Even if you love the Bourbon Street scene, sometimes it’s good to see the good-natured, boozy chaos through a nice thick sheet of plate glass. Preferably if you’re sipping a nice cocktail and slurping down a few dozen cold, salty oysters at this, Dickie Brennan’s latest French Quarter eatery.
Tacked on to the Iberville side of the Astor Crowne Plaza hotel, the Bourbon House has the trademark Brennan’s formula down pat. The built-from -scratch space takes all the classic New Orleans architectural cues (clubby dark wood, tiny white hex tiles in the bathroom, intricate iron work on a spacious indoor mezzanine) and some that mark the restaurant as a descendent of Commander’s Palace (brass NO and YES direction markers on the kitchen doors). The menu features well-executed Creole standards (shrimp Creole, Gulf fish amandine, seafood gumbo, baked oysters served on fragrant herbed rock salt) along with a few contemporary updates (simple skin-on grilled redfish with wine-sauced lump crabmeat, Cobb salad with shrimp and crabmeat). The details are nice enough, but on the whole, the main room seems a bit contrived — a well-executed New Orleans-style atmosphere that could thrive in just about any American resort complex. If it was Bourbon House Las Vegas or Bourbon House Orlando, it would be an impressive establishment; it’s somehow less remarkable located in the cradle of historic Crescent City culture.
That said, the spacious cocktail/oyster bar practically begs you to kill an afternoon there, sipping beer after beer and ordering yet another “what the hell” dozen on the half shell. The window tables provide ringside seats for the city’s constant flow of Bourbon-bound traffic, from high-school brass bands playing for tips to the sorority girls wrapped in five dollar feather boas. The sizeable circular oyster bar seems more contemporary than traditional (Scandinavian wood instead of durable marble) as does the presentation (complex French brasserie-style seafood plateaux with boiled shrimp, crab claws and lobser joining the usual fresh-shucked oysters). A chalkboard behind the shuckers shows the home waters of today’s catch, described by coastal area — a visual that never fails to spark discussions about the local oyster trade.
Farther from the bar and closer to the streetside windows, the cocktail portion of the bar suffers from an unwanted modern intrusion — state-of-the-art plasma TVs and a huge wall-sized projection screen provide way to much distraction on the average visit. If it’s game day, that’s one thing, but the flickering images tend to detract from the beauty of the room and its prime location as well.
Whatever the weather, you should order at least one glass of their Bourbon Milk Punch, a signature drink that might well be the best use of frozen cocktail technology in the city. The first sip of the smooth, creamy drink might trigger distinct taste memories for those familiar with other Brennan’s establishments: the flavor smacks of the vanilla bean ice cream that accompanies the original Bananas Foster, mixed with a little whiskey and topped with an aromatic dusting of nutmeg. Sweet, rich and absolutely addictive, it’s a wonderful riff on this traditional Louisiana Christmastime cocktail; a perfect choice whether it’s blustery or sultry out on the street.
Even if you never make it inside the building , it’s possible to pick up a go-cupful of the drink at the restaurant’s street food concession — a brightly lit stall that cooks fresh crepes for the Bourbon Street crowds. The plastic cup, convenient though it may be, steals a little bit of the drink’s creamy texture, but when it’s 2AM in the Neon Zone and you find yourself munching a steaming, fresh-cooked crepe, chasing it with a sweet milk punch –there’s very little reason to complain.