Draw a day-trip diameter around New Orleans, and the range of places where you can feel that desired release from the norm and still be back home the same night, is varied but not exactly endless.
So it was a joy to discover how the new restaurant Saint Claire has created a new one that’s actually within the city limits.
Saint Claire will serve you a lovely dinner, in the vein of French country cooking filtered through Louisiana. It also an enchanting destination, thanks to a combination of an old house with a new glow-up, the expansive, oak-laden grounds around it and the warmth of hospitality.
People go on retreats for the kind restorative feeling I took away from an early Friday dinner around sunset.
A countryside idyll
Saint Claire is in Algiers, downriver from the more scenic Point (perhaps it’s “Algiers Off Point?”). The property is well-screened from the street. A yard sign marks your turn toward a circular driveway, and it’s as if you’ve somehow gone through a revolving door and been delivered to the countryside.
Saint Claire restaurant in Algiers is on a property stretching towards the river levee.
By SOPHIA GERMER | Staff photographer
The restaurant is not in a grand mansion, and that is part of the appeal. It feels like a country house set up to welcome guests. When Hollywood finds it and inevitably films a wedding scene here, that will inform what people everywhere imagine Louisiana weddings are like.
Entering through the center hall by the staircase, Saint Claire looks so much like an inn that I half expected to find a ledger to sign, like in old-time lodgings.
The bar at Saint Claire restaurant is a cozy den for a stop during a dinner visit or just for drinks on their own.
STAFF PHOTO BY SOPHIA GERMER
To one side, a small den has been converted to an enticing bar, compact and composed like the club car on a Gilded Age train journey.
Down the hall, you can catch passing glimpses of the kitchen, which looks like a chef’s dream of a home kitchen, with copper and cast iron hung over the counter island.
The center hall of an old home leads to the main dining room at Saint Claire restaurant in New Orleans.
STAFF PHOTO BY SOPHIA GERMER
The main dining room is set up as if to host tea rather than conventional restaurant service, with small tables and a mix of spindle-back and upholstered chairs, sofas and pews. It’s all taper candles and lamp glow cast on low ceilings, delicate porcelain, soft curtains and pleasing vignettes at every angle.
Teaming up
Saint Claire is the second restaurant from Chef Melissa Martin, who has earned a following by channeling her bayou Cajun roots into the family-style dining of her Mosquito Supper Club restaurant (and into a pair of cookbooks that stand as works of Cajun culinary preservation).
She partnered in Saint Claire with Cassi Dymond, whose construction firm The Kalimera Group is behind numerous beautiful local restaurant spaces (Acamaya and Café Malou are two recent examples).
A mix of small tables, chairs, sofas and pews sets the dining room at Saint Claire restaurant in New Orleans.
STAFF PHOTO BY SOPHIA GERMER
Like Mosquito Supper Club, Saint Claire is a restaurant that comes with its own customer advisories, outlined online with guidance on your “energy” and local speed limits. It’s possible to feel a bit chided before you even get there.
But the lived experience of this place is soothing. Some restaurants have an immersive ambience; here it’s more like you sink into it.
It is the opposite of the bombast baked into restaurants designed to catch the scrolling eye on social media. A similar aesthetic carries across the menu.
Rustic flavors
Camille Cook, chef de cuisine from Mosquito Supper Club, collaborates with Martin in the same role at Saint Claire.
The same quality in sourcing and seasonality from the Uptown restaurant is evident. The cooking is well done, though this is not extravagant cuisine. It’s rustic with some elegant touches, and does not shout above the soft ambience.
Cocktails are balanced and beautiful, leading into a short wine list. The menu progresses from smaller plates, mostly in the $20s, to entrée sized editions in $30 to $40 territory.
Smoked beets are served with trout roe and creme fraiche at Saint Claire restaurant in New Orleans.
STAFF PHOTO BY SOPHIA GERMER
Beets smoked over citrus wood have a velvety texture and mild flavor, more like a distant chimney than a smokehouse. Trout roe over creme fraiche add dimensions without over-manipulation.
There’s a tuna paillard, a thin slice quickly seared on just one side with the other left glistening raw for a pleasing contrast.
Rillettes are a bit wet and loose, and the bread could have risen to the occasion were it toasted. But in any case, this is a room where you want charcuterie, so you can take some time building bites and savoring the setting.
Gnocchi are served with jumbo lump crabmeat and lemon butter sauce at Saint Claire restaurant in New Orleans.
STAFF PHOTO BY SOPHIA GERMER
The gnocchi are extra large (two or three bites per dumpling), with deeply golden-brown edges and gorgeous crabmeat to mix with the lemon butter sauce beneath.
Duck confit gives a satisfying inner texture of dark flesh under larded skin, over thin slices of country ham, thick slices of squash and streaks of a pecan gremolata to give a bright spark.
Duck confit is served with elements that change with the seasons at Saint Claire restaurant in New Orleans.
STAFF PHOTO BY SOPHIA GERMER
The tall slice of chocolate cake is like the home cooking of my youth, airy with a light crumb, though with a bit of sea salt and olive oil to differentiate it from the home spun variety.
Historic property
The backstory of this property helps explain why it feels so different.
It was part of a campus that originally served as a quarantine station for vessels headed upriver to the city’s docks. The restaurant itself was once a residence for doctors serving that facility.
Saint Claire restaurant in Algiers is in a historic property near the riverfront.
STAFF PHOTO BY SOPHIA GERMER
The property later had other uses, including an internment camp during World War II. In more recent history, it’s just been one of those riverfront-adjacent curiosities that dot the region.
Today, from inside looking out, the setting gives long views towards the levee and through majestic oaks. It all contributes to the sense of transport.
Picnics and one more round
Reservations have been in high demand, but so long as the weather is right, don’t be put off if the only ones available are outdoors. That means on a screened, covered deck, sheltered but also putting you closer to the oaks.
The restaurant offers daytime picnics on the property and will set you up with a provisioned basket of crudites, cheese, charcuterie, breads, crackers, sweets and more. You also can drop in for a drink at the bar or take your glass out to the front porch (and, starting this week, the open air patio in back).
Live oak trees surround the historic house that is now home to Saint Claire restaurant in New Orleans.
STAFF PHOTO BY SOPHIA GERMER
After dinner, I wasn’t quite ready to pry myself away from Saint Claire, so we sat in the bar for a spell as the peak dinner hour got rolling. We watched new people streaming and saw their eyes go wide, as ours had on arrival.
I already wanted to return and started thinking what it would be like to see all the seasons Louisiana gives us play out in this wonderful place.
Saint Claire
1300 Richland St., (504) 766-9316
Wed.-Sun. 4-9 p.m.
Dining and Cooking