New Orleans Creole Cookery: The Baytowne Easy
Village of Baytowne Wharf, Sandestin, 351-1885
Hours: Open daily @ 11 am


By Bruce Collier October 4, 2007 Issue

If you know the layout at Baytowne Wharf, you know the New Orleans Creole Cookery’s Cannery Lane address puts it in the heart of a restaurant-dense quarter. It’s a fair-sized place, with both interior and patio tables. The decor, inside and out, suggests a Garden District residence, with painted wood and contrasting light and dark colors. Inside the walls are brightly colored paintings and photos of New Orleans sights and subjects. Jazz provides a discreet soundtrack.

The Cookery declines to buy into the theme-park version of New Orleans. Such places throw up a smokescreen of “Mardi Gras/Laissez les Bon Temps Roulez” that perpetuates a narrow stereotype of the city’s cooking tradition. Several days after we ate at the Cookery, I spoke with owner A.J. Tusa, who was not at the restaurant the night we were there.

“This place is my baby, my passion, my background,” said Tusa, a New Orleanian whose family has been in the restaurant and food service business since 1905. Tusa and his chef, Jimmy Sims, designed the Cookery’s menu as a tribute to the specialties of some of New Orleans’ most famous restaurants. Many of the dishes are Tusa’s versions — “with my twist” — of dishes from Arnaud’s, Antoine’s, Galatoire’s, and Pascal’s Manale. Tusa is inclined toward Louisiana chefs. “Put a Louisiana and a Florida chef in the same kitchen, on the same dish, they don’t cook the same way.”

We had our choice of seats. The server brought us water and menus, stood by for questions, then left us to decide. The menu offers appetizers, soups, salads, seafood and meat entrÈes, and “loaves,” an old-fashioned New Orleans term for what are often called po’boys.

We chose two starters — crab and crawfish cakes and, at my friend’s urging, the fried pickles. I’d never tried the latter.

The server brought a pile of thin-sliced dill pickles, deep fried hot and crisp. Not only did the breading stick, it was completely greaseless. There was a remoulade dipping sauce, but the vinegary pickles packed their own built-in edge against the richness of the batter. We ate about half, and boxed the rest, which re-heated well the next day.

Less successful were the crab and crawfish cakes. Like the pickles, they were properly fried, but they seemed to be more filling than seafood. I’ve had this style of seafood cakes before, and prefer less internal breading.

Other starters are crawfish bisque, seafood gumbo, crab claws, catfish bites, shrimp cocktail, popcorn shrimp or crawfish, Creole onion straws, shrimp remoulade, red beans and rice, and French fries.

The Cookery offers a variety of seafood and meat dishes, ranging from simple fried shrimp, crawfish and oysters to more elaborate fare. Among the latter are stuffed peppers, shrimp Creole, shrimp or crawfish pasta, soft shell crab, chicken fricassee, prime rib, roasted pork loin, red fish meuniere or almondine, BBQ shrimp, and roasted duck. My friend called the duck, and I got the BBQ shrimp.

If you’ve not eaten BBQ shrimp in New Orleans, you might picture them as smothered in one of those sweet red sauces that sit next to the ketchup in the supermarket. Tusa said he patterned his after those of Pascal’s Manale, generally believed to be the “home” of BBQ shrimp.

I was served a bowl of more than two dozen shrimp in the shell, in a hot bath of butter and herbs. With that came an extra napkin, plastic bib, and a loaf of bread. The bread is served in a white paper bag, just the way they do it in the small neighborhood groceries of New Orleans, a nice little touch.

The shrimp looked like something you’d see on a poster for New Orleans seafood. They were sweet, perfectly cooked, and full of juice and butter. Utensils were not necessary, as long as the bread held out.

Half a duck was served in a dark brown sauce studded with shrimp and crawfish, on a bed of rice. The meat was tender and richly flavorful. On the side was a cup of smothered okra and tomatoes. The thick texture and tangy concentrated flavor reminded me of tapenade.

Three desserts were available that night — chocolate cake, bananas Foster cheesecake, and bread pudding. We ordered the latter two. The cheesecake was served only slightly chilled, which allowed for the full brown sugar and banana flavor to come through. In place of whipped cream was a butter cream topping, just in case the cheesecake wasn’t rich enough. The pudding was steaming hot, almost creamy inside, with raisins and a boozy sauce.

The New Orleans Creole Cookery is not what I’d call a touristy place, though it’s in a zip code for such establishments. The staff and chef — who circulated among the tables, checking on things — seem to want you to enjoy yourself, not just drink, eat, and make room. There’s a niche for this kind of dining, and Tusa is filling it.

(Top)