The New Orleans Kitchen

Starred review from July 15, 2019
In this bold debut, James Beard Award–winning chef and restaurateur Devillier celebrates the food of New Orleans with recipes best suited for experienced cooks. He offers combinations of low cuisine (classic potato salad; a straightforward rum raisin ice cream) and fancier dishes, such as pumpkin and shellfish bisque with pumpkin seed pistou, and cornbread pancakes with American paddlefish caviar. Writing with Feldmar (coauthor of Naomi Pomeroy’s Taste & Technique), Devillier includes contemporary riffs on such classics as a DIY crab boil that incorporates oranges and Korean gochugaru (red pepper), as well as shrimp and grits, to which he adds cremini mushrooms, bacon, and Worcestershire sauce. His caramelized onion soup with smoked bacon and blue cheese (“my riff on French Onion Soup”) also begs for a turn at the table. Other standouts include roasted cauliflower steaks with toasted almonds and brown butter (a sauce almondine), as well as an innovative hazelnut spaetzle with butternut squash and maple syrup (“it tastes like the burnt ends of pancakes, in the best possible way”). Included are some of the chef’s popular restaurant dishes, such as a simple savory bread pudding with shallots, garlic, and thyme, as well as his blue crab beignets. Devillier’s outstanding volume takes New Orleans cooking to a new level.

August 23, 2019

We've all heard that there is a lot more to eating in New Orleans than just gumbo and crawfish. This new work by an award-winning chef and successful restaurateur shows us just how much more. While still covering the classics, (oyster po' boy, anyone), recipes also veer off into unexpected directions, with forays into Italian (ricotta dumplings), Latin American (grilled skirt steak with salsa verde), even German (rabbit schnitzel) cuisine. Salads, side dishes, and soups are also prominently featured, along with a few desserts and an extensive list of sauces, salad dressings, homemade pickles, jams, and other condiments. Well-illustrated and -organized, recipes are somewhat "cheffy" but generally accessible to the home cook. VERDICT Less about archetypal New Orleans than about modern Southern dining, this work combines flavors, techniques, and ingredients from Europe and the Americas into a cuisine all its own. The dishes themselves are not mashups by any means, but the combined result is a tour well beyond Bourbon St. Recommended for regional cookbook collections.--Susan Hurst, Miami Univ. Libs., Oxford, OH

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