Frenchmen All Day — Restaurant in New Orleans

I don't think you can get a more quintessential New Orleans culinary experience than at this amazing, charming little cafe. The staff are all so accommodating and their polite, friendly service just enriches the experience even more. What I will remember most, however, is the food. Their chef of hilarious and dynamic personality called us from the doorstep himself challenging that he had the best gumbo recipe in New Orleans. Now, everyone claims that of course but my group and I were weary from exploring the city and needed a rest so we took him up on his invitation at least to sit down and relax with some drinks. As a dedicated foodie myself, I really admired his passionate advocation for his recipe though and had not yet experienced authentic gumbo so I gave it a shot (it also wasn't a bad price - $9.50/cup, $15/bowl).

When it arrived with our drinks the warmth, aroma, and presentation captivated me instantly. This looked and smelled even heartier, tastier, and more comforting than a bowl you'd get at grandmama's house. I don't have a lot of deep, emotional moments with food the way I did with this. I could've donned it in a bridal veil and carried it down Bourbon Street in gastronomical bliss - it is not just the best bowl of gumbo I've ever had but the best bowl of soup/stew I've ever had. You could TASTE the love and care in it. The chef came back to receive an evaluation and in between gluttonous spoonfuls I could only hug the man, slap a fat tip in his hand, and ask if he'd like to come back to Georgia with me. He and I shared a moment of culinary elation with the rest of the table and I even asked for some more for dessert while the crew enjoyed sweeter fare.

I don't think I can ever forget that taste even if I wanted to, and if you find yourself in this area I hope you bless yourself with the opportunity to have the same experience.

P.S. The pimento cheese sandwich that comes with the gumbo bowl is also utter dynamite; I almost forgot to give it...

Came in at two on a Wednesday with a reservation. Seated, got drinks. Half an hour later, people who came in after us are eating. Another 10 minutes, we asked the waiter if our food is coming up. He said soon. A few minutes later we got our lunch but it was cold. My husband said he saw our orders sitting on the counter for 10 minutes but didn't know that it was ours. Took some time to get a hold of the waiter again who apologized, but he was having difficulty with the kitchen staff as he was having problems getting notified orders were ready. We continued to wait for them to make our orders again and watched other tables get exactly what we ordered. After another 15 minutes, we asked what was going on, and they still had not made up our replacement meals. So we gave up and left. The waiter said that he had given his 2 weeks' notice and the kitchen was busy telling us that it was the waiter's problem, not theirs. But the kitchen should have remade our meals immediately instead of making us wait. The waiter said they were understaffed - and there weren't many people in there at that time of day - but it's obvious that the kitchen is the problem. They don't seem to know how to get their orders out in a timely fashion and apparently don't care if a mistake was made. So I don't recommend this place at all. We were there for an hour and ended up having to go somewhere else, which was tricky as it was after 3:00 by then and all of the lunch places in the area or...

I really wanted to like this place. We were looking for a good brunch spot on Sunday 9/1/24 and the reviews left for this place led us to picking it. The food that was served had really great flavors and on a good day I’m sure this place is fantastic. But for us, it wasn’t. I had the crawfish Benedict and others in my group had the avacado toast, the Tasso toast, and a yogurt parfait… The main problem was the kitchen. It took over an hour for us to receive our food and when it did it came separately. The first person in my group had their food served 20 minutes before the others in our group was served. The yogurt parfait was missing honey and the crawfish Benedict came on burnt sourdough bread since they were out of muffins. No one dared to send anything back in fear of having to wait another hour for the food… the icing on the cake was when one of the servers went into the bathroom for a few seconds and appeared to mess with the toilet or something in there only to exit without washing their hands. This was the same person delivering the food to the tables…. All in all this was just not a great experience for us and we won’t be back…. The only redeeming quality was our server who was working the bar - he was doing everything he could and even gave us a free round of mimosas for the wait. This is the only reason 2 stars were left...