Shortly after Mauritius-born, New Orleans-based chef Dominique Macquet opened his original Dominique’s on Magazine a few years back, he developed what we’ve all learned to call a “good problem to have”: the place attracted far too many diners. Thus began the long, difficult road to the seared Louisiana shrimp remoulade pictured above, one that included the end of one business partnership and the beginning of another. The end result, as of a few weeks ago, is a newer, larger and arguably better edition of Dominique’s on Magazine - only a few blocks from the shuttered first one.
One of the best things about the new version of Dominique’s - on Magazine Street in uptown New Orleans, logically enough - is the chef-partner’s ever-increasing commitment to delivering his “food gospel” with local ingredients and/or preparations rooted in the local cuisine. To most New Orleanians, no longer the tourists he counted on in his initial restaurants in the French Quarter, that counts for a lot. This lobster and celery root salad, for instance, borrows flavor and texture elements from not one but two New Orleans classics: shrimp remoulade and crabmeat ravigote.
With the long, hot summer upon us in New Orleans, as it is in Texas, salads have taken on increased importance in delivering a diner’s pleasure. They are also a sterling opportunity for serious-minded chefs like Macquet to “go local” in a major way. Fact is, he grows a lot of his best produce in an innovative hanging garden out back - eat your heart out, ancient Babylon! But even when he’s buying produce, Macquet comes up with winners like this salad of local red and yellow beets, topped with frisee, sided with a housemade goat cheese turnover and drizzled with olive Dijon vinaigrette.
On the seafood front, Macquet manages to “kill two fish,” as it were, with one hook. This grilled cobia we sampled not only is local (from the waters of the Gulf) but manages to showcase one of the region’s long “under-utilized” species. As a kid growing up in New Orleans, I thought fish meant speckled trout and later, thanks to Paul Prudhomme, redfish ripe for the blackening. Macquet’s cobia is delicious, showing up with housemade pappardelle, baby spinach and caramelized cauliflower (both local!), plus accents of arugula oil, kaffir lime and traditional French beurre blanc.
Two meat-centric entrees stand out at the new Dominique’s on Magazine, in addition to the spaghetti and Wagyu beef meatballs the chef brought over from the original - fans might have lynched him otherwise. One is the grilled lamb T-bone with basil-mint pommes puree, lamb crackling and harissa jus - bearing a wisp of Morocco, to be sure. Perhaps even better is this grilled Morgan Ranch wagyu beef coulette (not unlike the wonderful steak in French “steak frites”) with a housemade Creole cream cheese stuffing, a roesti potato, crispy watercress and carrot flan. As often with Macquet’s cooking, the only sauce is constructed around meat juices splashed with red wine.
When it comes time for dessert, based on the other evening’s dinner, I have not one but two suggestions. Above is the floating island (a spin on classic French ile flottant, literally, or less literally: oeuf a la niege, meaning “egg in the snow.”) That’s all a way of promising puffy-pleasing meringue, served with caramel syrup, mint creme anglaise and whatever fresh fruit looks best in the restaurant’s pastry kitchen. The dessert below just might be even better: a banana cream tartlette, with a tip of the chapeau to a Napoleon, made with vanilla, dulce de leche (how’d that sneak in?) and creme fraiche. At the new Dominique’s on Magazine, Macquet keeps taking on more and more “chains” by committing to local ingredients and local preparations. With delicious irony, for thinkers and eaters alike, this also might be the freest his ever been.
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