Toast — Restaurant in New Orleans

Growing pains?

First, I've had good bacon before (Neuske's, for example, which this might be), but the bacon is extraordinary.

My favorite thing on the menu is the lemon curd crepe. Dreamy.

I hadn't been to a Toast restaurant since there was only one on Laurel Street, forced to close its doors, sadly (as had the namesake predecessor at that location, Laurel Street Bakery). My understanding is that the building owner is kind of - well, excessively profit driven.

The Gentilly location was every bit as exceptional as was the Laurel Street location, and equally on par with the original lunch restaurant, Tartine. I mean, exceptionally good quality ingredients and preparations. Knowing the owner's background and commitment to quality, there's no surprise, but it's nice to not be disappointed. Toast should be on every breakfast connoisseur's radar. It's a food experience with modest, quirky New Orleans flair, but serious French culinary roots.

Where the experience was sorely lacking was in service. Yes, I appreciate service that has more personality than the efficient but factory-style productions available at old school New Orleans restaurants. Where training apparently brings kitchen staff up to expectations, the front-of house staff are lacking are painfully lacking. Recruiting inexperienced staff is a great project, which I support, but it requires a management commitment to orientation and supervision to guide inexperienced servers with pointers to improve the speed and quality of service. For example, a server should promptly to both reduce wait times and increase table turns. A server shouldn't have to return three times to get an order right, and then get the order wrong, burdening other staff, and requiring the kitchen to fix an order. A server should return very soon after food is served to inquire about the order, food, and if anything else is desired (such as butter or jam with dry toast, or maybe another beverage to increase sales). Speaking of drinks, a waiter should understand the concept of how to carry a drink tray for proper balance. And more about drinks - many restaurants are guilty of this - a humid climate demands some kind of napkin or beverage coaster to absorb condensation so that a table surface doesn't become a lake.

Nothing about service was really a deal breaker, but merely an annoyance. In fact, it merits mention that every person in the service staff was right in the mark of my expectations for being cordial. I mean that sincerely. The people are nice. I appreciate that more than any other factor.

As for cleanliness, it's an open kitchen right next to a counter service area, so it's visibly as immaculate as a kitchen can be. The bathroom I visited was very clean and acceptable (my pet peeve). Table clearing was attentive.

I hope these comments are accepted by the owner, in particular, in a spirit of constructive criticism. These little front of house details are important to the overall impression that customers walk away with. They matter - at least they matter to a trained eye - but they're also super easy to fix with management oversight and training.

I hope to return many times in the future. I absolutely, unequivocally, encourage everyone to go - just not in days...

I really love giving great reviews, but sadly this won’t fully be one.

I will say the food was amazing! Aside from cold waffles, everything was tasty!

Sadly, after taking two Uber’s for our group of six we walked in and waited for someone to seat us. After about five minutes the host looked at us and I told him party of six. He responded “we only have outside”. I then responded ok and he handed me menus. There was one table of four so we grabbed two more chairs and made it work.

Now here’s the timeline:

Uber drop off: 11:06am

We waited at our table for 20 mins before we were greeted. We then got water and we’re told she’d return for our order. We ordered, then we waited.

Food arrived at 12:27pm

Two other tables were seated, greeted, and had food within minutes. It seemed as though we were treated differently because we were a large group. So I thought. When me and my friend went inside to use the restroom, I overheard one of the waitstaff(female, dark hair) say “where did these people come from, they’re like aliens” and both our server, and a male agreed and said “I know right”. Considering that, and the fact that the restrooms had no running water and had a build up of “port o potty” use. we decided against using the facilities, and went outside to let the rest of our group know we were done. We waited about five minutes and I got up to go in and ask for the check. I saw our server and asked and she responded “do you have a flight or something to catch” and I explained that didn’t really matter but that we wanted to go based on the experience and rudeness of the staff.

About five minutes later, now 12:40, our server handed me the check and finally introduced herself and said, “my name is Lindsey(or something similar, at this point I was over her attitude so I halfway paid attention) by the way”, And walked away.

I have traveled to many different places and really have never been treated so poorly. My friend and I both have worked in the service industry, as have three out of four of the people in our party and service is the name of the game. Regardless of personal feelings you are to treat people with respect and serve them as they are coming to your establishment and in reality are the ones who keep the doors open. It’s sad that the food was great and the staff was overwhelmingly disappointing.

If you’re not a local, skip this place till they find people who are professional, or at the very...

We went on Saturday (Oct 29) ! My husband got the burger & fries and I got the steak & eggs. Our food was really amazing!

Prices: about $8-$14 for the entrees (ranging from a simple omelet with herbs & cheese, $8 to flank steak with 2 eggs, tarragon aioli, & Lyonnaise potatoes, $14)

(A tiny nitpick, I didn't love the Lyonnaise potatoes that came with mine because they were too slick to pickup a lot of the steak juice & egg yolk. I probably could have substituted fries, but I hate asking for substitutions and my husband had fries to share)

EDIT: I went back by myself on Nov 1 and got the steak & eggs again. (I was in a rush & I figured it'd travel as take-out better than waffles, crepes, or toast.) They are very on top of their game & have already switched the potatoes to a more familiar home fries style with carmalized onions and cubes of tender fried potato. Way better for absorbing all that egg yolk!

EDIT EDIT: We really need to stop visiting and hit up all the other great breakfast spots in the neighborhood (looking at you Bayou Breakfast). Today (Nov 5) we went back to Toast again. This time I got the simple and elegant omelet with fine herbs (includes tarragon so be warned if you hate that flavor), toast, and a salad. My dude got the BLT waffle. Everything was great except my dude really hates mayo and didn't think to ask if the waffle would have any (it did, a lot) and his over medium eggs were over hard. But we came in during a morning rush and it certainly won't stop us from coming in again, we'll just know to ask about the mayo...