Reveillon is a tradition in New Orleans, one that springs from a single format but plays out differently year to year, and table to table.
On the cusp of Reveillon each year, I pore over these seasonal menus to parse out the roster, looking for what’s new, for special holiday dishes local people always ask me about, and for menus that look especially noteworthy from the outset. This is a preseason look; I haven’t tried these menus yet, but previous experience can help guide early planning, and some restaurants have really mastered Reveillon.
For details on all Reveillon restaurants, including their menus and holiday service schedules, see neworleans.com.
First, the basics
Originally, Reveillon was rooted in the city’s religious Christmas customs at home. Today, it revolves around New Orleans social customs at restaurants. They have become set-price, multi-course meals served throughout December, and they’ve inspired plenty of people to build their own traditions around them.
Advocate staff photo by Ian McNulty — Galatoire’s Restaurant on Bourbon Street is decorated for the season during December. Each year, patrons attend an auction to bid on tables for the Friday lunch before Christmas.
This year, nearly 50 restaurants are serving Reveillon menus (it was 48 at my deadline for this, though typically a few more menus emerge late in the game).
These run Dec. 1-31. Many restaurants suspended Reveillon service on some combination of Christmas Day and New Year’s Day and both eves. Restaurants serving Reveillon menus also have their regular a la carte menus available.
Classic or new to you
Reveillon can be a time to explore something new or just new to you, or to return to an old favorite. I know people who make annual outings to the same restaurants as a tradition. For others, going to a new restaurant is the tradition.
Christian Cieutat, a waiter Antoine’s Restaurant, prepares for the dinner guests at Antoine’s at 713 St. Louis Street in the French Quarter. (Staff photo by David Grunfeld, The Times-Picayune | NOLA.com)
STAFF PHOTO BY DAVID GRUNFELD
The city’s oldest historic restaurants are on the Reveillon roster, including (in chronological order) Antoine’s (four courses, $68), Tujague’s (four courses, $47), Galatoire’s (four courses, $48-$63), Arnaud’s (four courses, $70) and Broussard’s (four courses, $65).
A guest enters the foyer at Arnaud’s Restaurant in the French Quarter. The restaurant celebratied its 100th anniversary in 2018.
Advocate staff photo by SCOTT THRELKELD
Restaurants that just opened in the past year are also taking part for the first time.
Chef Samuel Peery focuses on southern French fare at King.
Photo by Cheryl Gerber / Gambit
One is King Brasserie (four courses, $85), the French restaurant that opened last spring in downtown’s Kimpton Hotel Fontenot, which is going big on game (wild game cassoulet and wild boar among the courses). Another is Suzie’s Soulhouse (four courses, $40) with a Creole menu that includes a rare appearance of sweet potato pone.
Chef/owner Brian Burns serves Italian dishes at Osteria Lupo.
Photo by Cheryl Gerber / Gambit
And Osteria Lupo (four courses, $55), the Uptown Italian sibling to nearby Costera (see below) is making its Reveillon debut too.
Price range: $32 to $150
Reveillon menus have a set price, but there’s no set limit for that price.
The median this year hovers around $60, with significant sway within that range (note that the listed price is the starting point, before drinks, tax and tip).
A wall size photo of the Normandy coast is a feature of Cafe Normandie at The Higgins Hotel on The National WWII Museum campus in New Orleans.
STAFF PHOTO BY MAX BECHERER
The lowest price this year is at Café Normandie, in the Higgins Hotel (part of the National WWII Museum complex), at $38 for three courses, including oysters vol au vent, short ribs and crepes.
Restaurant August sets an elegant stage for upscale meals in downtown New Orleans. (Staff photo by Chris Granger, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune)
The high end of the Reveillon range is staked out, as usual, by Restaurant August with seven courses at $150 for what reads like an extravagant chef’s tasting menu, with oysters to start, a cheese course near the end and both pompano and venison tenderloin among the courses in between.
A waiter keeps his eyes on a table of diners at Commander’s Palace in New Orleans. (File photo by Chris Granger, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune)
CHRIS GRANGER
Also in the C-note club is Commander’s Palace (five courses, $110), with a crepe with smoked oyster mousse and caviar, a roasted bone marrow “canoe” and chargrilled North Dakota bison among the courses.
The bar is a prominent feature at Meril, an Emeril Lagasse restaurant built to accentuate casual, bar top dining.
Advocate photo by J.T. BLATTY
Others in the same range are the Rib Room (four courses, $105), Meril (five courses, $96) and Miss River, Alon Shaya’s restaurant in the Four Seasons Hotel (four courses, $95).
Under $50, you’ll find Crescent City Brewhouse (four courses, $49), Frey Smoked Meat Co. (four courses $46), and Galatoire’s (four courses, $48, though this is a starting point; entrée choices ranging from $48 to $63 for the total meal).
Chasing turducken, finding bûche de nöel
At any point through the year, I might field the question of where to get turducken. The answer is a butcher shop for preparation at home — unless it’s Reveillon, when this medieval oddity sometimes turns up at the table.
A window looking onto Royal Street at the Rib Room. (Staff photo by Ian McNulty, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune)
This year, the Rib Room has a turducken roulade, complete with Leidenheimer po-boy loaf oyster dressing.
Bûche de nöel is another request I hear, always with a glaze of holiday nostalgia for the French yule log cake. The Rib Room also ends its Reveillon with this dessert.
The dining room presents sumptuous settings across Miss River, the restaurant from Alon Shaya inside the Four Season Hotel and Private Residences in New Orleans. (Photo by Sophia Germer, NOLA.com, The Times-Picayune | The New Orleans Advocate)
STAFF PHOTO BY SOPHIA GERMER
Other Reveillon restaurants with bûche de nöel this year are Miss River, Atchafalaya (four courses $75), which makes this one with peppermint ice cream and Chantilly cream and Lüke (four courses, $76), which has a café brûlot version with coffee, orange and brandy.
Feast of (many) fishes
Avo’s Reveillon menu (four courses, $67) is a more condensed read on the feast of the seven fishes, a holiday tradition in some Italian families. This one has seven seafoods across three dishes with tuna and salmon crudo, crab and oyster soup and spaghetti with scallops, shrimp and truffle sauce with uni (sea urchin), with dessert thankfully seafood-free (it’s a chocolate butterscotch pot de crème).
Spanish tasting menu
Staff photo by Ian McNulty – The menu at Costera in New Orleans has an assortment of dishes drawn from traditional Spanish tapas, like (clockwise from left) bombas, shishito peppers, jamon and boquerones on toast.
Costera, the modern Spanish restaurant Uptown, always offers a tasting menu and drafts this idea into Reveillon season for a family-style tour of its menu (four courses, $65). You pick courses from across a variety of dishes; that means a couple or larger group can try a wide sampling of the menu.
Old English, add cocktails
The Reveillon at Jewel of the South (four courses, $85) is channeling chef Phil Whitmarsh’s English roots across the pond. It’s the prospect of a braised beef, foie gras and bacon pie as the centerpiece with devils on horseback (bacon-wrapped dates), raw oysters, and a take on British Christmas cake rounding things out.
Chef Phil Whitmarsh in the kitchen at Jewel of the South in the French Quarter of New Orleans on Monday, December 20, 2021. (Photo by Chris Granger | The Times-Picayune | The New Orleans Advocate)
PHOTO BY CHRIS GRANGER
Jewel of the South is one of the spots taking part in the Reveillon the Rocks program, an offshoot featuring holiday drinks. This year’s addition at Jewel of the South is the Winter Waltz with rye, amaro and allspice. See all those special Reveillon cocktails here.
Holiday possibilities
Reveillon can be a time when restaurants you may know pretty well go a bit off script, and browsing their menus can turn up some eye-catching possibilities.
The dining room at Bijou has its own bar, shown here set up for a party. The restaurant is in a historic French Quarter cottage on North Rampart Street in New Orleans. (Staff photo by Ian McNulty, Nola.com | The Times-Picayune).
One example is Bijou (four courses, $68), where a cherry and pistachio duck terrine and a vol au vent version of coquilles St. Jacques are among the first two courses.
Sylvain at 625 Chartres St., deep in the New Orleans French Quarter offers guests romantic patio. (Photo by David Grunfeld, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune)
This is when you’ll find fried sweetbreads piccata, lobster cannelloni and duck two ways (roasted and confit) on the Domenica menu (four courses, $70), and a Nutella chocolate pie with toasted milk, and roasted oysters with bacon and fried garlic at Sylvain (four courses, $65).
Coquilles St. Jacques is a classic dish on the reveillon menu at Arnaud’s Restaurant in the French Quarter.
BY IAN MCNULTY | imcnulty@theadvocate.com
Arnaud’s brings out daube glace, a Creole throwback that’s like a beef version of hogshead cheese, on a menu that also has prosciutto-wrapped veal tenderloin and its own version of coquilles St. Jacques.
And I see you, Boucherie (four courses, $60; optional wine pairing $30), with Wagyu beef tartare with fried matzo followed by diver scallops casino (yes, I’m on a scallop kick).
Location, location, location
Location can be key to choosing a restaurant, especially if the restaurant destination puts you close to other places you might be visiting for the holidays.
The lion’s share of Reveillon restaurants are in the French Quarter and downtown. A smattering in Mid-City are especially well-suited for outings to Celebration in the Oaks at nearby City Park.
Advocate staff photo by Ian McNulty – Ralph’s on the Park is an upscale restaurant with inventive Creole cuisine near City Park in New Orleans.
Ralph’s on the Park is right by the gates with a hearty Reveillon menu (four courses, $75), with gumbo, seared fish with crab meat and also braised short rib and pecan pie.
Cafe Degas, the long-running French restaurant in Faubourg St. John, is known for its rich flavors and lush ambiance. (Staff photo by Ian McNulty, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune)
Also nearby is Café Degas (four courses, $52) with lamb steak au poivre, the salad served after the entrée (European style) and apple frangipane tart; Gabrielle (four courses, $60), with a menu anchored by highly seasonal entrees of roulade of fish and shrimp couvillion or braised lamb shank over cassoulet; and Frey Smoked Meat Co. (four courses $46), with smoked Cornish hen and a pork chop with fried onion strings that brings to mind a signature dish from chef Ray Gruezke’s prior restaurant, Rue 127 (long since closed).
The Country Club represents Reveillon in the Bywater (five courses, $55), with an optional wine pairing for $25 too.