggested for pairing is still relatively unknown.
Small plates, of course, are the generic notion that grew out of Spanish tapas, with perhaps a sideways glance at the Italian vision of primi piatti. In neither of those cases, though, were the small plates originally intended to be your meal. They were warm-up acts, at best. It seemingly is an American notion to translate the idea of “grazing” – remember when that word was making the rounds, often in the same sentence with “foodie”? – into an entire evening of interesting foods with perhaps even more interesting wines.
There are no official appetizers or entrees at Le Meritage, as the place is deftly made real by executive chef Michael Farrell – a Virginia native whose resume includes stints at the Summer House in Nantucket and Beano Cabin at Beaver Creek. What you find on the menu instead are six categories of wine: Sparklers, Light Whites, Full Bodied Whites, Fruity Reds, Spicy/Earthy Reds and Robust Reds. We could quibble with the vocabulary a bit, but ultimately the three wines listed with each category and the three foods suggested as pairings carry their own logic. Each of the dishes is available in a small or large portion, just as each of the wines is offered in half or full pour. Decisions, decisions… After a while, we found our Le Meritage m.o. Plates, always small. Pours, always full. This way, at least we were never thirsty.
Our general sense of serving size points to 2-3 small plates per person with wine pairings, plus a dessert or two. In the course of the evening, we sipped NV Gloria Ferrer blanc de blancs from Napa, then turned our attention to a pair of pinot noirs – 07 Duckhorn Decoy from Napa and the 07 Innocent Bystander from Australia’s Yarra Valley, and finished with the Spanish priorat called Gine Gine from Guil and Gine and the Chappellet Mountain Cuvee from St. Helena. The staff at Le Meritage is encouraged to share its genuine enthusiasm for this or that wine, but ultimately you can drink anything you want with any food you want. I approve.
Most of the dishes were standouts in one way or another, especially the first two. Both the pan-roasted halibut with chive potato cake, apple smoked bacon and lump crabmeat and the rabbit tenderloin with tagliatelle, pancetta and chive managed to be the best versions of their protein I can remember. Eating the rabbit, in fact, thin slices atop a reddish-brown jus, I found myself wishing dishes came in small, large and gargantuan.
Other nifty treats included the duck two ways with fig compote, foie gras (one of the “ways”) and butter potatoes, the braised beef short rib with parsnip puree and a bright green basil gremolata, and the grilled beef filet with red wine jam and a blue cheese tartlet. Some other time, I look forward to trying the P&J fried oysters on the half shell with horseradish and citrus zest, and also the Gulf shrimp and grits with tasso and red eye gravy.
In a restaurant devoted to small plates, the typical Deep South big dessert would just seem wrong somehow. Chef Farrell responds accordingly, with several winners tending toward the lighter side. Surprisingly, one of the most satisfying is the trio of sorbets, not usually my cup of tea. With a changing array of fruit flavors, they seem perfect after such a barrage of different food and wine tastes. The coffee crème brulee is excellent as well. Not to be outdone, the dessert menu arrives with a list of special wines, ports, sherries, late harvest and the like. There are no fewer than five Sauternes on the list, from $16 for a glass of the 2006 Chateau Clos Haut Peyraguey to $400 for a half-bottle of 1997 Chateau d’Yquem.
Le Meritage at the Maison Dupuy Hotel, French Quarter
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At Le Meritage in the Maison Dupuy Hotel, Mark Nelson pairs wines with chef Michael Farrell’s eclectic, French-inspired cuisine. A veteran of resorts including California’s La Costa Resort and Spa, Biltmore Hotel in Coral Gables and English Turn, Nelson curates a nearly 250-label list with additional by-the-glass parings listed on the menu. Le Meritage has an explicitly wine-focused menu concept, arranging dishes by wine pairing categories.
”We have a lot of fun with guests,” Nelson says. “We explain the concept and that there’s no right or wrong way to order. … Sometimes we take the lead with guests, which allows us to express the culinary vision of the chef in pairing the wines with the cuisine.”
Nelson, who has completed certification for the first round of sommelier training, said he likes to focus on smaller, lesser-known wineries. “I like to tell the story of these hand-crafted, small-batch wines and share the inspiration of the individual winemakers,” he says.
As a California native, Nelson is partial to Napa Valley wines, including a fondness for the style of David Phinney, winemaker for Soda Canyon “Barrel Chaser” Bordeaux blend and Orin Swift’s “The Prisoner” and Papillion.
Nelson likes to suggest off-the-beaten-path labels to open doors for wine enthusiasts and expose them to other varietals and regions. For example, only 156 cases were made of the 2008 Jules “Melange” Vin Blanc from Napa, a good match for the seared scallop with lemon-brown butter. Nelson also likes to pair the 2006 Maldonado Napa Valley Chardonnay with the scallop or Gulf shrimp and grits with tasso and red-eye gravy.
Nelson also opts for the 2007 Chappellet Mountain Cuvee, Napa, with the grilled filet of beef. He says Spain’s 2007 Valminor Albarino is a good accompaniment to the beet and pistachio salad with goat cheese.
”The Bennet Lane Turn 4 Napa Cab is in demand for the savory lamb chops and filet and with the braised beef short ribs,” he says. Another choice for pairing with the short ribs, he said, is the 2007 Lewis Cellars Alec’s Blend Napa.
Guests often request the 2006 Catapult Shiraz-Viognier from Australia’s McLaren Vale district to pair with the sage gnocchi, Nelson says.
More generally food-friendly wines include the 2005 Artesa Pinot Noir, 2007 Gary Farrell Russian River and 2007 Saintsbury Carneros Pinot Noir.
Nelson also is working on a list for the bistro that will open in an adjoining space in the Maison Dupuy. It will offer a new range of dishes and wines to pair and sample.
New Orleans chefs, restaurateurs and writers have been amply decorated over the years by the James Beard Awards, the prestigious program run by the James Beard Foundation in New York City. Next week, the Foundation will be descending upon New Orleans for a fundraiser and to announce the nominees for this year’s Beard Awards, which will honor chefs and restaurants as well as authors, journalists and designers during ceremonies held in Manhattan in May.
Rusty Costanza/The Times-PicayuneChef Michael of Le Meritage is one of over 25 area chefs cooking at a benefit dinner for the James Beard Foundation on March 21.The benefit dinner is Sunday, March 21, at the Kingsley House (1600 Constance Ave.). Chefs providing food for the event have either cooked at the Beard House in Greenwich Village, located in the former home of the famous cookbook writer and chef, or been honored by the awards program. The list of participating chefs is long, and it includes Bayona’s Susan Spicer, Haley Bittermann (Bacco), Tory McPhail (Commander’s Palace), Justin Devillier (La Petite Grocery), Scott Boswell (Stanley, Stella!), Donald Link (Herbaint, Cochon, etc), Richard Hughes (the Pelican Club), Greg and Mary Sonnier (Gabrielle at the Uptowner) and John Besh (Restaurant August, Luke, etc.).
Louisiana purveyors will also be on hand, including P & J Oysters, shrimper Rickey Power, Smith Creamery and Old New Orleans Rum.
The event will include live music as well as an auction to benefit the Beard Foundation and a “general store” where proceeds will go to benefit the Kingsley House. The event runs from 3 to 7 p.m. General admission tickets are $100, $150 for VIP ($75 and $125 respectively for Beard members).
Announcement of Beard Award nominees will take place Monday, March 22, at the Palace Café. New Orleanians were well represented among the semi-finalists, which were announced in February. This is the second year nominees have been announced at a location outside New York. (Full disclosure: I chair the committee that oversee the Restaurant and Chef Awards.)
The Maison Dupuy announced this week its fourth annual French Quarter Wine Festival. The series of intimate wine dinners each highlights a vineyard from Oregon, California, Washington State and Italy. This year features something new: the four bean-rated food of chef Michael Farrell of Le Meritage restaurant.
Chef Michael Farrell of Le Meritage prepares a series dinners for the French Quarter Wine Festival.The festival kicks off with a reception on Friday, February 26. The dinners take place each Tuesday and Wednesday of March and April with a closing reception capping off the festival on Thursday, April 15.
Tickets to each reception are $65. Dinners range from $95 to $125. For reservations, call 504.648.6113. For more info, visitwww.frenchquarterwinefestival.com
You know how restaurant employees across the nation secretly agreed to greet every customer with the question, “Have you ever dined with us before?” Have you ever said yes to avoid the patronizing tutorial on the difference between appetizers and entrées and the virtues of sustainable agriculture?
Don’t do that at Le Meritage. Its menu really is sort of complicated.
It is divided into six sections. Each is headed by a description pertaining to the type of wine — light whites, full-bodied whites, spicy/earthy reds and so on — that is supposed to pair well with the three dishes listed below it. The menu recommends specific wines, served by the half or full glass, for every dish, each of which is either an appetizer that’s also available in an entrée portion or an entrée that’s also available in shrunken form.
Bad restaurant concepts are like botched nose jobs and six-figure automobiles: They tend to highlight the deficiencies they are designed to hide. Le Meritage’s concept is not bad. It is merely flawed, and its biggest flaw is in giving diners the impression that wine is the star of this restaurant when that is far from the case — not as long as Michael Farrell is in the kitchen.
Last winter, the chef showed up in New Orleans out of nowhere to open Le Meritage in the Maison Dupuy Hotel. News that a chef from Nantucket, Mass., was hired to execute an idea for a French Quarter hotel restaurant that takes five minutes to explain did not leave me eager to visit. But I did, and it turns out Le Meritage is one of the best new restaurants to open in New Orleans this year.
This is so in part because of moments like this one from a recent meal: Pouring a steamy, flaxen stream of corn and crab bisque into a bowl of pearly lump meat, our waitress cracked, “We do this to tease the rest of the people at the table.” The aroma turned slightly musky as the hot, sweet broth made contact with the crab, a transformation you could taste in the soup, whose thickness was derived mostly from the coarse blending of corn.
The tease worked because anyone who wasn’t eating the bisque wanted to be by the time the waitress walked away. The dish was indicative of Farrell’s appealing style because it wrapped uncluttered flavors in a familiar package that, by the time the bowl had been wiped clean with bread, didn’t seem all that familiar.
Farrell’s food is so visually striking that a diner could be excused for fearing appearances are his greatest concern. Yet his food is ultimately memorable due to small acts of precision technique and good taste.
In the house salad it was a full-bodied ice wine vinaigrette and a long strip of cucumber deployed with the agility of a basket weaver; in a plate of genuinely medium-rare lamb chops, an autumnal hash of apples, sweet potato and bacon. A circle of slivered, perfectly ripe avocado carried cubes of raw, sesame-kissed Gulf tuna, a gorgeous marriage of ingredients with different but equally justifiable claims on the word “buttery.”
The menu’s wine suggestions are helpful. One glass (the velvety Lonko Malbec) even outclassed its edible partner (the oily braised short ribs). Furthermore, as much as I enjoy losing myself in a thick wine list — and Le Meritage has one — it occurred to me after a second meal of drinking pitch-perfect pairings with every course how often I default to the bottles of medium-bodied reds that are most apt to drink adequately with every dish on the table. It is one of the reasons half the drinking public has forgotten there are grapes other than pinot noir.
That said, the greatest benefit of Le Meritage’s menu design is the opportunity it offers to experience Farrell’s fully realized dishes in miniature. The shrunken canvases help satisfy the urge to sample that has become the dominant trait of the modern diner.
More importantly they bring the chef’s perfectionist streak into sharper focus, magnifying, for instance, the delicate play of texture and flavor that knits together a plate of what amounts to postage-stamp versions of two dishes: duck confit fixed with seared foie gras and ribbon-thin slices of rosy duck breast fanned beneath a thimble of fig compote — the leavening dark fruit component the entire creation demands. A larger fillet of pan-roasted halibut may have dampened the crunchy accomplishments of the chive-potato cake beneath it. It certainly would have left less room for grilled quail. Or the pancetta-wrapped rabbit tenderloin, which arrived sliced in a cradle of housemade taleteller.
The reduced portions, of course, leave less room for error. There wasn’t enough red risotto on a plate of red snapper with charred summer peppers, for instance, to distract from the overcooked fish. And as much as I enjoyed the silken celery root puree and minty herb salad Farrell used to frame his molasses-rubbed pork fillet, the dish was short-circuited by the one thing it lacked: salt.
Le Meritage took over the space last occupied by Dominique’s. It’s still a generically elegant dining room that looks more like the banquet area of a governor’s residence than the domain of a chef trafficking in bright ideas. It’s also still strangely disconnected from the hotel. Once I called for reservations and ended up talking with someone at the Maison Dupuy’s front desk who had no idea how to execute my request. More recently I waited for my friend in the adjacent bar. The bartender asked what I was up to. I told her I was going to have dinner.
Le Meritage’s staff is leagues more professional, particularly when it comes to helping diners navigate a menu that isn’t exactly self-explanatory.
— LE MERITAGE —
1001 Toulouse St., 504.522.8800.
Four Beans
Open: Dinner 6 to 10 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday.
Prices: Small plates $8 to $18. Large plates $14 to $35.
Reservations: Recommended.
Credit Cards: All major.
Parking: Valet, street.
THE RATING IS BASED ON:
Food: Excellent. Michael Farrell is a chef with a perfectionist’s steak who wraps uncluttered flavors in familiar packages that, when all is said and done, don’t seem all that familiar. His food is visually striking yet ultimately memorable due to small acts of precision technique and good taste.
Ambiance: Very good. Le Meritage’s dining room is undeniably comfortable. Its elegance is also generic and clashes with sensibility of a chef trafficking in bright ideas.
Service: Very good. Le Meritage’s staff is professional, particularly when it comes to helping explain the restaurant’s wine-centric, small-plate/large-plate concept.
Best bets: Meritage salad ($8 small, $15 large); pan-roasted halibut ($13, $25); corn and crab bisque ($8, $14); tuna tartare ($15, $28), duck two ways ($18, $35); lamb chops ($17, $29); chocolate pot de crème ($8)
Le Meritage puts emphasis on fine wines, upscale fare
by Tom Fitzmorris
Few new restaurants in the past couple of years have been in the white tablecloth category, but that seems to be picking up.
Le Meritage has had to push harder than the others for recognition. The Maison Dupuy assiduously put the word out that they were doing serious food and wine at the hotel.
The location in the French Quarter is not on many people’s dining map, so you must force yourself to think of the place. It’s worth the effort.
Why it’s essential
The menu concept is a striking departure from anything we’ve seen. Instead of sections for appetizers, entrees and the other standard courses, the dishes are divided according to which style of wine they’d best match. The wines appear right alongside the suggested dishes. Every dish is available in either a small or large portion; the wines can be had by the full or half-glass.
Why it’s good
Although the preparations and presentations are entirely contemporary, Chef Michael Farrell adheres to an unambiguously Creole flavor. Few ingredients are off the list of familiar local products, and all are sourced carefully enough. It all comes out in well-composed plates, whether small or large.
Back story
When the Maison Dupuy restaurant opened in 1975, then little-known Chef Paul Prudhomme was in the kitchen. It was Prudhomme’s first New Orleans restaurant. Since he left, the space has seen many other concepts come and go. Two of the most interesting were the city’s first all-appetizer restaurant and Dominique’s, which ended abruptly in early 2009.
Surroundings
The dining room has a separate entrance from Burgundy Street through a small patio that gives the illusion of disconnect with the hotel and its bar, which is much more casual. The dining room is expansive, with windows into the courtyard as well as the entrance patio. The service staff is unusually well versed on not only the food but the wines, which Le Meritage takes seriously.
Essential dishes
Fried oysters on the half shell with horseradish and citrus zest; crabcake with crawfish; smoked salmon Napoleon with caviar; arugula, apple and pine nut salad; pan roasted redfish with fried green tomatoes; shrimp and grits with tasso; corn and crab bisque; rabbit tenderloin with tagliatelle pasta; sea scallops with beluga lentils; tuna tartare; duck two ways — grilled breast and foie gras-topped confit; grilled quail with andouille and cornbread stuffing; pork tenderloin with molasses glaze; flatiron steak; braised beef short ribs; herb crusted lamb chops with hash of sweet potatoes, apples and bacon; filet mignon with blue cheese tartelette.
For best results
Forget about the entree-size portions, and construct a dinner from several small plates with half-glasses of wine as appropriate.
Rusty Costanza/The Times-PicayuneChef Michael of 
