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The 26 Best Restaurants in New Orleans
Condé Nast Traveler - paul oswell
Assemble as many people as you think it might take to tackle 30 tapas, and head to Costera with its brilliant and traditional Spanish menu with all haste. Even if you’re a couple or on your own, head there anyway and do the best you can. It’s an experience that will take you out of yourself for the evening, and that’s not something you can say about many restaurants. The dishes range from the rustic simplicity of pan con tomate with a pleasingly pungent roasted garlic aioli up to a sophisticated braised lamb shank that luxuriates in salsa verde and manchego. The staff—amenable and knowledgeable to the last—is remarkably friendly because they know, deep down, that they’ll be seeing you again.
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Timeout New Orleans - Gerrish Lopez
Two alums of chef Donald Link’s culinary empire oversee this Uptown restaurant inspired by the cuisine of coastal Spain. Studded with Louisiana influences, the menu features plenty of seafood and bold flavors. Shareable small and large plates range from the familiar (papas bravas, gambas al ajillo) to the inventive (seared yellowfin tuna with marinated blood orange and crispy leeks, pork belly a la plancha with apple, chili and walnut). The intriguing wine list includes a good number of Iberian selections, and delightful cocktails and bar snacks are a draw for happy hour.
A meal-sized staycation, a needed escape at an Uptown Spanish restaurant
The Times-Picayune - IAN MCNULTY
The redfish was cooked skin-on, but by the time it reached us, that skin was a marvelously caramelized cap of salt-flecked crispiness over the tender fish within. This was the signature of the plancha, the ultra-hot flattop griddle in the kitchen at Costera, and at that moment, it felt like the only thing hot enough to cut through a thick New Orleans summer night. This particular night was especially heavy. A few hours earlier, we learned that Jazz Fest was canceled, an exclamation point on the painfully obvious fact that we will be slogging through the pandemic for quite some time. But my wife and I had a date night penciled in, and that proved to be what we needed, desperately.
We went to Costera, the Uptown Spanish restaurant, because it always reminds us of happier times, when we traveled to Spain. We sat at the bar, because that’s usually what we did on our travels. We had a meal that proved to be a miniature staycation for our duration at Costera. It brought a progression of beautifully done dishes, and also a fresh endorsement of how much we get from a dining scene that is both a magnet for talent and an incubator for distinctive independent restaurants. Chef Brian Burns and Reno De Ranieri opened Costera in a busy block of Prytania Street in 2019 after spending years in Donald Link’s restaurant group.
Share a paella around the table, get a salad of beets with radish and blue cheese, pluck on a plate of olives or jamon while looking over the deep wine list and you get a taste of what they’re doing here. But then there’s always the plancha. In Spain, plancha refers to the griddle itself and also to a way of cooking. Anything “a la plancha” is assured of bringing a high, tight browned edge to the dish. Costera shows this with scallops, with crispy-golden crowns around the dense marine sweetness of it all, paired with toasty, saffron-streaked fideo noodles. The redfish that night, however, was next level. The skin was essentially rendered into a crusty, buttery, softly smoky layer over the juicy white fish. The splash of grape tomatoes and a tumble of homey lima beans finished a dish that was 100% itself — beautifully cooked redfish.
We started the meal with crisp Iberian whites and a Spanish “gintonic,” in a globe-sized wineglass swirling with mint and grapefruit, as aromatic an eye-opener as you can imagine. We had snapper crudo dressed with olive oil and pistachios and the tiniest dice of red onion. Gambas al ajillo were heaped with garlic and streaked with the saline flavor of sherry. We had some more wine.
The early Sunday evening dining room was affable and mellow, and provided yet another unscripted demonstration of the good feelings that good places like this cultivate. One couple nearby was celebrating their engagement, showing off the ring to the bartender as if to an old family friend. Another regular insisted on sharing a glass of his favorite wine with a stranger, because anyone who enjoys Costera would surely appreciate the garnacha he was sipping.
Our restaurants are required to take more safety protocols now as the delta variant rages, which predictably but pointlessly makes them again a focal point for pandemic angst. That mainly registers as commentary posted through social media companies. Meanwhile, in the real world of people striving to get through this, our restaurants are still delivering all the pleasure, rejuvenation and gratification that we seek from them. Costera made this as clear as the sear of the plancha.
Dining Out: Costera
Off Beat - MARIELLE SONGY
Since 2019, Costera has been serving coastal Spanish cuisine. Owners Reno De Ranieri and chef Brian Burns add their own twist to food that balances the traditional tastes of Spain with a New Orleans interpretation. Burns is from Chicago and moved to New Orleans to attend Tulane University. While studying business, he worked at Herbsaint and developed a passion for cooking. After graduating, Burns attended culinary school at the École Supérieure de Cuisine Française, now known as Ferrandi Paris. After spending some years traveling, he returned to New Orleans and served as chef de cuisine at Pêche Seafood Grill. De Ranieri started working in restaurants as a teenager. He worked at Cuvee before taking a position at Herbsaint, where he and Burns met. From there, he acted as beverage director for the Link Restaurant Group.
As for the menu, Burns explained that he and De Ranieri spent two weeks traveling around Spain. The restaurant’s original menu had a traditional Spanish lean, but the duo changed the menu a few months after opening. The menu now reflects rustic Spanish tastes with a New Orleans influence. The dishes here are shareable. Big bowls of seafood paella packed with blue crab, gulf shrimp, clams, mussels, calamari and chorizo are served to large parties and can be enjoyed with other entrees. The menu isn’t broken down into sections of appetizer and entrée. Instead, the food is served tapas style, with guests encouraged to mix and match small bites and larger dishes. Smaller dishes include gambas al ajillo with oregano, lemon, and sherry; grilled Spanish octopus with charmoula and crispy lemon; beef shank and potato bombas with aioli and pickled chilies; and American red snapper crudo with preserved citrus, pistachio, and chilies.
As expected, the wine menu here is extensive. De Ranieri explained that the selection of wine has an Old World focus and includes both Spanish and French wine. In both the wine list and craft cocktail program, De Ranieri wants to mirror the kitchen’s approach and work with growers and small farmers. Because the menu is well-seasoned and high in acid, the wine and cocktails create a nice balance between the meal and the libation.
The wine list is affordable, with three-quarters of wines priced under $100 for a bottle. Cocktails on the summer menu include Spanish Summer made with cava, watermelon, pink peppercorn, and basil, and Costera G&T, a gin and tonic made with cardamom-infused Hendrick’s House-made tonic, Scarborough bitters, mint, lime and grapefruit. The restaurant also has a space for private dining that seats 50 and is perfect for a rehearsal dinner or business meeting.
out all day: New orleans
Paul Oswell
New Orleans enthusiastically celebrates its French heritage, but sometimes neglects its Spanish influences. Not so at this unassuming spot Uptown. Behind a nondescript door, a medium-sized dining room opens up that marries industrial and rustic aesthetics, with a pleasing buzz of conversation and an equally welcome whiff of patatas bravas setting the scene. The crowd was a cross-section of locals. Looking around, it’s mostly people pleased that there’s a restaurant doing actual Spanish cuisine, and by the look of things, over-ordering for the table as they attempt to take in as many flavors as possible. In a world where every restaurant offers ‘tapas-style dishes for sharing’, it’s refreshing to go to a place that serves actual tapas.
Kickstart your appetite with a bowl of citrus and vermouth-marinated olives while you take in the menu. The dishes range from the rustic simplicity of pan con tomate with a pleasingly pungent roasted garlic aioli, up to a sophisticated braised lamb shank that luxuriates in salsa verde and manchego. The flavors are unswervingly authentic, from the delectable shrimp and chorizo soup to the perfectly savory jamon iberico and the simple but irresistible octopus a la plancha. Bring as many friends as you can so that you can sample as much of the menu as possible is my main piece of advice.
The wine list is a delight if your taste sways towards French and Iberian wines. Tempranillo, Syrah and Garnacha mingle with Chenin and Albariño in a knockout Continental presentation. You really can’t go wrong, even at the budget end of the list. There’s a full bar as well, but honestly, with a group of friends and a couple of bottles, it’s hard to imagine wanting much more. It felt as though the staff—amenable and knowledgeable to the last—knew that they were part of a special restaurant. When the menu and wine list are this good, there’s a subtle confidence exuded by the servers and sommeliers. It’s casual and accessible, and the servers are friendly because they know, deep down, that they’ll be seeing you again. The short story is this: assemble as many people as you think it might take to tackle 30 plates of authentic tapas and head there with all haste. Head there anyway, even if you’re a couple or on your own, and do the best you can. It’s an experience that will transport you to Madrid, Barcelona or Valencia, and as for the plate sharing…well, that’s up to you and your conscience.